Recently there's been nagging feeling I have had in trains that something is different from previous weeks but could not pin-point the reason for a while. Today it dawned to me. Have been seeing notably less school uniforms than before! Then I remembered that new school year starts around early April here so probably school kids are on spring break! No wonder no school uniforms on sight but instead lots of teenagers in rather typical clothing. That's why I probably missed this. It was so standard sight in FINLAND that I didn't really pay attention to it since it was so normal looking but since the school uniforms were so standard sight in trains it was still bugging me back in the mind...
And on subject of clothes wise Japanese really like to wear stylish and formal looking clothes. I feel positively drab looking sometimes which only adds to feel of "I stand out so much". Albeit being noticeably taller than average Finnish male isn't exactly helping either! Next time I might invest bit more on clothes before coming though.
And seems the suit is pretty standard job cloth here for men. Even if they do something like sprinkle water to street...Not kidding. Saw that one today!
Yesterday I made trip I had been planning to do for quite a while. Last time I visited Meiji shrine I was there on Monday so the museum there was closed. I had been waiting for suitable non-busy day to visit and yesterday seemed good candidate for it. Unfortunately AGAIN no photographing allowed so all I got were these photos of the building itself(sorry about picture quality by the way. Camera ran out of batteries AGAIN). Before going to there though I dropped to get souvenirs for cousins son.
Inside were lots of items that were owned by the Emperor Meiji and his wife. Like his work table when Imperial family had to be relocated for a while due to fire, various silver pots etc, clock, pipe etc. There was also series of portraits of EVERY Emperor to the date. I wonder how the artist knew how to draw them? Maybe there's enough descriptions that he could draw them? Emperors were after all quite important figures so maybe those were important enough they have been saved through the ages...(earliest ones were from 600-century!)
Same ticket also gave access to art museum located elsewhere. This had all sorts of paintings etc, some which I could not understand at all. Well art has never been my strong subject!
I also dropped by Yoyogi park. I just love that park! The sakura's are still pretty and catch my eye every time. Now the leaves are falling which is bit sad as it reminds it's soon end of the Sakura season...Ground here is now everywhere like this:
I ate set meal in a restaurant attached to the park after buying some more souvenirs(small and cheap ones luckily). Meal had lots of small parts, most which I have no idea what they are! Wasn't too fan of the stuff in 2nd cup from right front row. I later heard it's called "chawan mushi" which was warm pudding like thing with various pieces inside it that you found as you dug into it with spoon. There was another one(barely visible behind green leave on rightmost cup bottom row) that was practically tasteless and very watery and chewing it felt like chewing sponge. Could not finish that one. First time this happened here!
Today I then spent lots of time walking around various stores first in Shinjuku, then to Harajuku, then Shibuya and finally got home.
Then I managed to find nearest office of transport company that had packet for me(had figured to save bit of cash on shipping fees by ordering items to my Japan address but this proved trickier than I expected. Got "you weren't there when we tried to deliver" note and after bit of oomphing and aamphing and consulting with Japanese person I learned out I would need to call this Japanese phone number which is automated. Not promising prospect for getting it done on my own! But found today nearest branch office they have(though sales one) so after two train travels and bit of walking was there trying to sort things out. Had to use my Japanese skills for all it was worth as out of 5 females and 1 male in the room not one seemed to be able to speak English! Thankfully got delivery time arranged for Monday.
After this was sorted I was thinking of using rest of night to just rest but then hit for inspiration to go buy myself portable dvd player. This could be handy toy to have around when I'm travelling the Japan, on air plane and generally elsewhere too. Cheaper than laptop too and besides this way I don't exhaust laptops battery while I'm watching dvds. Got one that has very nice picture quality though I need to find earphones with more ability to tune the volume. Players volume control leaves bit to desire as even on lowest volume with my current earphones it's bit of painful if they are fully placed. Leaving them slightly out of ear makes it bearable.
Recently I have been traveling with trains more than usual and even explored the Shinjuku tad more. I'm starting to feel more comfortable overall using the train lines and been more able to explore the lines bit more to get from place A to B more efficiently. Still hate the Shinjuku station though. Discovered today it actually expands underground quite a bit and ended up in place where buildings were between me and the station. I had bypassed the buildings under the ground! Thankfully there happened to be map where I exited the station.
After wards I was able to actually have very good sense of where I was(unusual that for me) thanks to 2 previous days of exploring the Shinjuku) so rather than go the long route I was able to simply head straight toward store I wanted cutting through several smaller streets. Seeing how lousy I'm at finding my ways this was big achievement for me :D
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