off to nagoya~
we (leon) called up rina (a fellow ysdn’er) a couple times on the 9th night because we knew she was staying near nagoya with her aunt and uncle, so our plan was to meet with her at around 2 at the nagoya tv tower. after figuring out how to get there as well as lounging around, we left for the JR station to buy some lunch and eat it on the shinkansen. rainy day 🙁
the first stop was a cool looking building that turned out to be Oasis 21, a small shopping centre. where the best shop was. The Jump Shop. lol… although pretty expensive at the same time, i bought a couple ‘surprise’ one piece collectables. there was like… no HxH stuff anymore but still dbz, dgrayman, naruto, bleach, deathnote, etc… i got a duplicate sanji 🙁 but the rest were different… whee.
in the main area of the small mall, there was a bboy competition, a bunch of groups breakdancing and 3 judges eliminating them one by one. we stayed to watch a couple then kept walking… there was also a pokemon centre, nagoya, a couple doors down from the jump shop. there’s new pokemon!… again
our next destination was an orchid garden. trudging through the rain, and getting our socks soaked in a mischievous puddle, we arrived at the garden which was actually pretty nice, even in the rain. we all took a LOT of pictures, cause it was a great place for nice pictures with the nice flowers 😛 there was a small wedding ceremony being held at the same time, we didn’t see much of that tho, just tried to stay out of the way. rina had a dslr to play with, no fair :@.
after that, we tried to head over to the international design centre cause… we’re designers 😛 after getting a bit sidetracked by the music festival, and random shops, we ended up in a larger random shop, LoFt. It was like… ikea but less furniture, more random items. michelle was having a blast in there. and i have yet to find a new bag that is a decent price and that i like 🙁
LoFt was in the same building as the idc so it was okay, too bad most of it was closed or needed card access. the one place that was open was the gallery, exhibiting several chair designs. the coolest thing about that place was the mechanical rotation of pieces within a box. the same mechanism is used for cars all around japan, press a couple buttons and your ‘block’ is rotated into the right space and then u park it and it can be rotated back up into the tower, preeeetty cool.
then we were off on a journey to find some shabu shabu for dinner. mm. shabu shabu is like…. hotpot, but i guess less random. the food was pretty good, lots of veggies, not enough meat for me… but also noodles + rice cake, and dessert. we were trying to figure out the prices and if the food would actually satisfy all of us, with not much success. rina ended up calling her aunt and she and the waitress talked on the phone, they ordered for us! hahah, that was a pretty funny experience… lol. the waitress was nice about it though 😛 the dinner ended up being pretty pricey… reflects the atmosphere i guess T_T… but somehow, rina’s uncle ended up paying for it! crazy, he’s too nice. lol
we then headed out, wandering, trying to figure out what to do… but we fail. and decide to head back. first we’d wait for rina’s uncle to pick her up tho. and find out we’re about to miss our last train back to kyoto o.o… it’d leave in about 15 minutes, and we’re still a bit far from nagoya station. yikes. as we waste more time, rina’s uncle has shown up and… we were gonna get a ride to the station instead. but then… we end up agreeing to go back to rina’s place in kamaki (or somethin) and stay with them for the night, since we’re gonna meet up with them the next day in kyoto anyways. haha.
her uncle speaks some english, its pretty funny, he’s cool about it. the whole time in the car rina and her aunt are speaking a mix of english, japanese, and tagalog, which was interesting to hear. she was translating back and forth from her husband to rina and us, hehe.
their place was an apartment, not -too- small, i guess… the kitchen is separated a bit, the dining and living-rooms are melded and their main bedroom is connected to the living room, separated by the paper wall thingys. rina had her own tv and closet and an actual bed o.o! haha, while she stays over there…
and we all slept in rina’s room. michelle shared the bed and we shared the… floor. hahaha.
the JUMP Shop. wheeeeee.
a lily in the orchid garden lake. don’t let it fool you, it’s still raining
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