Goin Dahntahn

Today we went ta dahntahn Sendai.  (Yinz guys can take da girl outta da burgh butcha can't take da burgh ahtta da girl. If yinz guys dahn't know what dat means look it up.)  Our adventures today included a group of 19 new American teachers travelling together in a pack to learn how to take the subway into downtown Sendai (since MeySen is on the edge of the city).  It was a fun but exhausting day.

The subway station is about a 15 minute walk from our current apartment.  When we got there we spotted something wonderful....STARBUCKS!!!!

After we stopped to enjoy some delicious Starbucks, we learned how to buy subway tickets.  This is a picture of our guide and transition expert, Melissa buying tickets. 

To get to the subway, you put your ticket in the slot at one end and it shoots out at the other end and you pick it up as you enter.  It's the same as subways in NYC.  I think it's easier to get used to walking around Sendai and taking transportation if you've lived in or been to a big city before. 

The Japanese people treat the subway like Americans treat the elevator -- they sit in silence, looking slightly down.  If they do talk it is in a whisper to the people next to them.  Needless to say, as a large group of excited Americans, we made a lot of noise.  We weren't shouting or trying to be loud, but we certainly weren't silent.  I'm sure they were glad when we got off the train haha.

The Sendai subway stop lets off in the middle of the shopping district.  Our first destination was the Ichibancho Arcade, an open-air covered mall that is 1.5 km long (a little less than 1 mile).  Like an American mall it has all kinds of clothing stores and restaurants.  It also has many drug stores, arcades, Karaoke places, and pachinkos (casinos where panchinko machines are used for gambling) and 100-yen stores.

We were thrilled to go to the 100-yen store.  It is basically a dollar store, since $1.20 = 100 yen.  This store was 5 stories and had everything you could imagine!!!!!!!!  It really puts the dollar stores in the US to shame!  We bought a ton of stuff we needed (and a few things we didin't!) while we were there.  Most of the other teachers were thrilled to go there too, since things at the grocery store and drug stores can be expensive.

Eileen, Barbara, and Danielle in front of the 100 yen store.


After lunch we hit up one of the Karaoke places with our friends Aharon, Caitlin, and Ashley.  It was really frustrating at first because the woman who worked there didn't speak any English and we didn't speak any Japanese.  Who would have thought it would be so hard to communicate that 5 people wanted to do Karaoke for 1 hour????  We finally had to break out Ashley's phrase book and butcher our way through "One hour, five people" and it worked!  I am already learning how hard it must be for non-native English speakers in the USA.

The Karaoke place had about 9 floors, and each floor had about 10 small rooms/booths in it.  We were given a room number and inside were 3 benches, a table, a TV and sound system, remotes in Japanese, and some sweet lighting effects.  Again we ran into some trouble - the remote, tv, and sound systems all had Japenese writing.  We were so worried that we were going to spend the whole hour trying to play music.  Luckily I was able to find the English button on the remote and Aharon figured out how to work the sound system, so after about 10 minutes we were having a blast!  Because you are singing in a small room with only your friends, you can go crazy singing and dancing without feeling self-concious.  It is AWESOME!!!!  And it only cost us 160 yen (about $1.75) each!!!!!  I think they make most of their money from the drinks and food you can order. I included a video of Kris singing Karaoke so you could see all the fun lighting effects!

One of the floors with many rooms in the Karaoke building.

The walls looked white like this when regular lights were on or when a flash goes off (like when Kris took this pic). This is Ashley, Caitlin, and I singing "Love Shack".

When the lights went out, the walls came alive with blacklight effects like this one behind me!

As we walked back to the beginning of the mall we stopped at one of the arcades.  Half of the main floor were claw machines.  There had to have been at least 20 claw machines! 

Of course the claw machine with Hello Kitty was in front. Notice how all the toys are lined up -- all the claw machines are like this.  The OCD in me appreciates this very much :-)



All the machines you see are claw machines!



We saw 2 guys playing this game that was like Guitar Hero but with drums!  It looks like so much fun and they were crazy good at it.

There was another game that was also like a combination of wack-a-mole and Guitar Hero.  When the colored dot appears on the screen you hit the corresponding colored light on the panel.

The last place we went before meeting up with the rest of the group was the AER building, which is the tallest building in Sendai.  Don't get too excited -- it's only 31 floors tall.  But there was a neat look-out area on the top floor that was free to go to.

The view from AER tower.  The long tube running through the middle of the building is the Ichibancho Arcade (the mall).



This picture is for my mom: look it's a salt shaker parking garage!



It was a great day, but by the time we got home we were exhaused.  We made our own dinner of rice and these instant beef curry packets -- not too bad for 75 yen.  I ended the day, as I do every day in Japan, with the Japanese art of bathing -- a hot shower followed by a nice, relaxing soak in a hot bath. (Have you guys noticed that she has written about this in every blog? This woman loves her hot bath!)  This is definitely my favorite thing I've experienced about Japan thus far.

Downtown Sendai