This morning we went to a cafe called Excelsior for breakfast where I got a cappuccino and some kind of grilled cheese sandwich with what tasted like ham in it.  It was pretty good.  Then we went to Shibuya, which I guess is known as a shopping district.  We went to this mall called 109 and just hung out there for awhile, looking around.  I didn't look at the clothing too much, just because I knew it wouldn't fit me.  But I did buy a purse.  I had seen it in Kyoto and didn't buy it, but I hadn't stopped thinking about it, so when I saw it again, I decided I needed to buy it.  I also looked at shoes, but my feet are too big!  In Japan, the shoe sizes are small, medium, and large.  I stopped in a shoe store and a girl came over to help me out.  I didn't have any intention to buy a pair, but I figured it'd be fun to try them on.  After trying on a large, I tried to tell the girl they were too small.  She seemed pretty surprised.  It was kind of funny, though.  I tried on a couple pairs, all of which were really cute!  I felt bad I couldn't afford to buy any, especially after the girl had helped me so much.

After leaving Shibuya, the others decided they wanted to go check out Sunshine City, so I went back with them.  I had plans to meet Prof. B and Ellen to go to kabuki theater, though, so I couldn't stay.  I ended up buying a sesame roll at a bakery there and a piece of strawberry cake at another bakery for my lunch and went back to the hotel.

To see kabuki was really the only think I've wanted to do in Tokyo.  Because Tokyo is a more modern city, I don't have as much interest in it.  I asked the others if they wanted to go and they said no.  When I mentioned it to Ellen, she said that she and Prof. B would go with me if I could find out information on where to go.  So last night I asked the people at the hotel desk and they told me where I could go and about how much it would cost me.  When Prof. B, Ellen and I got to the theater, we were told the cheapest seats were sold out, so we had to buy the next highest, at 5,000 yen.  The show was three different plays and would take a total of four hours.  We decided we'd probably only stay for the first play.  Unfortunately, the play wasn't very good.  The first one was about a farmer who was going to confront the government who was punishing farmers for a bad crop year.  By confronting them, though, he was probably going to be killed.  We had decided not to get the English audio to go with the show to save money.  Figured we'd get the full experience.  That was a mistake.  The entire play was just the actors sitting, talking, and crying.  They barely did anything.  The scenery was beautiful, the costumes were cool, the music and what I think was narration was very good, and the little cultural aspects added in were interesting, but the play was just so boring!  I felt really bad, since Prof B and Ellen had decided to come, and I knew they were bored.  Even the people around us were bored, all of which were Japanese.  The guy in front of Ellen kept dozing off, the guy next to me eventually put in headphones to listen to music and put his head down on his knees, and the guy next to him was snoring loudly.  The three of us decided to leave after the first play.  If it was just me, I would have stayed for the second one, just to see if it got better.  The second play was going to be about a sumo wrestler who was on a journey and along the journey, he had to fight other sumo wrestlers.  At the end, he would have to sumo wrestle the emperor.  It sounded interesting to me, but I couldn't put Prof B and Ellen through another one.  I don't regret going though, and I'm very thankful that they went with me, otherwise I wouldn't have gone.

Kristen singing "Blow" by Ke$ha

The end of the night went pretty well, though.  With the exception of Tim, all of the other students and I decided to go out to a karaoke place a couple blocks away.  We got our own small room to hang out in and two microphones.  Some of the others got drinks.  Luckily, the place had a ton of English songs we could sing.  Megan and I did a duet for "Gimme Everything" by Pitbull and Ne-yo.  I sang Ne-yo's parts and she rapped Pitbull's.  It was fun.  The others sang, too.

I guess it's about time I write down my observations about Japanese culture, since I've missed a lot of stuff in my past entries:

Signs are cute!!!

• While riding the train, bus or the subway, the Japanese don't really talk.  If they do, it's very quietly.  By not talking, they are being considerate for the other people on the train.  On the subway, there on signs saying that you should give up your seat for people who are pregnant, carrying small children, the elderly, those with an injury, and those who seem to have some kind of health problem.  Really you're supposed to do this no matter where you are because it's only polite, but they are especially aware of this in Japan.  One of the times we were on a bus in Kyoto, I was sitting down and an older woman came onto the bus.  There weren't any other seats open, so I got up and motioned for her to take my seat.  She smiled and said thank you.  Youlin praised me for what I did.
  
• In Japan, people drive on the left side of the street and walk on the left side of the sidewalk.  It's a little confusing at first.  Often times I would accidentally walk on the right side out of habit.  And it was weird seeing people driving on the wrong side of the road!  When on escalators, you're supposed to stand on the left side so people can walk past you on the right.  Never see that in America, people just stand smack in the middle of the stair.
  
• The people in Japan are so nice!  They are extremely patient, especially when it came down to the language barrier we had with them.  I feel like in America, if you don't understand someone right away, you stop trying.  In Japan, they actually try.  It often would come down to a game of charades with us, but they were very good-natured about it.  They never got mad at us and would keep trying until we understood each other.  For example, on my way back to the hotel today from Sunshine City, I got lost.  I took a turn too soon.  Luckily, I had a card with the hotel's address on it, so when I saw a woman, I said excuse me in Japanese.  But that's all I knew.  So I said "Can you help me?" in English and handed her the card.  She went inside her house and I could hear her talking to someone.  When she came back out, she only said a little bit and basically just waved me back up the street and to the left.  I got her point, so I thanked her and continued on and found my hotel.  She could have just waved me off, but instead she helped me.  Same with the girl in the shoe store, or any of the people we've met in the restaurants we've been to.
  
• All the cities we've seen are very clean.  For some reason, we can never seem to find a trashcan when we need one, but we never see trash, gum, or cigarette butts on the street (which reminds me, you can't smoke on the street.  You need to find a designated smoking area).  The cities are well kept.
  
• They're signs are cute.  I don't know how else to put it.  Many of them have a picture that is just...cute!
  
• Everyone dresses really nicely.  No sweatpants, no pajama pants.  You rarely even see sweatshirts.  Everyone from children to the elderly dress fashionably.  Some of the outfits are even a little crazy in the way they're put together, but it still works!  Only in Japan.
  
• A lot of people ride bikes.  It seems to be one of the main forms of transportation.  Probably one of the reasons why they're all so skinny over there!  Because they bike everywhere!  Americans need to start doing that.  I bet the obesity problem would go down.