Viva City!

Saturday morning, I slept in, gathering as much sleep for my adventure as possible. I woke up around ten and made myself some ramen and peanut butter toast for breakfast, and also cleaned up the kitchen. It was a rather productive morning, and I even started to get my laundry started, but then I realized I didn't have any detergent, so that was a moot point.

Around eleven, Jackie woke up, and we just hung out in the apartment for an hour until Pat came over. He asked us when we would be interested to leave (we had originally planned for about noon) and we eventually decided on leaving around one o'clock.

Just after Pat left, Niki came over, and we let her know about going to Viva City. After about an hour of getting ready, putting on sun screen, and figuring out the small map that we had we managed to get on our way.

Now, many of you are probably wondering what Viva City is. Viva City is the main shopping mall in Hikone. However, remember, I am in Japan, so it's bound to be different somehow.

We started biking, and first biked near the train station. We then went a little farther south until we didn't know where we were. There were plenty of signs around, and even I could read most of them, but the map that we had only showed the roads that we needed to take, and didn't have any specific road names or signs that would let us know how far to go. (Point: The map that we were using was a homemade map given to us by JCMU, not all maps in Japan are like these ones).

Eventually, we found a rather busy street, think Main Street USA only with a Japanese twist. I hope to go back there sometime by foot, and I plan to take tons of pictures so everyone can see. It was very hot out, but because of the conservative nature of Japan I was wearing jeans and a short sleeved t-shirt. I saw many students riding their bikes in their school uniforms. If I remember correctly, Japanese students go to school six days a week, but Saturdays are only half days. I saw many girls wearing gym shorts under their skirts while they ride their bikes. I guess minds think alike, because that was what I had assumed I was going to have to do when I start commuting every day from my homestay starting next week.

We weren't exactly sure where we were at that point, so Jackie went into one of the small shops to ask for directions. Once she came out we discovered that we were on the right track, but this time we knew how much farther we had to go and where we were at the point in time.

We finally made our way to the end of Japanese Main Street as I call it, when we turned left onto our final road. Near the end of our trip, a highway crossed the road so there was a lit tunnel that went underground specifically for bikers and persons on mopeds. Once out of the tunnel, we crossed a small two-lane road and parked our bikes next to the Japanese Toys "R" Us. All together, I would like to say that our trip lasted about an hour- which included the time that it took for us to go the long way around to Main Street and to stop and ask for directions.

Japanese Toys "R" Us is a lot like the US, except for the fact that there are a lot of Japanese-like toys involved. While the layout and style is similar, instead of Spongebob lunchboxes, there are Rilakumma Obentos. (Rilakumma is a very popular character here in Japan, I have various folders featuring him. An obento is a square lunchboxes that most Japanese take to school every day.) Anime is very popular as well, with some American-themes as well. In example, the Japanese people love Hawai'i, therefore Stitch is a very popular character here in Japan.

We also went to the Nintendo aisle, where they had some of the new Gameboy items on sale. The Gameboy DS is very popular in Japan, as well with some of my friends not just because of the games, (actually, the games are the minor attraction) but because the DS can do much more in daily life. One of the newer models that is coming out in a week features a camera which one can take pictures with. In addition, there are various "game" cards that one can buy for the DS such as a Denshi Jisho（でんしじしょ）. (Denshi　電子 is Japanese for electronics, Jisho　じしょ is dictionary). While it is not as high-tech as some official Denshi-Jishos', it is still very useful for Japanese learners. There are also many games for younger Japanese children to practice their kanji, and other languages such as English and French. I was very shocked, I had no idea a Gameboy was so universal.

After looking around at Toys "R" Us, we headed to the actual mall. Walking in, we immediately were in the middle of the food court, which was similar to a food court in the US except for the lack of tables. There were also mini fruit stands, and other stands that held more Japanese dishes, such as tenpura and sushi. We eventually came along to a book store, which we went into to look at. Pat found a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Japanese. Jackie found two books for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and looked through those. I, on the other hand, was unsuccessful as I could not find a copy of the Outsiders in Japanese, (my favorite book) but then again, it was a rather small store and had an even smaller foreign book section.

Afterwards, we headed over to the food court to grab some lunch. It was about three o'clock at this point, and all of us had had either a very small breakfast or none at all. I ended up ordering Karaage（からあげ）, which is Japanese deep fried chicken as well as french fries (I know, way to go bold) but to be honest, I couldn't read anything on the sign, except for Soba, so I decided to play it safe, especially since I was extremely hungry. I figured, I was going to be staying at a homestay soon anyway and my trip has only just begun. The Karaage was very good, however, and I think I may have had it before, only with sauce on top of rice (donburi).

Eventually, we finished eating and we went up stairs to explore the shopping part of the mall. Now, this is where the mall is different than the US. In the US, each store is separated by walls, as each store is it's own individual space with various style, interior design and music. In Japan, it is almost like one big department store, with each store individualized by a sign hanging above various racks of clothes. Everything is also very packed, with lots of clothes on hooks and bags on shelves. Checkout counters, however, are almost identical. The only question is which checkout counter belongs with which store.

Another note: for being on a small island, the Japanese are very resourceful about space. The houses are tall, not wide, cars are narrow, tunnels are underground instead of creating separate bike lanes on an already "wide" highway. Parking garages for shopping malls are also on top of the mall itself. (Viva City had four levels. The first level was for food and restaurants, the second level for shopping, and the third and fourth levels were both parking garages.

I tried on a pair of overall shorts, which gave me my first trip to a Japanese fitting room. Before going into the fitting room, I had to take off my shoes, which I left just outside the door. The room was discreetly in the middle of the store area, and just big enough for a single person to comfortably try on clothes. I ended up buying a bag that was on sale. It's something stylish, yet not too catchy. (I wasn't interested in walking around Tokyo or another major city with my Coach purse, but at the same time I didn't want to carry around my Michigan State bag that is literally held together by duct tape.)

After a while, we ventured outside to see what else was around. After a short walk, we came back to Viva City via another entrance. This entrance led us to a huge arcade place. There were lots of Purikura（ぷりくら） booths (Those are the photo booths that I mentioned before- I messed up the name), and we did one of those. This particular one was different that the one from the Hyaku yen shop. In this Purikura booth we took twelve pictures then chose six. There were also two cameras instead of one, with one camera in front of us like normal and another one near the top of the booth for aerial shots. It was also a lot faster than normal, and the decorations weren't nearly as good. Afterwards, we checked out the other booths (There are different booths with different themes. Also, some vary with picture styles, such as placement of cameras and how many you can take.) There was one Purikura where boys were not allowed, so we had to skip that one since Pat was with us.

We saw three girls dressed in kimono costumes. I wasn't exactly sure why they were wearing them (Think of a situation where someone is wearing a prom dress in a shopping mall, hair and shoes included) but they were very pretty kimonos. I hope to try one on sometime in my life.

Afterwards, we hung out a little more, and Jackie went to the cell phone shop to see what was wrong with her cell phone (it wasn't receiving messages or something). Pat and I got ice cream, and then we started on our trip home.

We stopped at Tsutaya, which was supposed to be a very good book store (I was still looking for my copy of The Outsiders), but this particular Tsutaya ended up being only DVDs and games. At that point, Jackie had wanted to go back to a Hyaku Yen shop that we had passed, so her, Niki and Pat left to go to that store while I returned home to get some homework done before my busy day on Sunday.

It took me about half the time to get back. I basically kept the Hikone Castle within my sight and headed in that general direction. (It really is a great landmark). Once I reached the bridge to Hikone Castle, I took a left which took me almost directly to the supermarket where we buy our groceries. From there, it was a straight shot home.

As soon as I got home I made myself some dinner and worked on my essay that is due on Monday. Knowing I was going to get up early in the morning to start laundry before I had to go to the festival I turned in early to go to bed.

Thanks for staying with me. I'm going to try as hard as I can to stay on task with this blog. がんばります！