Japan, day one, and the pants-less parade

I wasn't sure what to do with TJOTJOC for two months--I'm in Japan and am not really able to TJOC (I recognize that isn't a verb but I'm going to make it one!). So do I abandon it for two months? That doesn't seem like a good idea. So I'm going to turn it into my Japan blog while I'm here! If you aren't interested, send me your email, and I'll let you know when I'm TJOC'ing again--or check back in August.

I will post pictures of my apartment tomorrow. Everyone kept telling me how tiny it was going to be but it's not so bad. Frankly, it's bigger than my dorm rooms were and I don't have to share this one. It costs 200,000 yen a month--that's a hellava lot of money. It is in Ginza, which is a pretty expensive part of town. I don't know how anyone affords to live in Tokyo!

Saturday night I decided to just go to the convenience store for food--there are three really close to my place. I bought the only thing I could figure out how to make through the pictures on the back of the bag...a bag of fried rice. It was okay but soggy. I also bought a carton of green tea for a dollar--tasty!

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I think these are extremely funny. No idea what they are except little chocolate-y mushrooms.



Mango kitkats? I bought Josh green tea kitkats the last time I was here. I haven't tried these yet but they do look good.




These are enormous cans of coke. Like, forties of Coke. I feel like I should be drinking them out of brown paper bags.



First off, I love these tiny ice creams--perfect size. Second, cassis--or currant--is my favorite flavor of all flavors! Yum!





For my first meal out of the house, I ate Tonkatsu, which is pretty much fried pork. I stood confused in the resturant (more of a fast food place) before it was pantomimed to me that I needed to order by pushing buttons on something that looked like a vending machine. I figured out where to put the money and where to order but two buttons kept flashing at me--I still don't know what they meant (maybe take-out versus eat-in?). Some guy came and pushed one for me.

I really like all the tea though.






Today appears to be some sort of holiday. First off, there are a ton of mobile shrines out.




And as I was walking around, I passed a parade where a bunch of men appeared to not be wearing pants.



A guy then reached up to adjust the thing they were carrying--yep, no pants at all. Briefs, yes, pants, no.




Frankly, I think we could use more holidays that don't include pants.