i am the scavenger

scavenger HUNTER that is!

Today during class we all split in to teams and went on a scavenger hunt across Shinjuku. My group was Kim Jontay, Suku Kyun, Ryu Ensen and myself (pictured L-R in this order below.) I just spelled all of their names wrong, but they don't have real english spellings anyways, so it doesn't matter.

The scavenger hunt consisted of four questions, which we had to travel around Shinjuku, Tokyo's main city, to answer. We had about 2 hours to complete the whole thing, and it took every minute in the end.

The journey started from school and the first goal was to find the local jinja. A jinja is a shinto shrine. Luckily for us, the jinja we had to find was the same one I had travelled to with Nao on our first date (described in one of the first blog entries.) We quickly found it and asked people walking around about some japanese holidays to answer our questions and we were off. I asked a local women to take a photo of us in front of the main shrine before we left. The next stop was some business building. We had no idea where it was, but fucking Jontay came through again. As you guys know, hes a big shot Korean business man, so he made a few calls and they were expecting us at the building when we got there! It was awesome. The next stop on our journey was to find the department store I-Setan (prounced E-Setan, Japanese people prounce "I's" like "E's".) It took us a while but we got there eventually. On the way, we saw a new born puppy in a window selling for 28 Man en. This is about 2500 dollars. They dont fuck around with dogs in Japan, its insane how much these people love tiny dogs. I will have to write an entry about it one day, it could easily fill up one on its own.

The last spot we had to scout out was the Shinjuku - Seibu Train Station. It was a bit of a hike (this whole hunt took place over at least 20 or 30 city blocks), and our goal was to find out how much an umbrella costs in the store on the 8th floor. Luckily, we found a guide on the wall before we went up, because the store was a hyaku en store (a 100 yen store), saving us a trip.

We were supposed to meet up on the top floor of the highest building in Shinjuku with the rest of the groups from all the first year classes when we finished. We got done with the list over half an hour early, though, so Jontay convinced us to stop for a coffee break. I am glad we did, because as soon as we sat down, Jontay whipped out 2000 en and told the 3 of us to get whatever food and drink we wanted.

Seriously, Jontay fucking rules!

We finished our drinkage and foodage around 4:30 and set off to meet up with the group. Or that was the plan. Unfortunately it turns out we had no idea which building was the tallest in Shinjuku, we had just assumed it would be obvious. This made Jontay extremely red in the face, since he had suggested the break that ate up our time. We all were in high spirits though, so we didnt care. We asked a few Japanese people and discovered the tallest building was the city hall in Shinjuku. 30 minutes later we were there, 30 minutes late.

The view from the top of city hall was unbelievable. It was 45 stories high, but it seemed higher. We were pleased to find out we weren't even close to being the last group there. By this point it was dark, and buildings lit up the horizon in every direction, so that you couldnt tell where the stars ended and the ground began.

Later on that night I met up with Nao and hung out with her. We had some good times. Now I have to wake up in 7 hours for orientation for my trip to Nikko this weekend, a historical town near Tokyo. After orientation I am FINALLY going to the gundam museum though!!!

Life is good.
karl.arthur

My Chinese buddy, Chou Shoo Kei, on the top floor of city hall ( building pictured above)