Japan Travels, Day Two

It was quite an appalling experience yesterday night after i went to bathe. First of all, there was the prison-cell sized bathroom where I was told to squat like a Somalian kid at the pitifully small bath area and sprinkle water on myself. See, small bathrooms are common in many countries where space is limited, but coupled with the Japanese obssesion with cleanliness, (we're not supposed to splash water out of the bathing area)it creates a pretty deplorable condition,

The problem with cleanliness extends to the eating habits of the Japanese as well. Like I was happily eating my convenience-store-bought ramen when I was told by my sis to finish every crumb and morsel (with the MSG) so as to facilitate dumping it later on. WAH.. err.. in Singapore I simply dumped my unfinished noodles into the rubbish chute and gleefully heard the galoshing sounds and the silent *thump* at the end. Appalling honestly.

Ok, bleakness aside, today was a very fun day where we experienced my facets of Japanese culture, enough to make me eat my own words regarding Japan being not interesting anymore. Morning was spent traipsing around Tsukiji Fish Market, seeing really fresh Salmon and Tuna, trying out the "acquired-taste"ish raw Sea Urchin, which wasn't too bad according to me. (though it was anathema to my sis.... anything raw is apparently) Lunch was a gastronomical delight as usual, with HUGE tempura prawn, squid and fish... (which made my mom squirm in utter displeasure)

Afternoon was spent at glitzy Ginza with posh furturistic Nissan galaries to the friendly clothes-store Uni-Qlo... (somewhat like our home-grown Giodarno but of course LIGHT YEARS ahead in terms of style and development) Feeling tired after a day of shopping, we went kara-oking Japanese style and were pleasantly delighted to find updated English songs like Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You".. of course with the attached cheesy "woman-walking-around-looking-mournful" MTVs. Shame on you K-Box! Oh.... and they graded your singing after that... but incredulity of the scores seemed to hint that Paula Abdul was the judge behind this.. (my dad's warbled half-sang version of his song came first -_-)

Went to Omotesando Hills for some high class window shopping which has honestly very very cool. The shops had amazing window displays like moving carousels and Victorian furnitures and so on. The overall architecture of the building didn't dissapoint as well, though the prices were seriously roof-raising. Honestly how do you expect to sell a cool notebook for like 8000 yen? That's beyond daylight robbery...

hmm.. that's all for now.. overate for all my meals.. sighz