A Sunday in Tokyo

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Tuesday 8/1/06

Ok here it is…the Tokyo entry!! *cheers* Well Tokyo was…ok. I mean it was cool, don’t get me wrong, there were some awesome things to see, things you could never find anywhere else in the world, but honestly, I prefer Gifu. I know I know, you can all look at me quizzically now, but in Gifu the air is cleaner, the trains are less crowded, the people are WAY nicer, and stuff is a hell of a lot cheaper. You want sticker shock, go to Tokyo, where you will pay $20 for a burger and fries. No joke. Ok, now that I have that out of my system, let me tell you about some of the fun stuff we did! When I first arrived in Tokyo I was, to put it mildly, in awe. Massive buildings reaching sky high, each made of different colors of reflective glass. It was really cool to see the reflection of the shinkansen as it pulled into the station, I wish I would have taken a picture of that. When I got to the station I called Tetsuya who told me where to meet him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get out of the gate because, as it turns out, I didn’t buy my tickets properly. It turns out I needed 2 types of tickets, one for my seat and one for the privilege of riding the Shinkansen. So I had to pay and extra $60 to get out of the gate. Round trip price to Tokyo $200 instead of the $80 that I had thought…*sigh* Anyway I finally met up with Testsuya and it was great. We went from Tokyo station to Shinjuku station where we met his fiancé, Ayako. She is so cute!! She is very pretty and very smart, and she works in the financial industry as well in insurance. So they both live and work in Tokyo and will continue to do so after they get married either this Winter or Summer. Our first stop was to Jackson Hole, which is the restaurant prominently featured in Nana (one of my fave anime/manga series). It was really cool to see it in real life!! I’m sure they’ve gotten loads of business since the movie and anime came out. Unfortunately, it was Sunday, so it was closed : ( But even if I didn’t get to go in I still got to see it, so I was wicked happy! Actually, if was pretty cool, that day was one in which they were promoting the release of the Nana anime DVD so they had this massive truck playing music from the anime soundtrack driving all around the city. I must have seen it go by at least 7 different times that day. Yay Nana!! Since we couldn’t eat at Jackson we decided to eat at this Thai place that they liked. The food was really delicious and spicy, yum! After lunch we went to Harajuku, which is, well, a world in itself. It was so packed that it took us ten min just to get out of the ticket gate at the station. There were loads of foreigners, probably the most I have seen since I’ve been here. When we finally left the station we came to Harajuku bridge, which is where all the cosplayers are. Essentially cosplayers are people who dress up as characters from different mangas/anime or in certain fashions made popular in mangas/anime. For instance, Lolita style and Gothic Lolita style have become extremely popular. 60’s Brit Punk Fashion is also in style. Lots of high platform shoes, high socks, lace, dyed hair, heavy make up and highly unusual clothing styles defined what I saw there outside Harajuku station. It was really cool though, because these people love to have their pictures taken and will pose for you. So I got a couple of good pics. Right next to the bridge area was the entrance to the Meiji shrine, which is the shrine of the emperor. There was a gate and then a really long walkway, maybe ½ a mile long, leading to the shrine. Tetsuya told me that it was tradition not to walk through the gate or in the middle of the pathway leading to shrine, because that was reserved for the gods, so we went around and walked along the sides of pathway. I did notice that only foreigners we walking in the middle and all the Japanese people were walking along the sides with us. Oh well, I’m sure I’ve committed loads of faux pas since I’ve been here that no one has mentioned. Anyway the shrine was big and pretty cool. We say priests holding services and there were massive stands of fruits and vegetables in front of the priests area. There was also this massive wall next to the shrine made of empty sake barrels given as gifts to the shrine. It was really beautiful actually. Very cool. After the shrine we went to the main street in Harajuku which was, like, ridiculously packed. Tetsuya put it perfectly when he said it resembled a sea of people. It really was astounding. The street itself was cool though, lots of shops and stores selling various clothing and accessories. It actually reminded me a lot of Camden market in London—lots of cosplay, hippie, and punk style shops. I wish I could have afforded to buy even half a sock at these shops, but my poor Gifu paycheck just couldn’t do it : ( Oh well, it was really cool to see! We ducked into a small coffee shop for a break from the heat, where I paid $3 for a glass of coke 😉 I showed Tetsu and Aya chan pictures of Gifu and my workplace and all my friends here. They said they might come and visit me here before I leave! How cool would that be?? We then decided to go to Shibuya which was also very cool. We went to this massage parlor where you could get any massage you wanted for about $1 a minute—which is really good!! In the states it’s what, like $150/hour? So I got a 10 min massage to see if I liked it (my first massage!!), and Tetsuya and Ayako chan got 30 min massages. It was so relaxing, but it also kind of hurt. I’ll have to tell them to do it softer next time. Next we went to a manga kisa, which is essentially a home away from home and a very cheap place for travelers to stay. For about $5/hr you get your own little room either with a bed type couch or recliner. In each of these rooms is a computer that also functions as a television, DVD player, CD player, and play station game console. Outside the room area is literally a library full of all the manga and magazines you could ever want to read. There is also a wide selection of anime and movies to watch. You also get as many free drinks as you want, and can order food at any time from a menu the have. These places are a good getaway for teenagers, young adults who are still living with their parents, and cheap accommodations for poor student travelers. So as long as you don’t mind sleeping on a couch, it’s a great place to get away. The three of us hung out there together for about an hour. They didn’t have a room for three people at that time, so Tetsuya and Ayako took one and I took another. It was cool. I had a good time just browsing through all the different manga and playing playstation in the air-conditioning. It was definitely as fun place to relax. On the way out of the manga kisa we passed a photo booth, so the three of us took pictures there. After the photos are taken by the machine, you can decorate them on a computer thing with lots of different frames and effects. So we decorated our pictures and picked the ones we liked the best and printed them out. The best thing about these photos is that they are actually stickers! You see lots of teenagers here with these mini pics on their phones, so of course I stuck one on mine, and on my computer as well 😉 hehehe!! So cute!!! By the time we were finished we were really hungry so we had a really lovely dinner at this nice Italian restaurant nearby. I had this mango and strawberry daqueri that was absolutely fabulous!! We had such a good time eating and talking and laughing that time just flew by. When we left the restaurant we made one last stop before heading home. We went to Shibuya main square which was the one they showed in Lost in Translation, for any of you that saw it. The buildings, lights and number of people were all massive. It was really cool and made the whole trip worth it for that one view. I don’t know why, but my pics from there came out really blurry, so I’m kinda bummed about that, but I did get one really good one. By this time it had gotten pretty late so Aya-chan went home and Tetsuya and I headed back to Tokyo station where I caught the 9:00pm train back to Nagoya. I literally slept all the way home! It was a great, super-fun experience and I’m really happy I got to go, but I am happy to be back in Gifu!! However, I definitely want to back again when I come back next summer and spend a few days there exploring everything, since I only saw a very teeny tiny miniscule section of what Tokyo has to offer. In other news, Today I am moving homestays, so I’m very interested to see what life will be like with people I have never met before. I’ll keep you updated!

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Photos

can u see the priests?
sorry this didn't come out so clearly : (

Tetsu and Aya chan in the Italian Restaurant
so cute!!!

Shibuya 3--this is the building shown in Lost in Translation with the Dinosaur walking across
Huge hey??