Day 6

 Today focused on popular culture. First, we had a guide (named Waka) give us a walking tour of Akihabara, Tokyo's central anime/manga district. Very electronics-oriented, too. He kept talking us up and down escalators of different stores, which was such a waste of time. Eventually, he stopped doing this and just started pointing out various stores and talking about them. I do wish we could have spent more time here, but we were only given about two hours, and most of it was either walking or going up and down escalators for seemingly no particular reason. The only part of this experience that I really enjoyed was going to a hedgehog cafe. It was very different from the one I went to five years ago: it was quite small, and they allow only three people in at a time. Those three people were me, Crystalyn, and my former student Ella (who was a great student, btw). The first hedgehog I was given was a dud: he just rolled himself up in a ball, and I couldn't even see his head. So I asked for another. The second hedgehog was far too active, by contrast, and kept trying to crawl out of my hands and crawl out of his box. Eventually, he peed in his box, too, so that was exciting. 

Kerry had to grab me a ham-cheese-lettuce-egg salad sandwich at Family Mart, and then we were on our way with some of the class to Sanrio Puroland, which is a Hello Kitty theme park. It was about 90 minutes away from Akihabara and involved a LOT of standing up on the subway, about which I was not thrilled. I got very dehydrated and hungry, and just managed to shove my food in here and there when I could. Once we got to the area, there was still more walking to do...but then we saw the building. It looks a bit like Disney from the outside. 

When we got there, for some reason they wanted Kerry to do a "COVID survey," but I didn't have to do it. Maybe because we paid together? Anyway, Kerry and I rested, ate in the food court (fries and chicken), went shopping (for ourselves and others), and then checked out the third floor (including Melody's garden--quite beautiful). The entire place was about 95% young Japanese woman wearing Sanrio ears on their heads, not unlike mouse ears from Disney, I suppose. Very few people in there were male, and those who were looked out of place. But it made the bathroom lines short. 

The subway ride home was nice because, even though it was long, we got to sit the entire time: 20 stops on the first leg of the journey, and then 6 on the second. Kerry and I stopped in at McDonald's for dinner for some experimentation: I tried the "Teriyaki McBurger" and "Shrimp=O-Filet." I preferred the shrimp burger. The teriyaki burger had a sauce that was too sweet and a patty that was too small. Whereas the fish had real shrimp in the patty, even though the cheese and Big Mac special sauce on the shrimp burger was quite odd to me. 

Then, Kerry and I worked on laundry when we got back. And that's how we ended our day.

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