when it rains in tokyo...

            Leah, Nick, and Alexis had been researching hostels for that night while they were waiting for me at the station. They had found another capsule hostel in a prime part of town. They booked four beds for that night and we headed straight there to check-in and drop off our bags.

            At the hostel, we met a group of Danish people who were going to a baseball game that night. We had heard that baseball games in Japan were quite the experience. And a night of baseball would not do us any harm after a crazy day and night of travelling. After we bought our tickets, we went to the Harajuku district. Yes, as where the Gwen Stefani's Harajuku girls hail from. Stores were filled to the brim with those fun, funky outfits, and accessories you see in her music videos. It was too much fun. We all, kind of, split up and explored in smaller groups.  There was too much to see for us to worry about sticking together. We met back up for dinner and then headed to the game.

baseball game at the tokyo dome! go giants!

            The game was a lot of fun! I am not sure how much the fans actually cared about who won and who lost (from what I gleaned, the competition aspect is not really there, there is kind of a “You’re all winners in our hearts and we're gonna have fun anyways”-attitude). They are definitely serious about showing their pride for their team. I don’t know about many other teams but certainly the cheers of Yokohari Giants and Chunichi Dragons fans sound more like harmonized chants than raucous cheers you may encounter in the United States. Not to mention, these fans can scream until they are as blue in the face as the average college-football fan.

             The next morning I had a FDP (essentially a class field trip) to a Kabuki theater play. I am not going to lie. It was brutal. Four hours of play completely in Japanese with slow motion dancing. Afterwards, I met up with some people at the hostel we had stayed at the night before and we got sushi at a place where the rolls go by on a conveyor belt.

I was really excited about this because I love sushi! Being the sushi lover that I am, I had imagined        Japan could be like the Candyland of sushi. Everywhere you went there would just be sushi and you would always have chopsticks to grab a roll or two as you walked down the street. Not so much. Sushi is a delicacy in Japan. It took us awhile to even find a place that served sushi. But when we finally found this place, it was totally worth the search. The sushi was so good.

Our last day in Japan, it was rainy outside, which definitely limited what we could do.  It was kind of nice, though, because I was able to hang out in a coffee shop that morning, which, though it sounds crazy, is something you have to plan to do on this trip. It is one of my favorite ways to get to know a city and I really enjoyed the opportunity to "take it all in"when I feel like my mentality has constantly been, let's see how much I can squeeze into the time I have.
That afternoon, I went on an adventure with my friend, Brandon, to find the Japanese version of a Best Buy so that he could get an external hard drive. We were successful, but it was definitely an adventure. Picture a Best Buy on steroids, six stories tall, with every tech accessory and device you could imagine, all in the Japanese, and no one that works there speaks English. This is where I chose to spend my last hours in a foreign port.