Busy time and Namahage!

So the weeks have been rolling very fast. In school we have done already our second mid-term exam and I'm really happy with the results. There is basicly only one mid-term exam and two kanji tests before the final exam and end of the B course. I have been studying so much, but also meeting plenty of new people. With some I have done language exchange between English and Japanese, but with some it ended up being English only. My last two weeks has been so packed with meeting people, doing homework, reading to tests and trying to get even some sleep that I have practically spent two weeks in Tokyo without doing anything without a plan.

But this weekend has really been a highlight. Friday I went with my classmates to local izakaya and we had lots of fun time together. It was also super nice to get to know the people little bit better (even though through speaking rehersals in school we all know who in class loves beer, who hobbies photography, who enjoys anime the most and who sleeps over 10 hours in a day ^^''). It was my first real izakaya experience and it was nice, but also very much more noisy than I would have ever thought ^^ The food was good and company better, so the whole experience was really nice.

Today I went with Mikko and one of my language exchange partners to a Namahage restaurant. THAT was an intresting experience! Namahage is Akita prefectures special monster, who during New Year goes from door to door in Akita prefecture, searching families with small children. I thought is was a little bit like Santa untill my friend told me that the goal is to find small children and scare them so bad they will cry. More they cry, luckier they are next year! So, in this restaurant there was a few children and the Namahage monster came to visit us! Poor children I have to say, they really cried and one girl kept saying "gomen nasai, gomen nasai" all over again while crying when Namahage came close to her. Poor thing! But for us adults it was really entartaining and the Namahage also knew what the Finnish sauna was and asked from us why Finnish people bath in snow after sauna. ^^'' The food was also absolutely amazing, we boiled it ourselves. It was Akita prefectures speciality Kirintanpo which was a mix of Japanese mushroom, vegetables, chicken and speacial rice pipes. Also dessert, "grandmothers" special ice cream was so oishii!

Oh and almost two weeks ago here also was raining snow! The trains didn't stop though, even our teachers told that would probably happen. It was very shot time fun, becouse even the snow stayed in the ground for like.. couple of hours, after that it turnd out to be slush and raining snow to be sleek. But I took some very nice pictures from the near by Shinto shrine. :3 I also went first time after 2012 to sing Karaoke. We found a really nice Karaokekan from Koenji, the view was a really nice plus side of the place.

Mata ne ~
ps. here is very much pictures for you from all around Tokyo! And of course, Namahage!

Koenji & Snow

West Shinjuku

Namahage

Happy New Year!

The New Year passed and I have to say that we spent it with a way never before: eating at home some delicious takoyaki and japanese pastry and going sleeping early. When fetching our takoyaki from the small shop close to station we found a small stationary supply store. It was really so tiny that I thought that if I would breath between the shells everything would fall apart. It was full of beautiful letter-papers, stickers and well, all you could imagine not finding from a book store in Finland (since they think that no-one is writing letters anymore). At night we were happy that we stayd, not only becouse of tiredness, but it felt like the whole houses roof was going to be ripped off by terrible wind. Mikko was telling that he think he felt an earthquake, but I was in heavy sleep back then.

Today was the first day without jet lag symptoms and we took best out from it. After slow morning we headed to Shinjuku to see which stores would be open. All the guides and web sites had been screaming that 1st and maybe also 2nd of January everything would be closed in Japan. Well, I can tell you that that is one irrelevant warning in Tokyo. I have to admit that alright, there was many shops closed, but all the biggest ones were open starting their New Year's sales.

In many stores we saw bags, sealed big bags with price tag on them. There was usually one person selling those bags and meny people buying them. I found out little bit later what those were: "Fukubukuro", New Year's lucky bags. The stores would collect some last years items to sell them heavily discounted, but it is all about luck, since you cannot know what you are going to get. We didn't buy any (yet), but maybe some candy or spa store would be worth trying?

From BIC Camera's sales I found a new objective for my camera. The one I had been looking for, but only 250 euro cheaper than what it usually costs in Finland. I'm so glad I didn't buy it from there, even it was there 100 euro in discount. Still saved 150 euro! Have to say that the prices with camera accessory begin way much lower than in Finland, I recommend buying here if visiting!

We also made a visit in Shibuya. The place was full of people, but you could tell that most of them were tourists becouse of the maps and photographing. We found a nice home life style store called FrancFranc where we made some purchases to make it feel more like home in Nekotalo (like big new towels and a loudry bag (so cute!)). I wish I could live in Japan little bit longer only to be able to decorate my apartment with all the things you can find from Japan. Or maybe I will just make one damn expencive decoration for an partment in Finland by flying all the things from here to there!

The last and one of the best part of the day was our local restaurant. Okey, you can hardly say it like that because close to us here in Koenji is dozens of small restaurants. And when I say small, it's not that kind of small you get used in Europe. It is one to four seats small, tiny corner and street kitchens, where chatting with the chef will become unavoidable. This one restaurant we sat into was little bit bigger, maybe 15 seats, all menu in japanese and the staff was lively but spoke only japanese. We managed with our skills and the chef was really nice. Because we couldn't tell hat we wanted from the list, he made a proposal to cook something from the menu for us after asking if there was something we really didn't like. The food was amazing and even for the athmosphere I would already like to go back (I hope after a few visits I could take a picture for you without bothering them!).

Mata ne!
Here is some pictures around Koenji and Shinjuku for you :)

Koenji

 

Shinjuku