Ow ow ow owww

So today's original plan was to go to Akihabara with Colin, then go to Ayaka's band's concert.  This turned into a much longer, much more interesting day than that.  For starters, it didn't seem Colin would be able to make it to Akihabara, so instead Wesley and I went back to Shin Ookubo (Korean Town).



Here it is!

In Shin-Ookubo, you can really feel Japan's love of Korean things no matter where you go.  This is a picture of the walls of one store, which had so much idol stuff on them that I don't know what the walls' original colors are.

This woman was walking around with her dog half dangling from her purse.  And yes, the dog's ears are dyed orange.  He seemed to be having a good time, and people would ask to pet him every once in a while.

Speaking of pets, there was a pet store nearby that had all sorts of animals that you never see in American pet stores.  They had small monkeys.  That's not even a joke.  There were monkeys.  There was also this tortoise, who was allowed to roam around the store as his leisure presumably because he is too slow to escape if he tried.

This is the entrance to a store for one of Korea's most bafflingly popular exports, Jang Geun Suk.  He's an actor or something, but for some reason Japan loves him to the point that he has has own massive store here.  It goes back much farther than it looks.

Today was some kind of Korean Food Festival, so there were several booths set up outside selling Korean things.  This one sold idol stuff.

They had vending machines with just Korean drinks.

I got this, which is called soojeonggwa.  It's some kind of cinnamon drink, which ended up being a lot better than it sounds.

For no reason at all, there's a bathroom in Shin-Ookubo that looks like this.  It even plays underwater sounds over a speaker.

Again, Korean idols are popular here.  Enough so that the restaurant where we had lunch had idols painted on the walls.

Here's what I had.  It's bibimbap (not sure what that is, still), and shikke, which is a kin of sweet rice drink. I was very satisfied, and even more so because Brown Eyed Girls and T-ara have eaten there.  The lady out front kept bothering us to come in, so I'm glad that when I told her we would come back, I meant it this time.

This is just a driveway or something that had nice scenery behind the bars.

Korea has a kind of drink that's just flavored vinegar diluted with water, an that's what this person is dressed as here.  I actually like it, though, so I hugged the person in the costume.

Here's the view from both sides of the station before we left.

After waiting by A Lot (I wonder how much stuff they have), we went to meet Colin at a nearby station.  Shohei was there, too, and we ended up walking around and talking about Japan the whole time.

Here are some monkeys representing the olympics.

It's reasonable!  Not wonderful, but just fine!

Here is Wesley and me with Colin and Shohei.  We talked with them for about two hours before we finally left to go see Ayaka's band.

Hachiouji is really, really out of the way.  It's far enough West in Tokyo that to get there you go through long stretches of nothing.  It's weird when the train lets out there and you realize outside the station it looks like this:

Look at all the lights.  It was like someone moved a section of Tokyo into the middle of a field.

Here's the poster for the thing we went to see.  Ayaka's band is "You Scary Cat", because English is not their specialty.

Here's the back of the live house.

Here's the stage.  This is the band that played before Ayaka's.  They weren't bad, and they had a gaggle of high school girls that came to see them, so that was something.

Slightly more of them.

Here's another picture of the live house.  Can you tell that it was small?  As in, "smaller than my room" small?

Finally, Ayaka's band came out to set up and do some songs.  Here are the pictures from that.

This is how close I was.  I did not zoom in at all. 

Here's the floor with no one on it.  Look how small it is.

This is the band that played after Ayaka's.  They were also fine, and were totally uninhibited when it came to playing their instruments.  The guy on the left was so into it he seemed like he was having a seizure.

Here's us with Ayaka after the live.

And here's one of her band members after it too.  Going home was difficult, because there were all these long train rids and transfers and I was tired of all that by the time we were ready to leave.  Ayaka was really happy we came, so that's all that matters.  I even made new friends, too.

In Shin-Ookubo, I bought this stuff.  Those huge posters came free with the CD at the very bottom, so it all didn't cost as much as it looks.  Besides the posters, I bought an IU clear folder, a poster of E-Young's preview from Flashback, and f(x)'s Electric Shock album.  That CD without a case under the top poster is by Ayaka's band.  If they get famous, can you imagine how much money it would go for?  Also, I really wanted it, because until today I'd only heard one of their songs previously.  Overall, a successful day.