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Konnichiwa from Tokyo, my spiritual home. There are no words for how much I love this place you guys. Everything is so brightly coloured and cute. It's just... made for me.
Anyway, so after my last blog in Shanghai we went to a market there where I bought one of those bendy tripods for my camera for £3, some (probably fake) Converse for about £13.50 and proved that I am terrible at haggling by ending up spending about £19 on a notebook for my mum and a pack of 10 sets of chopsticks as presents for various people... Yeeeeeah I got ripped off there! So I let Ralph do the haggling for the other stuff!
We left China behind on the 6th (I can't even remember what do that was, days and time are blurring at the moment!) on what is essentially the Ryan Air of China, Chian Air, if you will. We flew to an airport called Ibaraki, which as you would expect from Chian Air, is to Tokyo what Southampton airport is to London. Yeah, that far. But it was cheap, so that's why we did it. Hilarously, Ibaraki is also a military airport, which we didn't know until we were landing and looked out the window and saw fighter jets on the runway!
We arrived at Ibaraki and headed for the nearest ATM machine to try and get some Yen, only it wouldn't take foreign cards. Crap. The staff at the information desk took pity on us however and bought some Chinese Yuen off us, which I suspect was just out of their own pocket. So we had just enough money to get the bus to Tokyo and to buy one meal between us to share, since, oh yes, the bus to Tokyo at 2pm was full so we had to wait until the next one. At 6pm. Also, we hadn't had time to have breakfast. Or lunch. Suffice to say, we were hungry, so one meal between two was not ideal.
Eventually we got on the bus (which was practically empty, WTF?) and got to Tokyo station. We then headed straight to the nearest ATM which... didn't take foreign cards. CRAP. Cue the scariest two hours of my life as we wandered around Tokyo with literally no money and a string of failed ATM withdrawls behind us. This was at like 9pm so none of the banks or foreign exchanges were open either. Eventually we found a Citibank which would take foreign cards so we took out like £300 worth of Yen whilst sobbing quietly in relief. Going to Hong Kong alone to attempt to get my Russian visa is going to seem ike a cake walk in comparison to that, I'm telling ya!
So with money in our wallets we hopped into a cab to our hostel and pretty much fell asleep on arrival. The next day we walked out of the hostel and realised we were right next to Senso-Ji which is one of the biggest Buddist Temples in Tokyo, with a Shinto shrine right next door. Apparantly the Japanese are pretty flexible with their religions and will visit one temple for certain events like births, and the other for other events, like deaths.
After wandering around the temple for a bit we had a wander around Asakusa, which is the district our hostel is in. We then hopped on the subway (which is hella confusing, by the way, as ther are several different companies running different lines) and headed to Roppongi, which is a new upmarket district with some cool buildings in it. So we wandered around there for a while, then came back to the hostel for a bit to get changed, then headed out to Shibuya with the intention of going to a bar or something for the evening. Shibuya has a famous crossing where all traffic in all directions stops at once and all the pedestrians just swarm across the round. We of course went there and took touristy photos. We then wandered around a bit, as it's a really cool area and looks kind of how you'd expect Tokyo to look, then had some dinner, then failed to find a bar and went back to the hostel.
Today we went first of all to an area called Odaiba which again has really cool buildings (where in Tokyo doesn't?) and went to the Toyota Mega Web, which is essentially a massive Toyota showroom, complete with 'History Garage' and driving simulations. Ralph loved it. I just loved that it was in a complex called Pallette Town! (That's a Pokemon reference, for those not cool enough to get it)
We then headed off to Akibahara which is the 'Electric Town' of Tokyo. That looked even more like you imagine Tokyo to look than Shibuya. Ralph bought a pair of binoculars, I have no idea why. And then dragged us into the other thing that Akibahara is famous for, Maid Cafes. That's right, a cafe where the waitresses are dressed up in highly revealing maid's outfits, and you have your own personal maid who spends the entire time talking to you, and if you're a guy, flirting with you. The maids wander round the streets trying to get people to come to their cafe's, so as soon as one spoke in English to us we went with her. The whole thing was just so awkward and seedy, and expensive. I had some cake and a Dr Pepper and the whole thing cost me nearly £30. Bloody Ralph.
I want to say that I got my own back this evening by dragging him to somewhere I wanted to go to, but he enjoyed it too so it wasn't really revenge. We went to an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant and it. was. AMAZING. I have such a thing for Alice in Wonderland. I would totally love to open one in Bristol, they won't sue me 'cuz they'll never find out, right? Oh and we also wasted some money in an arcade, they are EVERYWHERE here, as are vending machines, seriously, everywhere.
Tomorrow we are going to go to Harajuku and get our Gwen Stefani on. Or at least I will. I plan to do a lot of shopping, and hopefully see some cool people in awesome clothes. We're also going to meet up with a Japanese girl I knew from Uni for some sushi, because we're in Japan, it must be done.
Did I mention that I LOVE THIS PLACE?
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fififolle
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Woohoo!! Awesome. *hugs* (except ATM thing, ackk!!)