A day walking around

After a week and a half of winter break, doing not much more than sleeping in, then sitting in front of the computer most of the day (under a blanket next to the space heater), today I decided to take advantage of the fact that most stores had re-opened after the New Years holiday.

I took the train to Shinjuku and headed directly for the book store, Kinokuniya (that's the book store with the pretty good foreign books section---aka books in English), to buy a calendar. Yeah I know, a strange reason to travel into Tokyo proper and fight First-Day-After-New-Years-Sale shoppers, but I had to get out of my house. And a calendar was the only thing I actually needed and was prepared to buy.

I was torn between a cute, sarcastic modern calendar and a Norman Rockwell print calendar. The Rockwell didn't have any of my favorite prints and was more expensive, so the cute sarcastic one came home. (Please see my regular blog for excerpts.) Also, after visiting it for months, I finally decided that my relationship with From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz had blossomed to the point that I brought it home, too. (Please see my book blog for info.)

After leaving the book store, I didn't feel like turning around and coming back home (and I had to leave the book store before I spent myself out of my train fare home), so to the streets I went. After browsing in a couple of stores, I decided I was pretty much done fighting the Sale crowds, and kept to the streets. My stomache (and the slightly light-headed feeling from only having had crackers and cheese to eat so far that day) led me to search for somewhere to eat. But mostly I was enjoy exploring new parts of Shinjuku. I thought I had seen just about everything that had traveled over the wide Pacific from our country to theirs, but that assumption was proved incorrect, as I beheld a Barneys New York and, yes, the Circle K (within a block and a half of eachother, I might add).



This is the bar? restaurant? club? that was right next door to the Circle K. If you can't read from the picture, the place is called "Neo Tokyo Fooding Bar Mysterious". Nice.






Finally my wanderings needed to come to an end. I was getting tired, the sun was beginning to sag, and exhaust fumes were aggravating my head. I headed toward a KFC, but as I approached, decided against it. That's when I saw it. The Haagen-Dazs. My first instinct was along the lines of "ice cream is not a good lunch/dinner" and "KFC has too many calories, but rich ice cream is okay?" However, these petty arguments were easily overcome by the thought, "I ate at the Haagen-Dazs in Paris. It would be cool if I ate at one in Tokyo, too!" (I did eat at one in Paris, too. I got pear sorbet. It was incredible.)

So, in I went. I ordered what I thought was a nice combination of Japanese and Western and what was probably pretty particular to Tokyo Haagen-Dazs, a single scoop of Royal Milk Tea ice cream in a cup. As I payed, I realized, hey, this is Fool on the Hill, by the Beatles. As I stood along the wall, eating my ice cream (it was good, too a nice, creamy, concentrated flavor of the milk tea that comes in a powder form that I have a few times a week) I realized the next song was also the Beatles (it may have been The Night Before, but I didn't get my notepad out in time). So, I savored my ice cream and the music until they were both gone. (The rest of the songs were Baby You're a Rich Man, Anytime at All, and the German version [appropriately enough being that I was in a Haagen-Dazs, but don't think the utter fabulousness of that truth was missed by me] of I Wanna Hold Your Hand.)



I didn't even get lost and I made it back to my apartment in plenty of time to wait for the mailman.

Just goes to show, not all who wander are lost. And sometimes they find Haagen-Dazs.


Current Music : Old Soul Song (For the New World Order) Bright Eyes
Current Mood: a bit sleepy, but ready for tomorrow's adventure to Kamakura