Kanpai!

First of all, thanks to Jeritt, my Grinnellian compatriot, for linking to me on his blog, which you can find at nigate.wordpress.com. It is hilarious and informative, you you should all check it out.  I’d link to it, but I can’t figure out how to work the “links” widget for my page, so this’ll have to do for now!

Alright, so that’s it for business.  Now for pleasure.  This has been a great week of just hanging out with people.  Over the weekend, I went out with a friend to Shimokitazawa, a place outside of the main part of Tokyo that draws a very young, hip crowd.  Apparently.  Anyway, we wandered around, found hilarious signs and shops, and ate.  We didn’t know where to eat (most of the signs are in Japanese), but I eventually stepped up and chose this random restaurant.  Their specialty was meat on a stick, which you can sort of see in the picture here, and it was pretty good.  The sake was even better.

Since then, a few friends (curiously all from Macalester) and I hung out around Shinjuku.  We found a cool little ramen shop with great service.  Interestingly, lots and lots of restaurants here work on the ticket system.  You go up to a machine like this one.  You choose what you want and get a ticket, which you then take to the owner/cook.  It’s quick and easy, and you’ve already paid.  Anyway, we walked around some more, saw these cool glass pyramids akin to the Louvre’s (only smaller), and wound up at a place called Kirin City, where you could sample an assortment of Kirin beers.  They were all delicious.

Last night I met for the first time with the darts club!  They are a really cool assortment of 4th-year econ-major boys and first-year English literature-major girls, with a small spectrum in between.  But they are all very cool.  Best of all, they call themselves the “Darts Vaders”… nice.  I am psyched about this.  It was a really good time, and I actually kicked butt at the darts I did play.  This seems like a great low-stress once-a-week club where I can just hang out, talk, eat, drink, and be merry.  The other club I’m doing is the Aikido club, which I have yet to go to.  Maybe tomorrow.  I was really debating doing the rock band club that Jeritt and I saw (description here), but I think that between intensive Japanese, shamisen, these two other clubs, leaving time for hanging with friends, and the possibility of part-time work, I don’t want the added responsibility of being a band member.  But man, it’d be cool!  I’ll go to Jeritt’s concerts, fo sho.

~ by pksquared on April 10, 2008.