DAY 8: IT FELT LIKE THE SUN WAS 500 FEET AWAY FROM EARTH TODAY

there's no getting around it; it's pretty hot and VERY humid here. however, today was RIDICULOUSLY hot haha...the sun was out, and we both agreed it somehow felt as though it was closer to earth than usual! it was the hottest sun i think i have ever felt! and the 100% humidity always makes you feel like you are in a sauna whenever you step outside. my camera lens fogs up for over 30 minutes whenever we go from the cold inside of our hotel to the outside heat! but ah well...we deal with it! wiping sweat from our faces with hankercheifs every 2 minutes like every other japanese person haha...we knew the summers in japan are extremely hot and humid, so we came prepared!

i'll also preface this blog entry with this day was sort of full of food! we didn't do too much because of the heat, and so i think almost every photo will be of food!

here's breakfast today!

and today was the day we planned on meeting up with etsuko (our waitress at "shinano", a restaurant we love back home in the states). it just so happened that she is in japan at the same time as us! so we decided to meet up :) we met her, her sister, her little nephew, and her friend (who's parents own shinano). to get to our meeting spot, we of course walked back through the meiji jingu garden :) prettiest walk ever. we love it!

erik almost stepped on this guy!

not sure what kind of caterpillar he is, but he was pretty! we apparently always find interesting bugs while walking through meiji jingu. last time was the jewel beetle, this time strange caterpillar!

we got to harajuku, met up with all of them, and first we wanted to grab some lunch. we went to this place that serves fried rice inside an omlette with your choice of sauces on top. i can't believe i forgot to take a picture of it before i ate it! so, i put the plate on the placemat which had my choice on it (the bottom option, by the drinks), and my empty plate hahaha...

so, you can kiiiinda see what it would have looked like. it was YUMMY though!

afterwards, off we went to shop! it was nice going into stores here and there because it also gave us some time to get out of the heat! a lot of the english on clothing in japan is just...wrong. it can be funny at times! saw this today and had to take a picture haha...

we continued shopping for a while, and then we decided to take a cake break ;)

all japanese cake is great because it's not overly sweet. the 5 of us split 2 pieces of cake, and we all got drinks too. i got a chilled cafe latte, and the green one is kumiko's matcha (green tea) milk! she let me try it and it was SO GOOD. matcha anything is amazing :) the cakes were of course great too!

it was wonderful hanging out with etsuko today and meeting everyone else too!!! we had a great time. afterwards we just walked back home, cooled off in the hotel room for a bit, then went out for some dinner. we looked at our list of food to try while we're here, and we chose lotteria!

it's a popular chain fast food restaurant. we both got the same thing. fried chicken sandwich with yummy back pepper mayo on it!

oh man was it GOOD. the chicken was SO juicy!

super tasty. since we were at shinjuku station for dinner already, we decided to pick up a piece of cake to eat once we got back home. of course they put it in a cute little box for us with the typical ice packs inside that i was telling you about before!

so pretty! and delicious :)

so yeah, told you this was going to be mostly about food today hahaha...but food is great here! ;)

tomorrow we meet with the students that i had last fall! I'M REALLY EXCITED TO SEE THEM AGAIN!