Today was testing at my school so I had the day off. For lunch Kasumi and I picked up Haruka after her tests, and headed towards the restaurant Kota works at in Tokyo. It was exactly like the ones in NYC, in the sense that it looks like a tiny worn out dive, but once you get inside it's this huge elaborate joint! When you enter the first thing you see is this HUGE Thailand dragon chandelier in the middle of the restaurant. The next thing you notice is the Black Eye Peas are blaring and the place is packed. We barely saw Kota the entire time because he is the chief waiter and bartender so he was literally running everywhere. The food was good - I've never had Thai before. Surprisingly I liked how spicy it was - usually I'm a total wimp when it comes to heat. This seemed different though ... it kind of amplified the taste.
Any way after we got done we looked around in a couple of stores, and I have come to this conclusion: Japanese style is the most berserk thing ever! I guess you get that in every big city though, or maybe I'm just not fashionable enough. I've never seen more unique and brightly colored patterns in my entire life though! During the work day people do not wear any form of bright colors. Everyone sticks to black, white, tan, ivory and brown. That's all I've seen on the bus and train, so I have no idea where people wear these insane designs! In addition to extremely conservative, women tend to wear drastically baggy clothing. Obviously everything is thin material because of the heat, but they tend to pile on the layers. I really like it though - no cleavage, butt cracks or thighs. The sense of individuality is defiantly different here too. Instead of standing out, being uniform is encouraged.
My host family and I have made up little random games, like trying to guess what flavor a Skittle is without looking. It's these types of things that make living with a host family different than just visiting the country. You actually learn what the people are like and get to experience the culture everyday - not just watch it. We've learn to communicate well through charades, facial expressions and phrases (like pointing something out and saying "Hmmm?"). The translator is not used as much as before...
Most nights we eat around eight or nine, which is the norm here. I eat something deep fried at least once a day, and a bowl of white rice at every meal. Whoever said Asian food was healthy was wrong! It's soooooooo delicious though, and I have no idea how everyone stays so thin. It must be the heat and walking.
I still can't believe two weeks have already flew by! This is happening too fast!
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