Tokyo: Day 8

Shinjuku was our destination for the day, again. We had arranged to meet Yasu in the afternoon so that he could show us his university. Erin had read that there was a big garden/park in Shinjuku so we decided to make our way there. Oh yeah, when we first got off the train we wandered into Kabukicho accidentally. Kabukicho is the red light district of Shinjuku and really Tokyo itself. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. There were a lot of strip clubs and porn shops. We eventually found our way out and headed for the park. I took some random city pictures.

At this restaurant they served Blunch.

We wandered into an arcade and saw this guy playing DJ Troopers. He was really good and played a song on “another” (the hardest difficulty). I was impressed.

There was also a random temple in the middle of Shinjuku.


Some nifty cars.



We also found a freshness burger, which turned out not to be so good. It was actually pretty nasty and greasy. When I bit into my burger it squirted grease out all over me and onto my backpack, which was disgusting. I couldn’t really eat the burger because it was so greasy. Erin said her food wasn’t very good either, which was no surprise since mine was so nasty. Hopefully I can get the stains out of my clothes. All in all, at Freshness Burger, you can’t taste the freshness. All you taste at the grease.


The park was really nice. It cost 2 bucks to get in, but I would say that overall it was worth it. The backdrop of the city was really cool to me too just because it provided some contrast to what you saw.



The park also had a traditional Japanese garden with bridges and all of that neat stuff.

The koi fish were funny and aundant.



Koi stampede!


There was a really cool tea house in the garden, I eventually made my way there, I think Erin took some pictures of me while I was in there.

After the park we made our way to Shinjuku station to meet Yasu. You know how I said before that you could get lost in there for hours? Well… we did. The phone died right about when we got there and we tried to find the east gate, where Yasu was, but we just could not find it. That place was so confusing. Eventually I had the idea to find a Softbank store and see if I could get them to charge the phone for a minute so I could call Yasu. It wasn’t hard to find one because they are everywhere. Somehow I communicated to them that I needed my phone charged so that I could call my friend. They charged it for 5 minutes for free. I was appreciative. With our charged phone I was able to call Yasu and arrange another meeting place. About 30 minutes later he met up with us and we went to visit his University.

Sophia was pretty small when you are used to the size and scale of UGA, but it was still really nice. I liked it and hopefully if I get into the study abroad program at UGA I can study there.

I saw a GTR outside.



We tried to surprise Sakura at her dance club practice, but apparently she didn’t go that day so our plan was foiled. Yasu showed us some of the buildings on campus and we explored a few of the buildings. We walked by a few classes that were in session and I would watch, discreetly, through the window. We also went into an empty classroom.

After the tour we all ventured back to Asakusa and ate at the café next door to our Hostel. I had a salmon and mozzarella cheese sandwich. It was very tasty and the view was nice because it was the same that we had in our first room.