Lane started the day off with a チョココロネ (choko korone, chocolate coronet) I found at the convenience store. The anime Lucky Star has an episode where everyone talks about how each person chooses to eat these differently.
Lane with chocolate coronet breakfast
Once we were all packed up we went and grabbed the shinkansen to Tokyo. All of us bought box lunches for the journey, and Nick even had some ほろよい (horoyoi, the name of the drink but also the word meaning "tipsy") that he shared with us.
not our shinkansen, but a shinkansen at the station
typhoon stormy view from the window
lunch
boxes
YEAH!
Lane's
Nick's
Kitty and I got the same type
there was a tiny octopus in ours
I don't think the boys found it very appetizing
りんごチューハイ
(ringo chuuhai)
apple chuhai
cola sour-flavored horoyoi
it was interesting
Drinking and eating publicly is a bit different in Japan than in the US. In the US, it is normal to carry around a bottle of soda or juice and drink it wherever you happen to be. In Japan, however, drinking even a soft drink tends to be sort of taboo unless you are sitting or standing still while you do it. Drinking as you walk or standing on the train is accepted by some but also looked down upon by others. As for alcohol, having a can of beer on the train is generally looked down upon, although the younger generations appear to be more accepting of it. On a shinkansen it appears to be normal. Since you usually ride for a long time, eating and drinking on the shinkansen is socially accepted.
Makeup is another such controversy. Older generations are somewhat offended by women using their time on the train to do their makeup, because it is viewed as a private activity to be done in the bathroom or another private space. Younger people are more likely to accept it or do it themselves.
Lane showed me a few of his kimmi dolls while we rode the train. They are really cute and sold in many places. He is collecting them.
Lane's favorite kimmi doll
very cute
Once we got to 品川駅 (shinagawa eki, Shinagawa Station) we rode the trains to 渋谷駅 (shibuya eki, Shibuya Station) to find the capsule hotel that my mom and I stayed in before. The trains in Tokyo have screens above the doors just like the ones in Osaka trains, but the screen actually shows the number of minutes it will take to get to each station from where the train is currently. It's very handy!
We checked in to our capsule hotel, me separate from the boys because there are two floors for men and one for women, and we rested a little before resuming adventures. The men's portion was, according to the boys, much less cushy than the women's floor. At least now I know why I have to pay a larger nightly fee than the men. Also, tonight is Sunday but the next two days will be weekdays, so the weekend night actually ended up being 1300 yen more expensive than the week nights!
In the capsule hotel, the men only had a public bathing area. Public baths are more common in Japan, and nudity is actually less of a concern than in the US. Culturally people are just less concerned about it than Americans are. So for Americans, the idea of taking a public bath can be daunting. Within Japan, however, it's widely accepted as normal.
The women's area had private bathing stalls. Only men were allowed to
use the public bathing area, but I know of public bath houses that are
not separated by gender. That just didn't happen to be the case at the
capsule hotel.
The men's capsules also had the option for pornography on the tv. Oddly enough, the women had no such option. Japan has a tendency to be much more sexist than the US, and one of the misconceptions is that women are pure and don't really like sex, or something along those lines. It's a pretty messed up way of thinking.
When the 4 of us set out again, we wandered around Harajuku, the young people's area where my mom and I explored before. I got some pictures of the street and some shops, but one man kicked me out of his store angrily in English when I tried to take a picture. It was a metal/goth store with some really nice clothing. He had put up some signs saying no pictures in both English and Japanese, but I had not noticed them. I apologized and told him in Japanese I did not realize that pictures weren't allowed and I would not take any, but instead of replying to anything I said he insisted angrily "GET OUT" multiple times with rude gestures. The boys were kind enough to leave the store with me because they didn't seem to want to give him business after that. Nick said "he doesn't even understand what it means to be metal." Haha, right on.
weekend Harajuku
pretty cool shades
accessories
cool underground rock n roll shop
owned by a nice lady who didn't yell GET OUT
After our shopping we went back to the capsule hotel and did some hanging out together in the common space on the 4th floor, the co-ed area. Kitty found a free magazine with some pretty cool information about beer and food in the area. After not too long we called it a night.
