Well, tonight`s supposed to be the first snowfall of the year. I was all excited until I saw what the Japanese consider snowfall. This is a picture of it.
It was nothing more than a pathetic dribble of sleet, yet people around me looked amazed that something other than rain was falling from the sky. How disappointing.
M and I walked around Ebisu in the so-called snow, and after about 5 minutes we were starting to get wet. I decided that we had better procure an umbrella, lest we both come down with pneumonia. So, we bought one from a 7-11 and stole another from a restaurant.
As I have mentioned once before in a previous entry, Japanese stores give you little plastic sleeves for your umbrellas, so that you don`t drip all over their fine merchandise. When you exit the store, you throw out the sleeves. Here`s a pic of a trash can full of these sleeves. It looks like something you would see in front of a brothel that catered only to very well-endowed men. Obscene.
This is a famous Ramen shop in Ebisu. People gather from all around to try this out, and will even line up for it, outside the shop. Guess who runs this place? That`s right. The Ramen Nazi.
No noodles for you! You come back, 1 year!
M, Hinnie and I went to a cafe in Shibuya called Bobby`s Cafe. It was a lot like the Elephant Cafe, which was just a floor up, except they had pictures of a boy pig looking up the skirt of a girl pig on all the plates. I didn`t care to eat off of them, so I ordered a coffee.
I had my Polaroid Joycam with me that night and wanted to have a photo of the three of us taken. When we got the bill, I asked the waitress to take a shot of us. She squealed something in Japanese and pointed at herself. I thought she was asking if I wanted her to take the photo, so I nodded. She then promptly turned the camera on herself, snapped the shot, handed the photo back to me and walked away.
Here are M and Hinnie. You will notice that M is not on fire. Why do I mention this seemingly obvious fact? Well, let me tell you:
M and I went to a Viet restaurant before meeting up with Hinnie and during a discussion with the waiter about a mistaken dish, M got a little excited and stuck her elbow into the candle in front of us and lit up like a Christmas tree. The waiter was shocked, the table next to us was amused and I thought it was pretty cool. M didn`t even notice and continued to argue with the waiter.
I convinced M to do it again, so that I could get a photo of it, but she chickened out at the end. Spoilsport.