The 1st Weekend

This weekend was packed with tons of new and interesting things! From food to exploring, take a look at what went on…

Gyoza

On Saturday I made gyoza with Okaa-san who is the master machine at pumping out these little suckers. Seriously, for each one I fumbled together she had three beautiful potstickers assembled. No real pictures b/c they were too ugly. (actually my hands were too dirty to take pics) Okaa-san was really intrigued when I told her that some of my Chinese friends use egg to seal the wrappers instead of water. Now whenever the topic of gyoza comes up she mentions it.

This is what they're suppose to look like... pic from google

Liar Game Movie

On Sunday I went to watch the Liar Game movie with Elizabeth in Kinshicho. Going to the movies here a bit different from what I’m use to. First off, tickets are expensive - 1800 yen, which is about $19! Fortunately for us, for this we can get "cultural activity reimbursement" through CIEE. Yay! When you buy your ticket you also get to choose your seat. This way you don’t have wait in line forever to for a good seat (Ben Lui!!). There is a certain time everyone enters the theater and then the previews start about 10 minutes after that. During the movie everyone was very quiet (despite a packed theater) even during the funny parts! (There was some muffled laughter..) The loudest non-movie noise was definitely my coughing. After it ended, there were people outside to take your trash and sort it into burnable, plastic, ect.

The movie itself was fun to watch. I was able to get the general gist but not the itty bitty details. Overall, it was a typical Liar Game set-up with people owning each other and then Akiyama (with Nao) owning in the end. The interesting thing about these games is that there are rules but you can do a lot of outside-of-the-box thinking to twist the circumstances to your advantage. Waa… it’s a really interesting concept and I can’t wait for subs to come out when the DVD is released. In the meantime, if you’re interested there are 2 seasons of Liar Game staring Matsuda Shota (Hana Yori Dango) and Toda Erika (Code Blue, Ryusei no Kizuna) – go watch it!

In front of the poster!!

UFO Catcher - First Catch!

After the movie we went down to the arcade to try the infamous UFO catchers! They are like the crane game machines but here they are actually win-able! Check out this crazy mom:

What the PRO?

Using her as inspiration, we tried to formulate strategies for knocking over plushies and nabbing plastic hooks. After a few failed attempts, we managed to get a cute plastic pig figure!

Something from Monster Hunter? Mask because I was coughing.

The cool thing is that if you win / mess up really bad, the workers will come and rearrange everything back to normal. Sure enough, after we won it only took a few minutes for the prizes to magically reset.

Pizza

Sunday night the family ordered Japanese style Pizzahut pizzas! Much more expensive than in the states but way more interesting. (A Medium averages $20 while Large can reach $30+) This is what we ate:

They got 2 mediums half-n-half

Ingredients of interest: edamame, potato, bulgogi, shrimp, egg, mayonnaise (kyuupi)

The Japanese mascot of Pizzahut is... Cheese-kun!!

Cheese-kun and Frankie before I left... they're still at home. ;_;

Ueno

Yesterday we had a Tokyo “scavenger hunt” where we went around to various big name places (Akihabara, Tokyo Dome, Ikebukuro, Harajuku, Shibuya, ect…) to take pictures / collect things. We were given a day pass for a large area covered by the JR train system so afterwards Elizabeth, Anna, and I headed over to Ueno to see the cherry blossoms (sakura).

They were sooo pretty and the trees ranged from white to dark pink.  There were also a lot of food stands so we decided grab a bite…

Takoyaki and sweet potato fries!

Very yummy and enjoyable but the weather got super cold!

~~~

Tomorrow I’m going to Kamakura on a CIEE mini-excursion!  Mika (older sister) said it’s like a Little Kyoto.  Should be interesting…