day 6.

woke up this morning to the sound of my mom yelling my name. "max! shoko's on the phone!" i haven't jumped out of bed so quickly in a looong time. i ran downstairs and picked up the phone and listened to my sister tell me about her first day in india. what a relief to hear that she had made it safe and sound and that everyone was really nice so far. apparently she is living in a home with 10 other people and they have servants who make them anything they want to eat. shoko is the only american, the others are english, danish and german. they are all going on some sort of trip on the weekend and she sounded pretty excited about it. she was also excited about working at the music magazine, rave. she has to take a rickshaw to work every day and she may get to interview some really cool american/british artists...i'm sure the stories to come will be fantasticly fantastic...

after the phone call, i had a quick bite of frosties (the japanese equivalent to frosted flakes) and got ready to go back to harajuku to take care of some shopping needs. i took the bus to the train station and then hopped on a train to shinjuku. from there i had to transfer onto another train bound for harajuku. i walked around and surprised myself by how much i knew my way around. i got a lot done in a couple of hours and then headed back home. on my way back, i got on a train that i thought was supposed to stop at ogikubo (my home station) but the train kept going and going. i didn't really freak out, but i knew that something was wrong. when the train finally stopped at a station, i got out and had no idea where i was. i had to ask how to get back to ogikubo and when the guy finally understood, he pointed me in the right direction. so i got on another train and eventually made it home. ah, the joys of traveling in a foreign land all by yourself. i never have these problems when my mom is with me, that's for sure.

we had dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousin here at home tonight. we had sushi delivered. it's crazy because delivery sushi is the real deal here. it's really good and they bring it in these beautiful laquered trays and the spread is amazing. i took pictures of course. in fact, aside from our first night's dinner when it was pouring rain (i didn't want to take the camera with me), i've taken pictures of most all our dinner meals. looking back, i wish i had taken pictures of our lunch meals as well. oh well, next time...

tomorrow is our last full day here (makes me sad) and i have to figure out what to do. we're seeing my grandparents in the afternoon so i have the morning to get whatever i need to get done. it's crazy how fast it's all gone by. my dad and trent feel like they've been here a month (in a good way), but i feel like we just got here. anyway, tomorrow will be busy i'm sure...

one final thought: it's amazing how much detail is put into packaging things here. when you buy something from a store, they take great pride in wrapping your item, putting it into a nice bag, and then taping the bag together. it's all rather beautiful, from the paper to the tape. each store seems to have their own style/touch/flair. it makes shopping here so much fun because you always come home with the coolest bags with items packaged with so much care...

zzzzzzzzz...