3 Days worth of nearly all food reviews

I paid a 5900 yen delivery charge to send a box of stuff to Canada today. But but but that costs nearly the same price as the stuff inside of it! Scandalous, I tell you. I've got 2 hours left before going to the welcome party held by the two internation clubs: Niji no Kai and WIC, and am currently drowning my sorrows into iced coffee. The glass is too small and half the thing is ice! WHY. This day has to get better. 

Let me post a few pictures of the last few days.

September 16th: Typhoon Day. Shabu Shabu Dinner at Momo Paradise with WIC Members, Patty, and Zoe. 

Dinner was all you can eat shabu shabu for 2000 yen and it was fun and lively with so many students coming out to the event. The typhoon in the morning basically shut us into our dorms so by night time people were itching to go out and have some fun. Except for Patty. She went out during the typhoon with an umbrella and developed what she called more muscle (but pronounced like mus-ko) because of her cute french-glish. This girl has guts.

After going to the game center and playing some taiko games and air hockey on steroids (there were 20 small pucks and one big puck at once!), Patty suggested we go out for drinks with her friend Marc so Zoe and I joined her at an English pub nearby. 

The two drinks at the back tasted like grass. Swiss people are crazy is all I got from that night.

September 17th: 

Academic Orientation day. Much shorter and much more enjoyable than our first orientation. Our dean for the SILS program is French and is compelling enough that I don't fall into a blank daze every few minutes. 

After this I was planning on going to Harajuku for the night with Lily, Joanna, Sasha, and Yana but by the time we arrived at the station we decided there werent enough time before we had to meet a different group of people for dinner at 6. We said goodbye to Sasha and Yana who wanted to go to Harajuku on their own, so the 3 of us lounged at a nearby Dotour for cake and coffee.

Cake and Coffee for 500 yen. I love mont blanc and this cake put me in a happy bliss for the next hour and a half. Ofcourse, Joanna and Lily were good company too so that may have been another reason. If they read this, they'll think I'm being just another "polite Canadian" so maybe I shouldnt be saying any more nice things about them on here.

Dinner was at a really cute and cozy izakaya with random decorations everywhere. Is that a bunny hanging off a chandelier?

Masami (A niji no kai leader) mixing the best dish of the night, the uni bibimbap.

And wowza, he ordered 6 dessert dishes!

This dinner was actually so much fun, I got to know the niji no kai members better and even met some other students I've never talked to before. When the bill arrived, Masami tried to get away with asking a lesser amount from us to pay for dinner but Joanna (being the aggressive girl she is :P) looked at the bill and calculated it so it came to 2,000 yen each. I would much rather come here and try a whole bunch of different dishes than to go for shabu shabu. 

September 18th: 

I woke up early to attend a course information session with Patty and Marc at the SILS building..and it was too early to act like a normal human being. The course information session was conducted by senior students in the SILS program and they advised us about which courses were useless and which professors were sexist towards women and what not. Afterwards we went to the ICC building to ask about wifi for our phones on campus and as we thanked the woman who helped us behind the counter, Marc quietly proclaimed "I like her..." and we laughed all the way out of the building. 

For lunch, I met with Lily and Joanna to go to Harajuku for shopping and lunch since we couldn't go the day before. Actually, it was more for lunch than shopping cause there was NOTHING that we could buy that was in our taste there. Too many frills too little Anne. The prices werent any cheaper than clothes I find at department stores so I don't think its really worth going unless you like childish clothing or fan merchandise.

For lunch we had tsukemen at a place we thought was shady from the outside but as we proceeded in, it was quite nice for a restaurant that was below ground. 

The best. tsukemen. ever. 

and also, the best. piece of meat. ever.

I would eat this everyday if I could but the sodium in that would inflate my face and body so much I'd look like an oompa loompa. 

This is at the meiji jingu 5 minutes away fron Harajuku, and the contrast between hectic teenager town and peaceful temple is so profound that it's almost funny. Merely 100 m away from each other, the temple in my opinion, is a better tourist attraction than takeshita dori. Plus, the tofu ice cream that I had on the way out was really good. 

I said goodbye to Lily and Joanna because they had to collect the stamps that they made previously, and I had dinner plans with Marisa, a girl I knew from Vancouver. Before leaving harajuku, I roamed around the city some more and discovered this breathtaking view from Starbucks.

This entire sixth floor is for starbucks. The price for a slightly more expensive cup of coffee is definetly worth the view and ambiance. 

I left this building for another time and headed for Shinjuku alone. At night. And waited for my friend in an area that I had no clue was known for its sketchy-ness. How should I know? The East Entrance at Shinjuku Station is the biggest and most crowded area! 

While I was waiting, I was first approached by a man who claimed interest in me. It was gross and I rejected. Then two other men joined him and asked all these questions about me that I didnt answer, and after I asked them what this was about, they said they were recruiting workers for a cabaret club. I don't really want to go into detail of what those clubs are like, but I'm assuming theres heavy drinking involved. 

Thank god I got away quickly, the Subway shop nearby was a perfect place to escape all the scary and aggressive men outside. 

At 8:30, Marisa arrived and we had dinner at a chain izakaya. They had touch screens at each table where we could look at pictures and order our menu ourselves! Super convenient and effective. Not to mention yummy.

We chatted for 3 hours over food and beer (only for her) , and planned out how we can send post cards to tv shows to be an audience member. Marissa already bought a pack of 50 postcards so I'll go over to her apartment to fill it out with her sometime soon.

AND VOILA! I covered three days in the time span of 1 hour. My iced coffee is now finished and my body is cooled down from the air conditioning. And I'm ALMOST over the hella expensive delivery fee. Almost.