"When you think of ramen, you think of Budouka. That place is amazing." Were the words about as that a senior member of the comedy student club Waseda Yose Engei Kenkyukai (official student club), which I joined in April of my first year at university, mentioned at the welcome party. The store wasn't very large, but it had an unusual presence.

The rich, dark soy sauce and pork bone soup is packed with umami. The thick, curly noodles are perfect for mixing with the soup. Garlic and ginger are added to the soup to give it an even more stimulating flavor. I wrap the soaked seaweed around the rice, which I can have as many refills as I want, along with spinach and pork slices, and stuff my cheeks full. The joy of that moment, etched in my 19-year-old brain, has not faded even after 15 years. This is... Iekei ramen...! My encounter with this martial artist (a play on the name of the restaurant) was so impactful that I came to like Iekei ramen so much that it's the first thing I think of when I'm out eating out. I used to go there often during my university days.

I was also influenced by the call made when entering the store, "Seeeee!!!" which is just about the same as the original "Welcome!", and when I tried to imitate it while working the night shift at a manga cafe, we received a large number of complaints and my shifts were cut.Looking back on it as a fond memory, I started to do the same.

Toyama Park is an inseparable place from my comedy student club activities, which make up the majority of my memories of university life. When it was close to a live performance, many people were practicing their material here and there, and it was fun to chat with them. After Waseda University Student Center closed, some people moved to Toyama Park and continued chatting at night in Toyama Park.

After graduating from university, I formed a comedy duo with Ito, who was a classmate in  the student club. At that time, we often gathered at Toyama Park to practice our material. Most of the other student club members had gotten jobs. I couldn't find any of my friends anywhere in Toyama Park anymore. Everyone had gotten jobs. We hadn't even passed the audition for an agency yet. What will happen from now on... The time we spent with such anxiety is now one of our precious memories.

[From the Student Affairs Division Waseda University]

Please refrain from any activities by groups or individuals in Toyama Park that may cause a nuisance to other users or local residents, such as practicing instruments or dancing to loud music, practicing singing in a loud voice, or drinking alcohol late at night or early in the morning.

Waseda Shochiku, which is jus a short walk from Takadanobaba Station along Waseda Street, is a movie theater that you will come across if you are doing Baba-aruki. It is a so-called "masterpiece theater" where you can watch double features of past masterpieces at a low price. In the summer when I was 19 years old and a freshman in college, I saw the famous American movie "Easy Rider" at  Waseda Shochiku. I think it was a good beginning to my college career.
However, I never went to Waseda Shochiku during my time at university. Even if I saw a poster while doing Baba-aruki and thought, "Oh, I'd like to see it," the timing never worked out or I forgot, and somehow, I never went. I deeply regret it. I should have been more aware of the affinity between college students and art movie theaters. If I had been more aware of my youth at that time, I could have been a young student that spent watching movies at Waseda Shochiku." I regret it because I had a wonderful start to my summer life at the age of 19 by watching "Easy Rider." Waseda Shochiku is not so much a place of memories for me, but rather a place I wish I could have had more memories made.

I was old enough to drink, and I wanted to look good even though I didn't have any money, so when I found this bar with a sign saying "All items 200 yen" I was shaken. I felt excited that even someone like me could enter that "bar" where only adults are allowed to enter, but at the same time I was suspicious that maybe I was being ripped off.

However, being smart enough to have been able to get into Waseda University, I thought there was no way a rip-off bar would have a sign saying "All items 200 yen" so I went straight in, and of course it wasn't a rip-off or anything like that, it was an incredibly cheap bar.

Since then, when I wanted to look cool, I would take my younger classmates or girls there, but even though it would have been about 2,000 yen for two people to drink, I would say, "I'll pay for everything," and I think I wasn't cool at all. Now, it seems that all items are 250 yen, but I recommend you go there when you don't need to look cool.

We are currently a comedy duo, and since we mainly perform sketches, we need a variety of costumes, but especially when we first started out, we didn't have much money and wanted cheap costumes.

That's when we found this second-hand clothing store, Tampopo House, which surprisingly sold clothes for 100 yen. We thought there might be something fishy about it, but this store was just a really cheap second-hand clothing store. After we found out about this store, even after graduating from university, we would come to Takadanobaba to buy our costumes and write our material, and we would go around telling our fellow comedians, "If you want to buy costumes, go to Tampopo House." At the time, there were quite a few comedians who used Tampopo House, so maybe it's still used by young comedians today.