Day 4: Hellogoodbye

This was a bittersweet day.  Jen and her family left for Taiwan but friends from Cal Poly came to visit.  I met up with Jen for an early lunch at 11 AM.  We went to go eat at Ichiran, a popular ramen chain that is also in Fukuoka but I had never tried it until now.  It was famous because it featured an unconventional method of eating.  The restaurant consisted of a series of booths that had a small window where the server would take a ticket and hand you your food without ever having to see you.  Some consider it impersonal, but the philosophy of the restaurant is that the ramen is so good, there should be no distractions from enjoying the meal.  Quite a claim, but I got to say that the restaurant does live up to this almost religious ramen experience.  It is quite a good bowl of ramen and the individual booth is isolating but original.  Afterwards, we walked around shopped a little and we split up.  Jen and her Mom went to shop in a department store and Emily, Eric-kun and I hit the arcades.  After sometime we met back at the hotel to eat a second lunch, haha, yes a SECOND lunch.  Because they had so little time in Japan, they wanted to eat both ramen and sushi and instead of deciding between the two, decided it was easier to just eat both.  Jen and her Mom came back ecstatic about shopping in Japan.  Apparently, Japanese fashion, style and quality was amazing and they made quick work of lunch and went for round two afterwards.  I took Eric-kun to the arcades again and helped him win a small backpack from a crane game.  What a deal, only cost about 6 bucks to win something that probably cost 20 tickets at Chuck-E-Cheeses.  Oh well, god only knows how much money I’ve thrown away at arcades myself during my childhood.  I saw Jen and the Hsiao family off around 2 PM and once again, I was on my own.

I knew that Melissa, Ken and Michelle (all architects from Pomona) were visiting Tokyo at the same time.  Tonight was the night we were all going to get together and eat dinner because the other Americans had planned trips to other parts of Japan and tonight was the last and only chance to all get together.  So I waited patiently and we finally met up in the district of Ryogoku, also known as Sumo Town.  This is where many sumos often come to eat and live.  We ate at a shabu shabu restaurant that also had a large sumo ring in the center of the restaurant either for show or presumably for mock sumo fights.  Ken (and Sean) brought with him(/them) from America a letter and gifts for all of us studying here abroad in Japan.  It was a very nice gesture and I thank them for their thoughts and gifts.  We were all given something to remind us of home and I was given a Chinese lion head.  I used to do lion dancing and it was nice of Ken and Sean to remember.  In general it was a very nice dinner to have all seven Americans eating dinner in Tokyo together for a night.  But it was cut short for me because I had to catch the last train back to my hostel which was relatively far away.  The others stayed longer because they lived closer and didn’t have a problem with catching the last train back, but I cut it close and ran back to the station after dinner accidentally forgetting my lion head under my chair in the restaurant.  Jose/John was kind enough to bring it back to Fukuoka for me.  I went to sleep excited with the promise of the next day when I would pick up Owen and Mike.