Yakiniku Night in Shin-Okubo!

Sorry for the delay; I'm in my last three weeks as a student here, so things are getting crazy busy in terms of papers and tests and assignments. As a result I haven't been doing much in the way of fun, thus resulting in having nothing to write about. I'm sticking around Japan for two weeks after I finish my semester, though, so hopefully I'll do lots of fun things and write lots of posts to make up for the delay. Based on how behind on things I tend to get when it comes to writing posts these days, I'm fully prepared to be writing posts well into August even though I leave Japan on the 25th of July. So don't worry. I'll keep you updated, albeit a bit late, because I love you.

Anyway! Last night I went to Shin-Okubo, an area in Shinjuku famous for being the largest Koreatown in Tokyo, with Inga, Jack, Kenia, and our friend Adam for yakiniku, which is widely considered to be a variant of bulgogi that's been modified to fit "Japanese tastes." However, like most things involving Japan and South Korea (and pretty much any other Asian country), this idea is met with quite a bit of controversy from Japan's side.

We were scheduled to meet up with Adam around 6:00, and we got there a little bit early, so we took some pictures in the train station.

A lot of the signs in the neighborhood were, understandably, in Korean.

After meeting up with Adam, we headed out to find a place to eat. This meant we got to explore the neighborhood a bit, which was nice.

There are Korean idol stores EVERYWHERE.

This one even had a cafe on top! Apparently they serve waffles...?

No, seriously, idol shops EVERYWHERE. If you're a K-pop fan and find yourself in Tokyo, I'd recommend heading to 大久保通り for all your shopping needs.

We tried to find a family-run shop in the area, of which there are plenty, but we couldn't find any that did an "all you can eat" option (食べ放題), which would have best suited us since going out is expensive and you get more value that way. As a result we ended up eating at Gyu-Kaku, but that was perfectly fine by me, because it was quite good! There are locations in the US, Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore, so if you have the opportunity to go, it's a pretty well-priced restaurant (at least it is in Japan... Which, now that I think about it, is probably pretty expensive by any other country's standards).

Cute.

Jack and I always take cute pictures together.

So the cool thing about yakiniku is you cook the meat in a grill built into the table. It's so neat!

So much meat!

Kimchi! <3

You have to keep a good watch on the grills because sometimes they get a little too hot. Also yes, those are whole cloves of garlic on the grill. It's a dish. It's delicious. (But everything had SO MUCH GARLIC that I swear I won't be able to eat garlic for the next month!)

We finished off the meal with ice cream-filled cream puffs!

All in all, it was a really nice way to spend a Saturday night, and I really hope I'll get to do something fun like this next weekend before the pre-finals stress gets me too much!!