When I sat down, Yuko asked if my hair was natural. I figured she was asking about the color, but she meant the fact that it was curly. I'd not brushed it after I showered last night and hadn't brushed it yet this morning, so it was in the ringlet curls I hate, but my sister is super jealous of. I told her it was and she was super jealous! She said she always has to perm her hair and it's so expensive. And one time they messed up her perm, so she had to get it redone and ended up damaging her hair!
(Above where we sat at the counter, in front of the guys cooking the food)
(My chopsticks. The wrapper as well as the actual chopsticks featured the pig)
(The curtains to the kitchen)
(The dishes and napkins)
(One of the entrances to the covered shopping streets)
(Osu Kannon temple!)
(Us in front ^^)
(Close up)
(Cool building next to the temple)
("Apple of eye")
("I don't know your love. Please.."
(Definitely my favorite! "Bony!")
(It had cute toast pillows!)
(Cute Ohinasama icecream)
(Waaaahhhh, I want!)
I told her I've always wanted straight hair haha. Everyone wants what they don't have! So yeah, I ended up not brushing out the curls today.
I decided to go to the 10 am mass, so I could see Atsuko and also Manaca and her dad (who's house I'm going to on the 30th), but none of them were there!
Manaka's friend and her friend's mom were there, however. Manaka's came right over to me and said "ohayou gozaimasu" and that I looked "kawaii" today! Then her mom invited me to sit with them.
These greedy old ladies stole handfuls of the sweets before I got to try any of the cool-looking ones, so I settled for this white roll cracker thing that was actually really good!
The mom (who's Filipino and speaks English) introduced me to her Filipino friend and Indonesian friend who can speak English. The Indonesian one was like "she's beautiful!" (referring to me) and then the first question she asked was "Do you have a boyfriend?" I was really taken aback. Then the two spoke among themselves about setting me up with some guy they know. Uhhh...
Then the mom had me talk to her daughter in English. The girl was really shy, but I asked her about school and The Hobbit, because she said she'd seen it recently.
Then I talked to this guy from Madagascar. I asked him if there were lemurs there lol and he said there are! He's been living and working in Japan for 6 years.
After that, everyone left so I did too. I walked over to the train station. It was still before noon, and I was meeting Mami at 1:30, so I had a lot of time to kill. I decided to get off at Nagoya Eki to use the Bank of Nagoya ATM there and check, just for kicks, to see if my money had come in. AND IT HAD!!!!! Omg!! It was so exciting to see that the balance wasn't 100 yen anymore haha!
Then I got on the JR wifi to text Mami that I was free now and see if she wanted to meet earlier. While I waited for her to text back, I went out to look at the spiral Mode building that I love. :)
Then I found a free wifi outside the station and connected to it and got a text from Mami saying that that was good for her! So I hopped back on the JR to Kanayama and then took the subway to Kamimaezu. There I followed the signs to the west wing and then went to a map to try to find where exactly the west exit was, because that was where we were meeting. But then Mami found me!
So the two of us walked out into Osu. She said she was hungry, so we decided to go eat. She aske me what kind of food I liked, and of course I said misokatsudon, so we decided to go to the place Minju's always raving about, Yabuton. The famous misokatsu place in Nagoya. Mami said the wait is usually really long. But we decided to go check it out anyway. When we got over there, the line wrapped around the front of the building to the side, but still wasn't as long as the line at Mizuno in Osaka had been and there, we waited out in the cold. Mami asked the dude taking orders how long the wait was and he said about 20 minutes. I told Mami I was fine with that, so we decided to wait. And I'm glad we did, because five minutes later he was taking our order and then leading us in to sit at the counter area. We'd both ordered the special famous misokatsu with the Nagoya specialty: red miso.
Everything in Yabaton featured that pig mascot (I put a picture of the pig on the outside of Yabaton on the Planetarium post when we passed by Yabaton on the way to the museum). Also, the restaurant has it's own theme song, that was playing outside as we waited haha.
One of the cooks was super nice and asked if we wanted him to take a picture of us with our food. He was all "one... two... three... Yabaton!" Hahaha.
I love how in Japan it's socially acceptable to take pictures of your food! The girl next to us was snapping a pic of her katsu and Mami did as well. ;)
I actually kinda didn't like this misokatsu. It had a ton of fat in it! Ugh. I like the cheap misokatsu in the Nanzan cafeteria waaaayyyy better! And it's only 400 yen while this one was about $17. But I lied to Mami and told her this one was better because that's what you do in Japan. She to me this was her first time coming to Yabaton as well!
When we were finished, we went over to pay, and I told the dude "betsu betsu" (separate), but then she was like "isshu ni" (together) and the dude was all ok, isshu ni! Why did he listen to her, not me?!?
So Mami paid for lunch for me! I was like nooo, it was so expensive! But she wouldn't let me argue! Ah she's so nice! Although it's also apparently a thing in Japan that older people always treat younger people and she's 25. Emma had said Mami bought dinner for her as well when they hung out last weekend.
After we were all full from lunch, we went to go take purikura!! Whoo! I loooove purikura, and now I have more to add to my collection!
We went to the second floor of an arcade to take them. It was a dress-up one and girls were dressing up in sailor uniforms and wigs and stuff. We decided to do the Oh My Girl one I'd done with the guys in Sakae that time. As we went over to it a dressed up girl was exiting alone. I wonder if people do that a lot, a hitori de (by yourself) photo shoot?
Our pictures were so cute!! I insisted on paying for them since I felt so bad Mami had spent so much on me for lunch!
After that, we spent the rest of the time shopping. I'd said I wanted makeup since the eye liner pencil I'd brought had broken and I'd lost the sharpener and my liquid eyeliner had dried up. So Mami showed me a makeup store. It was actually the second floor of the store I'd been in Friday where the girl laughed at the fact that I was reading all the English on that T-shirt. I didn't even realize that was what the upstairs was!
When we walked up, this girl at the front gave us these yummy pineapple hard candies. The prices of the makeup were exhorbitant, though! All the eyeliners were $10-12!! I finally found some eyeliner pencils for 630 yen that were really cute because they were glitter eyeliner! I would never spend over $6 on makeup, but the black glitter was so cute and I've never invested in quality makeup, so I was all set to buy it when I saw the back of it. It was covered in tape, as if it had been opened before. And they were all like that. It was also Korean which made me suspect it was really cheap in Korea and they put an extra charge on it here because it was imported. So I decided not to buy it.
And good thing, too, because after looking quickly in some clothing stores, we headed over to a 100 yen shop and found eyeliner there. Now $1 for eyeliner is a good price. And this time I got one of the twisty kind you don't have to sharpen, yay!
After that, we walked over to Osu Kannon shrine, where I went with Rana that time when it was under construction. Today it wasn't under construction any longer! We walked up to it and Mami gave me 10 yen to throw in and shake the rope. She asked if I'd gotten a fortune before and I told her about getting one with K and Keiichiro and that I got Kichi. She told me she got Yokukichi this year!
It was 3:30 then, so I had little over an hour because Yuko had told me to be home before 6.
So we decided to walk to Sakae. On the way Mami showed me a cheap clothing store in a department store behind the department store with Book Off.
It had some pretty good deals! Mami bought socks, but I ended up not getting anything. I had fun looking at all the Engrish though! I taught Mami what Engrish was and she thought it was funny, and pointed some out later, haha.
I like that the ellipsis is only two dots haha)
("You must go place with all people")
After that, we headed to Oasis 21. The Christmas decorations and ice skating rink were gone and had been replaced with these colorful balls and a stage for an SKE48 (the Sakae version of Akihabara's AKB48) concert that had happened last night. The concert stage was being taken down as we were there, though.
We went into the 300 yen shop where I bought my star tights, but didn't buy anything.
Then Mami wanted to get ice cream. I really wanted some, especially because they had special Hinamatsuri sundaes, but I had started to feel kind of bad and knew ice cream would make it worse. So Mami didn't get any because I couldn't eat any (I felt bad!)
Then we walked to the subway area and headed our separate ways. It was so fun hanging out with her! I spoke a lot of Japanese too, because Mami's level of English is about the same as my level of Japanese, maybe a bit higher, so a lot of times I had to explain myself in Japanese. It was good practice for both of us!
I totally would have made it home before 6 if I hadn't gotten so sick. I think I'm cursed so I can't go out and eat with friends without getting sick. Arghh. And it took forever to find good bathrooms without lines in Nagoya Eki. I had to use a squatty potty one of the times. :(
At Icinomiya Eki, I stopped into Daiso to buy chocolate chip melon pan for school tomorrow (help, I'm addicted!), and then walked home. I hadn't ridden my bike this morning in an effort to save 100 yen.
I arrived home at 6:10ish to an empty house.
The ohinasama display looked kind of creepy all lit up in the dark! But Miyabi and Ken got home shortly after.
Miyabi came in, shouting "Cate!"
I was like "yeah?"
And she said in perfect English "today I got my hair cut."
I was like "lemme see!"
Aw, her hair was all cute and layered and her bangs now do the arch thing that's currently so popular in Japan.
Yuko got home a bit later, and we finally had dinner at 7, even though Yuko had told me this morning dinner would be at 6:30. Ah well. I wasn't feeling too hot anyway.
Dinner was delicious! We celebrated hinamatsuri tonight, since Ken's working late tomorrow, so we ate foods traditionally eaten for hinamatsuri. I loved having the rice with edamame and tuna! And the shishkebabs were kishkatsu! So they were basically katsu on a stick! Soooo good!
Afterwards, we had strawberries and that pink mochi stuff we had the other night. The strawberries were so sweet! I'm really excited for ichigogari (strawberry picking)!
Oyasuminasai!
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