Tokyo is a really cool city. I was most impressed by how incredibly tourist-friendly it was. Usually when we were lost, we could count on being able to find a sign in English about where we were and which direction something was. That something was almost always the exact tourist attraction we were looking for. Also, we used our JR train passes to their fullest extent -- we only paid for public transportation once in Tokyo, to get to a certain area the JR didn't appear to cover, which was the skytree. Anytime we wanted to use the JR system, we would pass the people going through on their day-to-day business flash our ticket to the person in the booth next to the ticket machines, and he or she would just open the handicapped entrance and let us through. We really felt like we had cheated the system, but I guess paying $300 for those passes is nothing to sniff at. Or scoff at. Or both. Anyway, I am a happy JR pass customer and highly recommend it to anyone traveling through Tokyo especially.
We did a LOT in Tokyo. I am going to try to cover it all, but after a while the shrines and games and lights all start to look very similar. And I don't want this blog to just be a snoozeville log of events, but also at least somewhat entertaining. That said, let's get started.
When we checked in on Wednesday afternoon, Seth and I crashed on the bed. We were still recovering from the evil burger in Hiroshima that gave us food poisoning (although any empty restaurant named The Shack on the 5th floor of an obscure building might best be avoided) and just took advantage of the complimentary wifi in the room and chilled for the afternoon. We got a hotel in Shinjuku named the Tokyo Plaza Hotel. I had heard from multiple internet sources that Shinjuku was the place to be and this one was a good deal in that area. The title of the room in booking was a "Korean Star Room" and after weighing the odds in my head that we would really end up in a Korean-style room (i.e. everything is nice but the bed is hard as a rock) I went ahead and took it because why would anybody in the world willingly sleep in a hard bed besides the Koreans. When we walked in, we understood what Korean Star Room meant. There were pictures of a Korean boy band all over the walls (and pillows). If you don't know Super Junior, look them up. It's a band of ten really effeminate, pretty boys who sound kind of like the Backstreet Boys except with way more annoying computer-generated noises going on in their ... uh, music. But the bed was comfortable which was the important thing. Having just left Korea for good, it was more silly than eyeroll-inducing so whatever. On the way out to dinner though (our THIRD rotating sushi bar of the week), we really understood what was going on when we heard the receptionist call to her boss: "Wahn-jahng-NIM!" ("Nay?") "Blah blah blah blah ee-ay-yo?" Seth and I stopped dead in our tracks and looked at each other. "She's Korean!" Seth said. Yes. After living in Korea for two years, I booked a hotel in Korean Town in Tokyo by accident. I'm a little proud.
I had read a lot about Shinjuku before getting to Tokyo -- it's the place with all the quirky restaurants, they said. It's got so many arcades, they said. I'm sure they were right, but the arcades and quirky restaurants did not present themselves to us immediately after leaving the train station the next morning. In fact, Seth and I were staring at a map for a while in the skyscraper district when a very concerned-looking Japanese man appeared next to us. I met his gaze and he asked, "May I 'elp you?" He seemed really relieved when we eventually conveyed that we were just looking for the street where all the geeks want to go, known as Electric Street. "Ah! You can buy many things! Personal computer!" He exclaimed. He told us how to get there (which unfortunately included retracing the progress we had just made for ten minutes) and we were off. We walked into a random store and Seth lost it. I wish I could explain in Geek terms what I saw in this place, but I lack the will and interest involved in learning these things, so I'll just say it was really cool and full of things that Seth liked. There was a Playstation and Microsoft floor, a Nintendo floor, an obscure Japanese game floor, and a Lego floor. This was one building. Makes you wonder what else they could possibly have in the others, although the answer is probably the same stuff. Anyway we left that area and headed over to the Government Metropolitan, where we took the elevator up to the 45th floor and got some views of Tokyo from above. For free. I'll just go ahead and say we saw Tokyo from above THREE TIMES in two days, and this one was free. The other two cost money: the Tokyo tower, built in the '50s, was $9 to go up per person (another $8 for the higher level), and like dummies we didn't do our research for the skytree, which is just a newer fancier version of the tower and costs $20 per person. Another $10 if you wanted to go to the "special observatory" (HA!). I guess the skytree might be the tallest at 350 meters and higher, but if you're not really fixated on going up to the highest level in the sky possible, maybe stick with the freebie. We could still see Mt. Fuji from the Government Metropolitan. Or we could have theoretically, at least. It was a really overcast day.
We had an appointment at 1:30 for a tour at the Imperial Palace of Tokyo. It was free, but you have to apply in advance. It's the same deal for the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, which we were disappointed by when we went to Kyoto and Nara last year so I made sure to be prepared this time. What they don't tell you on the website is that the tour guide doesn't actually speak English, and also that the tour is actually a total waste of your time. Or at least it was not as exciting as we had built it up to be in our heads. Before the tour began, the guide instructed us to listen to numbers 1, 2 and 3 on our 1985 audio devices (with *one* clip-on earpiece) of an Australian woman who hates her job reading slowly into a microphone, and then he proceded to talk for another 15 minutes in Japanese after we had all finished number 3. We waited anxiously for the insider information to be translated, but it never was. For all we know, he could have said, "There will be a free puppy giveaway at the end of the tour for all who express enthusiasm at the north porch of the Fujiyama building" but we had no idea. That's basically how the tour went though: Quickly, he would say "audio numba 5 and 6." Then he spoke in Japanese for a really long time. The audio was a little helpful though. The Australian woman warned us to be really careful on the 15-foot-wide concrete bridge reinforced by stone pillars. "Be sure to stay away from the sides of the bridge," she said (you mean the sidewalk? Next to the stone wall?? ) "And taking pictures is strictly prohibited. Thank you for your cooperation." All the Japanese proceded to take pictures off the bridge. So we did too. And the officials smiled and nodded, but also made sure we stayed away from the dangerous 4-foot wide concrete sidewalk. She also instructed us to be sure to take care on the "steep" 20 degree incline. It was weird. The buildings were kind of old, but some had been destroyed and rebuilt in the '60s, which by the way was just a great era for long, boring slabs of concrete. Anyway, it would be really great to get those 80 minutes of my life back, but c'est la vie.
We headed north next to Akihabara, the "Electric City" part of town (not to be confused with Shinjuku, which has "Electric Street"). Basically there were several buildings with six stories or more, just full of arcade video games. We went into one of them, and after trying and failing at one game which involved large robot thingies running away from each other and being shot, we went a few stories up and did pretty well at a fighting game, where you basically just had to kick and punch your opponent over and over until you knocked them out twice and got to go on to the next round. I made it through 8/10 rounds! Seth made it through 7. Just sayin. Anyway he was happy, he'd gotten his fix after about 15 minutes. But full-on adults go into these places and just go to town on these arcade games, all day. Some of the floors at the bottom were pretty packed. On another note, there are also buildings full of Pachinko machines. What's Pachinko, you ask? Well, it's a slot game. I assume there's betting involved. But the Japanese (especially older people) are really into it. To the untrained eye, you look into the door of a building and it appears as though there's a line of elderly Japanese men and women just sitting in front of arcade games. Seth also looked for Hobby Lobby, which we found the next day with the help of another kind Japanese man who took pity on us gazing at a map for too long, and even guided us there after calling the number in the guide book to inquire as to the location. Um, I find myself at a lack of words again to describe Hobby Lobby. It's not the cool craft store I know and love from home, but rather a store of figurines and accessories for enthusiasts. Seth was so, so happy. I left after about 4 minutes to chill outside and study a map for our next plan of action, while a scantily clad cartoon girl band sang (loudly) and danced for me on several TVs in front of the store. That's right. I said scantily clad cartoon girl band. Just another day in Japan.
We went to at least three shrines in Tokyo. They were all very old, and very pretty (names: Zojoji Temple, Meijin Shrine, and Kanda Myojin) and they all had two giant pillars in the ground, with two more giant perpendicular pillars on top as the entrance gate (see below for a picture of me at the bottom of the Meijin Shrine entrance). I'm pretty sure they were all established before 1000A.D. but one or two had been relocated for one reason or another. We learned that Shintoism and Buddhism are very closely entwined in Japan, which is a nice example for the rest of the world to follow, I thought. It turns out the Japanese people kind of pick and choose from the traditions they like of these religions. For example, at a Shinto shrine, you would see the Buddhist tradition of writing a wish or intention on a wooden placard and hanging it up with the rest of them. Or at either one, you find the long sticks with a cup on the end next to spring water. We learned what to do with these sticks. You're not actually supposed to drink water from them (oops). In fact it's a very specific process. Take the stick in your right hand and pour water on your left. Then transfer it to your wet left hand and pour the water on your right. Then put it back in your now also wet right hand and pour water into your cupped left hand, then take that water into your mouth and swish it around, spit it out into your left hand again, then hold the stick up so the cup part is on top and let the water wash down and clean it and your hands. Then replace the stick! See? Easy. There are also all these ceremonial rules about clapping twice and bowing twice in front of the shrine. Shintoism is about respecting kamis, who are ancestors that used to be really important people in life. I probably just completely over-simplified it and may have pissed someone off, but there's your summary of the combination of a wikipedia article and what we understood from going to the shrines. They have rules at shrines, like don't sit on the steps in front of them and don't stand in the middle but instead off to the side, as it's disrespectful (guess how Seth learned THAT rule).
Have you ever seen a TV special or story about Tokyo? What's the first thing they always show? That crosswalk, right? With all the people who go and traffic just completely stops for them? Well, we found the crosswalk and took pictures of ourselves walking through it like shameless tourists. It's called "Scramble crossing" and that's exactly what it is! That's all. We also went to the Yebisu beer museum (if you know any Japanese beer, it's connected with Sapporo). There was no English tour, but the tiny museum was pretty easy to figure out and we basically learned that Yebisu has done really well because... it's a German beer! They import all their ingredients from Bavaria and follow all the German beer purity laws. They even brought in German brewers when the company started in the 1890s. They had to phase themselves out in the second world war, but made a comeback in the '70s and everybody was happy. Afterward of course we had a beer and ate cheese! I love cheese. The cheese was good. OH CHEESE. Another thing we did was look for the Tsukiji Fish Market! At this famous, enormous market, there's an auction at 5AM every day to sell fish to restaurants and patrons, and it's very exclusive. Naturally there was no way I would get Seth up in time to go see the auction or to have sushi for breakfast, but we looked for it on Friday afternoon. I say "looked for" because SOMEBODY decided we shouldn't take a cab from Tokyo Tower; rather we should just walk since we were feeling better from the food poisoning. Well, this turned into a bad idea. We walked for about two hours. We made one or two large circles because of dead ends (that part was my bad). I knew we wouldn't be able to buy the fish, but there were restaurants inside the fish market that would probably have really good fresh fish! Well, when we finally found the entrance to the market, it turned out there were no drunk people or flip flops allowed (we weren't drunk; I just thought that was a funny sign). And the last thing we did in Tokyo that belongs in this "miscellaneous category" paragraph was go to Yanesen, the historical district. It was the final act on Friday night after two completely packed days of touring and I can't tell you much about it except that my feet hurt. And there were some cats. People sold things. Supposedly there was another temple but we had no more energy. I'm surprised we even went.
No Tokyo experience is complete without one last experience on a subway, crammed to the sardine level of crowds. I didn't have my 90L backpack, but I couldn't turn around. And this was after Yanesen, when our feet and legs were so tired we could hardly function. It was the longest subway ride of my life. Until we got to sit down when many people left and a million more got on. An old man stood in front of me as soon as I sat down and against my will I kindly offered him my seat, but he smiled and waved me off. I must have looked pretty rough.
Oh yeah, the food. I wish I had more to report about what we ate, but we literally had sashimi FOUR TIMES, in Tokyo alone. Sashimi is a form of sushi -- it's just a rice ball with a piece of fish on top. Once was at the same restaurant near our hotel. Once was at a made-to-order place (as opposed to the conveyor belt sushi bars, where your food just keeps coming to you with no end) and I now will never forget: raw and cooked mackerel, sea eel, the different colors of (especially red) tuna, snow crab legs, boiled and deep sea shrimp, raw salmon, and sardine! The sardine was not particularly salty. I feel like that should be known, and also as though I have been deceived. Otherwise we also had a "beef bowl," which is spicy, garlic-y strips of beef over a bowl of rice. I should emphasize "garlic-y," because I really tasted garlic for the rest of the night (that is until we ate sashimi again). Man that was good too.
So now we're on the train bound for Osaka, cruising through the Japanese countryside at around 150mph. One more night in Japan, and I'll have to write about that en route to Kathmandu tomorrow! The weather is not supposed to be nice, but I've been making silent deals with the Shinto weather kamis in my head and they've been coming through for me in Tokyo.
Sayonara! :)
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