Shibuya, Asakusa Hanami

Boy this weekend sure was packed. On Saturday Elizabeth, Anna, and I went to Shibuya to "eat lunch" and explore. Lunch turned out to be more of a progressive snacking adventure but it was all really yummy!

"German Potato" flavored Taiyaki. Mashed potato, bacon, cheese.

The scrumptious scent of fried food wafted into our noses so we stopped to eat some savory Taiyaki. Next we went to a cute cafe that Elizabeth and her sister had gone to before. We all shared a Kisetsu (Season) Parfait. It was composed of various fruits, pudding, cake, and refreshing frothy jelly.

Beautiful. We are definitely coming back!

After walking around for a while we decided to head over to Harajuku for some shopping. We walked over from Shibuya and good thing we did because the train station was super packed! Here we are trying to get home.

The sea of people at Harajuku Station. Elizabeth and Anna's faces say it all - the trains were not much better. Everyone suck it in!

Saturday night two former Masamura homestay students (Jon and Alex) came over to visit. They are both currently in the JET program and coincidentally picked the same day and time to stop by. The whole Masamura family came over so there were quite a lot of people and a fusion of English-Japanese conversation going on. I didn't realize how good the two brothers Tomo (36) and Tadahiro (27) were at English but I guess they both spent a good deal of time studying in America. Jon taught Eito, Tomo's 7-year-old son, how to balance a spoon on his nose. The kid got a kick out of this trick.

Eito balancing a spoon while simultaneously trying to munch on some chips.

Today (Sunday) I went with Elizabeth to hanami (flower viewing) in Asakusa with Tadahiro and his friends. Although it was chilly, the flowers were very pretty and there was lots of good food. When the sakura (cherry blossoms) are in full bloom it's called "mankai," and people follow a flower forecast so they can catch the flowers at their best. Today was not quite mankai, but I was reminded of last night when Alex kept on accidentally calling it "bankai." (lol for all you Bleach fans) Today also reminded me of the phrase "hana yori dango" which literally means dumplings (dango) over flowers. Basically people usually go to hanami for the food/alcohol/socialization rather than the actual flower viewing. Motives aside, everyone today was very friendly even though Elizabeth and I were on the young side. Some of them were really excited about trying to use English and talking about things in America.

Near our spot was a peculiar building that had a golden glob on top. I though it looked like a sweet potato, Elizabeth though it was poop. You be the judge.

I don't know why you would put that on your building...

Apparently the mystery blob is coupled with the building on the left, which is the Asahi beer company building. The left building is suppose to resemble a glass of beer - tall yellow sides = full glass of beer, glass panels on the top = foam. I can see the resemblance. The strange gold thing I guess is a beer splash? No one really knows but the Japanese also call it the poop building.