How time flies - Shibuya

Brellowgirl
Nov 1, 2015
3 min read

Everything is a blur and if I wasn't writing everything down I wouldn't know what I did at the beginning of the week. I feel like my jet lag is getting worse. Maybe it's because initally I was high on the fact that I was starting my trip and excited to be traveling but now it's catching up to me. IS IT REALLY NOVEMBER ALREADY?? Where did this year go? Since graduating I feel like time has just flown by. Will this be how the rest of my life passes?

There were vendors outside our apartment this morning for a little street fair and the minute we stepped out there were people gathering to watch kabuki drummers. It was super loud and a lot of fun to watch these skilled drummers disturb the peace on a lazy Sunday morning.

We took a train over to Shibuya and saw the statue of Hachi then went in search of the Meiji Shrine which is a big Shinto shrine in the middle of Yoyogi park. It's in the middle of an evergreen forest so it was cool to walk through and there were lots of tourists out. Some parents had their daughters all dressed up in kimonos with sandals and makeup on and their hair done - they were SO cute but I didn't want to be creepy and take pictures of them. I was surprised at the amount of young adults in the park. There were lots of big groups playing games and sitting around. I guess that's what I would be doing on a nice day but it's not necessarily the popular thing to do amongst those my age.

Oh, I forgot to say- on the way through the forest to Meiji there were growers who had their flowers showcased and they were all types of mums. There were crysanthemums as tall as myself and then there were other mums that were trained to grow into the shape of hearts (all stemming from the same plant). It was really cool. I just looked this up cause I was curious but it seems that crysanthemums in Japan are a symbol of the Imperial family. That's my flower sidenote of the day.

By the time we left I was starving so I pulled up a sushi place close to where we were. THIS WAS THE COOLEST PLACE EVERRRRR! It was like conveyorbelt sushi on crack. You go in and every person gets their own screen for placing orders. You can order up to three things from the menu on the screen at a time (all the prices are like 180¥/$1.50 per plate). Once you place your order your sushi or whatever you ordered will come zooming over to you via conveyor belts in front of you. The food stops right in front of you and then you press a little button when you grab your food and it sends the little tray back to the kitchen. It took like 5 minutes or less from the time I placed an order for my food to come out. So yum! The computer calculates all the things you've ordered and when you're finished eating you simply check out and bring your little clipboard thingy to the front of the restuarant and pay there. The clipboards have a barcode on them so they must be linked by seat number to your personal computer order. I thought this was the coolest sushi place everr!

Bought my train ticket to Nozawa today. I leave technically tomorrow (Nov. 3rd). Little scared and I have butterflies in my stomach like I do before I do anything alone so we'll see how this goes. I am excited though and I can't wait for this adventure to start!

Much love,

Cas