Advertisement
Published: June 15th 2008
Tokyo
Our first Japanese meal back in Tokyo - Ramen. Delicious!We had one of the best experiences of our lives the last time we were in Japan. So, needless to say after the earthquake adventure and several sleepless nights we'd had in China, we were very happy to arrive back in Japan. It felt like going home.
The four of us arrived in Tokyo just in time for a great bowl of ramen for lunch. We stayed near Shinjuku which made seeing the sights a lot easier than when we used to live further out. We showed Johnny and Mike around Shinjuku and Kabuki-Cho before stopping at an Izakaya for some beer and tasty Japanese snacks. We enjoyed edamame, daikon salad, yakitori, a few rice dishes, and many types of sushi at the izakaya. It was excellent! We continued on to Kabuki-Cho, Tokyo's red-light district, and ended up at the Golden Gai for a mini pub crawl. The Golden Gai is a great area. Dozens of tiny bars, so small some can only accommodate about 5 people standing up. Each bar has a unique theme and what makes the area so charming is popping next door for a drink and seeing what new people you'll meet. We had a blast.
The first bar was a Spanish/Flamenco inspired bar with guitars on the wall. Next thing you know (and after a few drinks) Travis had the guitar pushed into his hands and was rattling off an old song. We had many laughs with the other customers there and took lots of silly pictures. We decided to change our location every few drinks and the second place we ended up at was a classic rock themed bar. There were only six of us in there but we had a laugh. The third bar we ended up at was a cool, three story bar where the customers were playing connect four. Of course we had to try too and they kept beating us until Travis got in a lucky win, at which point the bartender challenged Travis. Travis lost and had to pay the penalty of a shot of fire vodka! Acchhh! There was also a young man passed out (face down) on the bar the entire time we were there. A very fun and funny night.
The next morning we checked out the
Sanja Matsuri festival at Asakusa. Teams of men and women parade their
Mikoshi in honour of the festival.
It was quite a sight and very crowded. After the festival we headed to Akihabara to check out the electronics. For dinner we went to Roppongi and ate at an excellent Thai restaurant. After dinner we headed over to the Cavern Club - an exact replica of the club from Liverpool that the Beatles made famous. The club hosts Beatles tribute bands and we stuck around for two of their shows which were strangely fantastic. John, Paul, George and Ringo, all Japanese, and we loved it! Such classic music you really can't go wrong.
Sunday we got up and did a bit of shopping. Mike and Travis had huge success and shopped up a storm! Michelle left with only one item! It was fun to check out all the cool Japanese styles. We grabbed some sandwiches for lunch and then went over to Yoyogi Park - a great place on a Sunday. You can see just about everything there: families picnicking, friends playing guitar and frisbee, drum circles, violinists, nun chuck practicers, rock bands and rockabillies! On our previous visits to Yoyogi we had never seen the rockabillies before, they were pretty entertaining. Basically, they were a bunch of
40-year olds dressed like extras from the movie Grease. They played 50s and 60s tunes and danced around! One guy had his hair greased so high - it was about a foot above his head!
We continued on to Harajuku and Omentesando (shopping district). We walked from there to Shibuya. Of course we had to show Mike and Johnny the great view (from Starbucks) of one of the busiest intersections in Japan! Michelle wanted to get her hair cut before she came home, so she convinced everyone else to come along. Travis and Michelle got cuts and Johnny and Mike just got their hair washed and head massaged! We grabbed something to eat at a Japanese restaurant nearby and then went back to the hotel.
Monday morning we woke up early to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. Everything went pretty smoothly until we arrived in Kyoto. Japanese trains are notoriously on time. It really is amazing. You can set your watch to their arrival. Normally it's a great thing, but I guess we took a little too long getting off the Shinkansen at Kyoto, because Mike, Travis, and Johnny reached the platform and looking over their
shoulders saw the doors starting to close. Where's Michelle!? She was still on the train! Luckily the next stop was only 15 minutes away so we were all back together before too long and we could have a laugh about it!
Kyoto is such a beautiful city and such a contrast to Tokyo. Instead of skyscrapers and current culture, the city is loaded with shrines and tradition. We thought it would be cool for Mike and Johnny to see. We stayed at a traditional Japanese inn (a ryokan), called Yachiyo. It was really beautiful and gave us the feeling of staying in a traditional Japanese home. Mike, Travis and Michelle went for a walk down the Path of Philosophy to see the Ginkaju Temple. We rested at the inn for a bit before heading out to dinner. We ate one of our favourite Japanese meals that night - Suki-Shabu...a combination of shabu-shabu and sukiyaki. Johnny and Mike both really enjoyed it and we had some more good talks and laughs. We finished the night with a few drinks at an Irish pub of all places!
Our second day in Kyoto we took a walking tour through some of
the temples. We had an excellent guide, Tetsuya, who knew a lot about the area. We visited
Kiyomizu-dera which was a beautiful temple up higher in the hills surrounding Kyoto, so you get a great view of the city. In the afternoon Mike, Travis and Michelle toured Nijo-jo (Nijo Castle) and had some traditional green tea in a beautiful Japanese tea garden. We were going back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen at about 8pm, so we had dinner on the Pontocho (and Mike and Travis spotted a Geisha!) and went to train station.
On our last full day in Tokyo we did something we had wanted to do when we were in Japan before, but never got a chance. We attended a Sumo Tournament!!! It was a great experience - so exciting. We weren't sure if we would like it but it was really interesting to watch and it follows so much tradition. We got to see the Bulgarian Ozeki (2nd highest rank)
Kotooshu beat one of the two Japanese Yokozunas (Highest rank)
Asashoryu. It was an amazing round of Sumo, and the final match of the day. All of the fans were so riled up with the upset
that they started throwing their seat cushions at the ring! It was crazy and great to be a part of. Kotooshu ended up winning the whole 15 day tournament with a record of 14 wins and 1 loss.
For our last dinner we went to the the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Hotel in Shinjuku. The restaurant and bar have amazing views of all of Tokyo - the twinkling city lights seem to go on forever. We had a few drinks in the piano bar before going to the restaurant. Of course we snapped a few pictures of Mike at the bar like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. The food was phenomenal and we enjoyed talking and laughing about some of our memories from the last few weeks.
We didn't fly out of Tokyo until the afternoon, so we figured we'd use every last minute we had in Japan to sightsee!!! Travis, Mike and Michelle got up at 4am to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market. It probably is a little early to be smelling so much fish and seafood and walk through fish guts - but it's such an amazing place to see. We were
Tokyo - Park Hyatt Hotel
Our final dinner at the New York Grill restaurant on the 52nd floor. You can see amazing views of the Tokyo skyline. lucky enough to see the tuna auction this time, which was pretty interesting. The auctioneers all had their own techniques (voices and dances!) for going through the auction. By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost 7am. We went back to bed and then got up and checked out by 12pm to head to the airport.
On the flight back we tried to stay up to reset our internal clocks to Toronto time. Travis did this by watching all five of the available movies. Michelle ended up nodding off. Neither of us felt like our strategy worked though! We've been pretty jet-lagged since we returned home.
The return flight was a 13 hour flight from Tokyo to Washington D.C. followed by a 1 hour flight from D.C. to Toronto. We have travelled all over Asia for the last few months and have experienced some off the beaten path airports, but we haven't had one problem until we reached the airport in the nation's capital of the land of the free, home of the brave. The problem was far too many people were on connecting flights through the airport and in less than an hour
we (along with hundreds of other people) had to weave through a massive lineup to grab our bags then lineup again to get the bags x-rayed, then drop the bags in a disorganized bag drop (we heard one man say "Goodbye bag, it was nice knowing you!"), then lineup for the shuttle bus, then take the shuttle bus, then literally sprint to make the plane. The ticket lady said to us "GO GO GO!" and we made the plane with 2 minutes left before it took off. We said to each other "there's no way our bags made this plane" and we were right. They had to be delivered to our house late the following day.
Arriving back to Toronto was fantastic. Beautiful blue skies and the small plane we were on did a fly-over of our condo building which was like seeing an old friend. Definitely the best thing about coming back was seeing friends and family and enjoying some home-cooked meals!!!
We really appreciate everyone who took the time to read the blogs and followed along our trip with us. We loved getting your comments and emails and hearing what you were up to back home.
Toronto - Back Home!
First stop, Tim Horton's!!! Thank you!
There's not too much more we can say about our trip except it was the best thing we have ever done! The decision to put our lives on hold in Toronto and explore another part of the world is one we'll never regret. We have no doubt there will be many more adventures and explorations in our life together, in fact now that we're back, we can't wait for the next one!!!
Love Michelle & Travis
Advertisement
Tot: 0.243s; Tpl: 0.026s; cc: 15; qc: 84; dbt: 0.1065s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
