ueno park + harajuku

yesterday (saturday) a couple new friends and i headed to ueno park and lucky us, it happens to be cherry blossom time so the park was filled, and i am talking filled with people meandering around and picnic-ing on just about every open space taking in the views. the blossoms were beautiful and the people watching was quite nice as well. i took a ton of photos. after going through the park, we did a little wandering around, had mcdonalds lunch and then walked around a little lake and back up through the park to the train station. it was a long but nice day.

later in the evening i met up with a friend who also lives here that i went to highschool with. he took me to a HUGE electronics store called big camera where i bought a jump drive and a usb camera memory card reader (i was having technical difficulties between my camera/cord/computer - but the new set up works now, thank goodness cause i was about to throw my computer out the darn window and now i can share my photos, too). 

today (sunday) a girl from canada and i went to harajuku which is a ritzy, trendy spot in tokyo. we walked down a street that had every fancy, designer brand i have ever heard of (louis vuitton, chanel, coach, emilio pucci (my fave), dior, bulgari, tods, etc.). we had subway lunch (trust me, i am trying to slowly but surely incorporate more japanese food as time goes on). i had read about a huge toy store called kiddy land and wanted to stop in. it was rad and did not disappoint; i want to go back! i bought a couple little toysies for fun. later on we found a couple more affordable stores to counterbalance the super expensive shops (zara, gap, H&M, topshop and even a forever 21 under construction) that we could actually buy something at. we did more wandering, came across 2 awesome park spaces (one very modern with a very cool wood little building in it next to what appeared to be a brand new apartment/shop/office building. the other space was a traditional japanese garden with water, cherry blossoms, koi, etc. i think it was part of a shrine). they were lovely surprises on our walk. we finished the day with an ice cream crepe (crepe + vanilla ice cream + chocolate syrup + strawberries + whipped cream), which was different that i have previously had but i did not argue, i just went with it and it was of course quite tasty. a perfect way to end the day!

tomorrow i go to the head office for japanese lessons and (hopefully) some more information on my placement.

blogspot still hates my computer/photos so here is a link to some on my picasa album:   HERE 

i am thinking of making weekly/monthly albums (depending on what i have to share) from here on out. i can post more on there and its very easy to use (thank goodness). let me know what you think!