This post was recovered from an old blog that I had while studying abroad in Japan. I’ve only updated misspellings or dead links, but left any cringe worthy things or immature thoughts. I’ve decided to leave them as a snapshot of who I was and to see how far I’ve come. Any photos have been freshly edited and so are not the same as what was originally posted. Over the years I had several blogs, most lost to time, and I wanted to recover some lost memories and reflect on my life.

hoa it’s been a while since my last post. I guess I’ve been too busy actually doing, rather than talking about doing. I’m gonna try to keep going in chronological order with my post, for no particular reason other than it will satisfy me. This means the next several post are about events that happened quite a while ago.

AMEYOKO, TOKYO, JAPAN 2009-06-26

Around a month ago I went to Ameyoko(アメ横), a famous shopping street in Ueno, with some friends from school. The street is chock full of shops selling all sorts of wares. I saw belts, bags, kimono, fruit, gyros, shoes, sushi, golf balls, and on and on. The thing that caught my eye the most was the fruit stands though, especially the fruit on a stick. I didn’t buy any as I wasn’t hungry, but the pineapple on a stick and melon on a stick looked really good. The price wasn’t too bad either, around $2 for a stick.

The reason all the fruit stuck out is that I never really see fruit anywhere. When I do see fruit it’s crazy expensive. There’s two reasons I believe fruit is so expensive here. One is the fact that the fruit never has bruises, they only ever sell pristine looking fruit. I can only imagine how much slightly bruised/overripe fruit is going to waste. The other reason is because it’s always packaged in a nice looking box, or wrapped up individually in plastic. Back in the states it’s just a big bin of fruit and you pick through and find what you like.

AMEYOKO, TOKYO, JAPAN 2009-06-26

AMEYOKO, TOKYO, JAPAN 2009-06-26

UENO, TOKYO, JAPAN 2009-06-26

After ameyoko I tried to run over to Kappabashi-dori (A street famous for selling cooking/restaurant stuff, including the plastic fake food Japanese restaurants are so famous for.)to buy some souvenirs, but everything was closed by 5pm. This is another thing I’ve noticed in Japan, the business hours suck. Everything opens really late, 10am usually, and then closes really early, 5 or 6pm. In addition some places have a one to two hour break around lunch where the shop is closed. Larger stores will often have better business hours, but when you go to the smaller shops or restaurants be prepared for a locked door or closed sign.

Looking back on the hours that businesses were open I actually don’t think it’s much different in America. At the time I may of been used to larger businesses in America that are typically open until 8pm, which the department stores in Japan are open equally as late. I’ve noticed since living back in America that many small independent shops typically have similar 10am-5pm business hours as the small shops in Japan did. If you plan to visit any particular small shops while visiting Japan I would recommend looking for business hours online, as it is still possible that they close abnormally early or keep irregular hours.