Day 24: Kimono Market and Starbucks

Breakfast:

Yummy pudding as breakfast-dessert:

More iced coffee from the school's vending machine. This one is called Ice Café au Lait:

This one was yummy and is apparently 22% milk.

Salmon onigiri for onigiri #15:

More gorgeous weather:

Today for lunch I went with a bunch of friends to this restaurant that has pizza, crepes, and pancakes. I went in a group of six, and shortly after another group of about six HIF students showed up. It was kind of a small place with only one poor guy taking orders, prepping food, and waiting tables. We almost filled up the whole restaurant.

I was going to eat something healthy, then got a banana, chocolate, cream-cheese-whip crepe instead:

After that, there was a kimono market at HIF put on by community members. This gave HIF students a chance to buy secondhand kimonos and yukatas for super cheap. (They are usually pretty expensive. Most of the ones I've seen at clothing stores are around $50 or more.)

They had tons of awesome patterns and designs:

I was originally going to just look around, and maybe get a yukata, but ended up getting both a kimono and yukata because I figured I was probably never going to opportunity like this one again. A nice older woman helped me pick out an obi for each one, and everything together was still under $20. Both the kimono and yukata are a little bit stained in places, but they are still both lovely.

Today I wore one of the hair scrunchies:

Hi, Mom and Dad!

After the kimono market, I went back to the warehouse district for a little while. I don't know what is going on with this design. It kind of weirds me out a little:

Also, I heard that before it's smoked, cannabis buds can have a "fresh sweet fruity rosemary pine smell" which is probably what the incense the other day were going for.

After that, I went to Starbucks to study because I'd been wanting to compare/contrast the one here with the ones in Seattle. I got a cheese cake flavored drink and matcha pound cake. The whole place seemed like an average Seattle Starbucks, but with a lot more matcha.

Rows of coffee and matcha:

Both the drink and the cake were really yummy. The drink had little bits of crumbly cheese cake crust in it which was great.

Right before I had to pack up and go, the woman next to me asked if I was a foreign exchange student and I chatted for a little bit with her and her friend who was an English teacher.

On the way home, my host parents told me that there was a cruise ship in town. I mentioned that I had noticed a lot of British-sounding people in town today (this stood out to me because most days I hear no English at all aside from when I'm with other HIF students), and they told me that this was why. They told me that my host dad used to do something involved with cruise ships (I'm pretty sure he gave tours), and we went to go see it up close. It was huge! I've seen cruise ships in Seattle before, but never this close up:

Dinner:

Here are the kimono (left), yukata (right), and the obis that I got at the kimono market:

The yukata's obi is pre-tied into a bow that you hook on to the back. It kind of reminds me of a clip -on bowtie. My host mother called it a 簡単帯（かんたんおび）（kantan obi = simple obi）.

I got a few more marimo-themed items in the warehouses:

The last one is marimo fertilizer and says "marimo meal" and "become big!" on the label.

I also got some minty sugar candies that look like chalk, and a bag with 北海道の名物（Hokkaido no meibutsu = famous things/local specialties from Hokkaido) on it:

Japan is really into local specialties, and I really like this bag because it sums up most of Hokkaido's big ones. (Note: I had no idea what a clione was so I asked my host mom to explain, and we ended up just looking them up online. They are a kind of tiny floating sea slugs which are actually quite adorable.)

I also got some nail polish and more ice cream-flavored candies from the 7-11 across from city hall:

The candies are white peach, lemon orange, raspberry yogurt, and kiwi yogurt and are soft in the middle. I like the raspberry one the most.