Old Friends: Drinking with Tadashi




We didn’t do much today, so there’s not a great deal to write about, but I wanted to make a mention of seeing Tadashi and his friends again, since our first visit with them didn’t go so smoothly with the heat. We (Me, Nicky and Erin) met them in Shinjuku to go to an Izakaya. After a couple of hours of trying to explain weird English expressions (jack of all trades, working like a dog, the graveyard shift, etc), we went to a purikura booth nearby to take some pictures together.

For those that are unaware of what is the Purikura Culture of Japan, basically it is like American photo booths, except that after the picture is taken, several different alterations and “decorating” can be done. A lot of booths offer skin whitening (to remove blemishes), eye enlargement (to decrease the Japanese “slanted eyes” complex) and hair color filters (if you want pink or green hair). There are also hundreds of pens, stamps, borders, backgrounds and sparkles you can add in to make the picture one of a kind. Nicky and I have been making an effort to get Purikura done with all of our friends while we’re here, and I have a small book that I plan to fill up completely by the time my study abroad is over. It’s usually a lot of fun, though I personally think the eye enlargement is kind of strange, as it hasn’t worked terribly well on my Japanese friends’ eyes at all... haha.

Here’s some of the purikura we took tonight (notice Nobu’s eyes in the center one... the machine only recognized one eye for enlargement!):