Ueno Zoo, Izakaya, Roppongi, and a Special Guest!!!

This past Saturday I went to the Ueno Park Zoo with my club. It was amazing! But at the same time, really upsetting, because I brought my camera, but forgot my memory card.......... The entire time I was there, I just wanted to take a picture, but couldn't........ Me without a working camera in a interesting situation is like a bird without wings........

OK, enough of my griping. It was actually kind of a good thing not having my camera because it allowed to me just enjoy myself without having to take a picture of everything, and there were A LOT of animals! Quick list of the best animals I saw: Giant Panda (first time!), Red Panda (first time!), penguins, tanooki (Japanese "racoon dogs". Kinda look like a mix between a badger and a racoon. First time!), owls, baby goats, mouse deer, bats, giraffes, pygmy hippos, elephants, vultures, kangaroos, and flamingos. It was sooo cool, and the admission fee was only about $6! Compare that to the $11 admission fee + parking fees of the Milwaukee County Zoo!

After we walked the entire zoo, we headed back to Yotsuya (which is where my school is) and went to an izakaya. The way it works is that you sit down with a group of people (our was quit large, but broken into 2 tables. I was with the considerably smaller group of 8 people) and order a bunch of little appetizer things. Now this may all sound well and good, but when you're in a country filled with the politest people in the world, it became meal of hesitance and social awkwardness. No one wanted to eat the last bite and when people offered things to me and I ate them, they looked disappointed. Needless to say, I didn't really eat that much out of fear of offending someone @_@. I also felt bad ordering new things because everything (though small) was really expensive. And in the end, they paid for me :'(.

After that, I met up with the other students from Seattle University (minus Alex, who was sick, and Liz, who was meeting us later), and we went to Roppongi, the trendy, expensive place that foreigners mainly go to. All of the clubs there (and there are a LOT) have Nigerian bouncers for some reason. One of them say "Hey, baby!" to Rachel while we were walking ^o^. We weren't interested in going to a club, but guess what kind of restaurant my friends wanted to go to??? An izakaya!!! But this was was WAY different from the one me and my club went to. That was was warm, inviting, and casual. The one we went to in Roppongi was stuffy, empty, on the 7th floor, and tried to be "classy", but failed miserably. We looked at the menu, but couldn't decide what we wanted (lucky for us, they had an English menu). But finally, at the very back, they had a section labeled "Course and Party". For about $30, you could get about 6 dishes, which split among the six of us should've been enough food. It was pretty good, nothing special, and we were all really excited that we were only going to pay about $5 each. But when we got the bill, it ended up being $30 each (even though it said that NOWHERE and it implied itself to be a party platter), plus a $4 service charge... PER PERSON!!! I had also got a ginger-ale, which was another $4 dollars, so I ended up paying $40 that night for a crappy dinner and crappy service.... WHAT A RIP!!! As Diana put it, "We ain't gonna be kickin' it for a while now...".

But, on a happier note, I bought my new best friend today!!! Check him out!!!


He's the Suica penguin, the mascot for Suica, the card you use to easily pay for train ticket fees. He's on everything, and I love him! At the station, they sell everything with his likeness on it! I saw that plushie, and I had to buy it!

Well, tomorrow I have a big Japanese test I still have tons of reading to do.... Wish me luck!