わたしわあめがすきですが、あめきらいです。

Well hell, I never meant for this to be a weekly endeavour. 

The past couple of weeks have just all looked fairly similar. I spend monday through friday taking walks to and around record stores close to the school, eating rice, studying and talking to my favorite gal until bedtime.

And since I don't have much to share on the subject of rice-cooking, or what records I want to buy (but haven't, yet) I just don't write that much.

Well, a slap on the wrist for me.

This week I went to Ginza, again. It takes a good 30-40 minutes to walk from school to the posh, New Yorkish Ginza-dori, so if I feel like visiting the Apple store or Uniclo (or just walking south because it feels like going downhill) I'll steer towards fancytown.

This particular promenade was, as usual, fairly fruitless. Except for one item – a book that Nathalie bought called Tokyo Maniacs Guide. It's a somewhat random collection of tips about record stores, cafés, thrift shops and other such gems, in areas like Shimokitazawa, Shibuya and Harajuku. It basically seems very useful to me, even though I have yet to take advantage of it.

I also went back to Daikanyama. I've been there twice before, which isn't really a big deal now that I've discovered it's proximity to Shibuya. It's just part of the area between Shibuya and Ebisu (oh, and for those of you who haven't been to Tokyo – sorry about all this geography nonsense.)

I like Daikanyama. I think. It's a pretty area, I like the many small shops and the ultra-hip, english-speaking japanese who occupy them. What I don't like is the price of almost anything you find there. A second-hand t-shirt shouldn't cost 3500 yen.

Having said that, me and my companion did stumble upon some colourful ski hats, and bought five for 500 yen. Nice!

Apart from that, I'm trying to study for the test in less than two weeks. We are still learning new and exciting ways to conjugate verbs in japanese, which seems to be all they ever do here. Like a hobby or a lifestyle.

"Say, are you at all into music or films?" 

"No, I'm far too busy conjugating verbs in my sparetime. Sorry, ask the Koreans."

Tomorrow my parents will join me here for a two-week tour of Tokyo, and a short trip to Seoul. I'm really looking forward to it, if only to do some proper sightseeing. I've lived here for a while, but being a tourist is great too.