Tokyo!

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I don’t even know where to begin cramming 10 days of Japan into a blog entry. Tokyo and Kyoto will be separate entries.

TOKYO:

We were in Tokyo for 5 days from Dec 28-Jan 2. Let me start by saying that there are pros and cons to visiting Japan around New Year. The cons center around the fact that many things were closed, people were out of town, etc. The pros are being able to see how the people celebrate New Year and being part of the madness (to be detailed later).

Let me start by saying I highly recommend obtaining the Japan Rail pass for anyone planning to visit more than one city in Japan. Getting around is insanely expensive ( we were spending upwards of $30/person/day on subway travel alone). The rail pass was about $300 (I live in Korea so I’m not sure how much it costs in dollars exactly). But we were able to take the train to and from Kyoto and to Nara, along with being able to use it on JR subway lines and JR busses. Be careful, you MUST get the rail pass before you get to Japan, and the process is pretty frustrating, especially if you wait til the last minute like we did. Look into it though, it’s definitely worth it.

We stayed at Sakura Hotel Hatagaya, which is a chain in Japan. It was very small, but quite nice and conveniently located.

I’m not even going to try to detail what we did day by day so I will just break it down by places we went.

ASAKUSA

This is a pretty touristy place so we did not know what to expect but it ended up being one of our favorite outings. Along with hundreds of souvenir shops, street food vendors, and crowds of people, there are actually quite a few Buddhist temples and sites to see. One of the most famous sights is the 5 story pagoda, which is definitely impressive. Plan on spending an entire day here, and if you have any souvenir shopping to get done, this is the place. We tried some of the street food but weren’t terribly impressed. We had the octopus and vegetable fried balls, which were OK but a little mushy. I do recommend the Japanese traditional sweet bread, it is delicious!

ELECTRONICS DISTRICT

Definitely a place for any technology fans. I wasn’t terribly impressed because I’m not very big on the newest technology but it was definitely fun to visit and check out for a few hours. Lots of comic book shops and stores with crazy gadgets. Worth a visit if you have the time but you can definitely skip it if needed.

TOKYO IMPERIAL PALACE

The residence of the emperor of Japan. It’s closed to the public every day EXCEPT January 2nd, too bad we left on the 1st though. The grounds of the palace are massive, and surrounded by a rather nice moat. We spent several hours walking around the perimeter of the palace. There are 2 gardens that are normally open to the public but were closed when we were visiting. I heard they are amazing and definitely worth a visit. It was nice to stroll around the palace and see the architecture. Very delicate Japanese-style buildings built on top of and surrounded by what looked like fort walls. Interesting.

HARAJUKU

So this is the place to see the insane fashion of Japan. We, however, did not see much because we went on New Years day so it was not as exciting as I imagine it to be on other weekends. One of the great sights in Harajuku is the Meiji Jingu shrine, one of the biggest and most famous shrines in Tokyo. Again, due to the madness of New Year, we couldn’t get to the actual shrine, but were able to visit the gardens of the shrine, which were beautiful, even in the dead of winter.

While randomly walking around Harajuku we stumbled on an art gallery (again, CLOSED, but the coffee shop was open and the grounds were beautiful). I don’t remember the name of the place but if you’re just strolling around the area you’re bound to find it. The entire building is painted/decorated by various artists. Everything from vending machines to fences is decorated in different and unique styles. We grabbed a cup of coffee on the terrace—it was definitely worth seeing.

ROPPONGI

This was one of my favorite places in Tokyo. The Tokyo Tower, along with Zojoji Temple are located in Roppongi.

The Tokyo Tower is a great thing to see, cross off your sightseeing list, and move on. It costs about $13 to get to the top observation deck (there are 2 but the lower one is not worth it) and the line was tremendous. We opted not to do that and went to another observation deck elsewhere which turned out to be much better (details to follow).

Directly across the street from the tower is Zojoji temple, which is one of Tokyo’s major temples. This was definitely one of my favorite temples in Japan, and probably my favorite in Tokyo. There is a rather large forest area with a little waterfall, and even though it was winter it was fairly green. The inside the temple is beautiful, golden, and elaborate without being over the top. The grounds of the temple were decorated for New Years so it made for a pleasant and peaceful stroll.

We went to a great and fairly cheap sushi place in Roppongi. I forget the name but it was right next to the Don Quixote store.

Roppongi is also quite nice in the evening. The Tokyo Tower was lit up and it was especially done up for the new year. This was also the are with the great observation deck, located in Mori Tower. I highly recommend visiting this place in the evening. The observation area is on the 52nd floor, along with the Mori Art Museum. It costs about $15 to go to the observation deck but it includes the museum. We couldn’t have gone at a better time, they were having an exhibit called “Medicine and Art” which was entirely about medicinal influence on art and vice versa. Definitely up my alley. It was probably one of the best exhibits I have ever seen, and that’s saying a lot. There is a free audio guide that comes with it that added a lot of interesting information to the installations. Many original works by Da Vinci and plenty of modern artists. The layout of the exhibit was also great. I enjoyed it tremendously!

After the exhibit we walked around the observation area, which gives you a 360 degree of Tokyo. It was beautiful! Tokyo is massive and so densely packed. We then decided to grab a drink at the lounge and ended up staying for about 3 hours, talking, ordering delicious tapas, and tasty drinks. One of my favorite evenings in Tokyo, I looooooove cityscapes and this was way better than any view from the Tokyo Tower (plus you could see the tower from here, it was great).

SHIBUYA

Shibuya is probably what people think of when they think of Tokyo. Lots of tall buildings, neon, thousands of people. Just overall madness. This is also where the busiest intersection in the world is located and trust me, it’s a sight to see. When the light turns green swarms of people cross any which way. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen. A very fun place to walk around and visit a Panchiko/slot casino. Every visitor to Japan must at least set foot in a Panchiko casino. First of all the music is playing insanely loud and I still don’t think I quite understand the game. We decided to play for 1,000 yen, in about 3 minutes it was all gone and were still extremely confused about the point of the game. Regardless, it was fun.

There are tons of great restaurants and bars in Shibuya. We went to a great one called Candy Bar that played some of the best jazz I’ve ever heard. The bartender was very old school and definitely knew what he was doing. Shibuya is the place to go for the sensory overload that Tokyo is known for.

SHINJUKU

Very similar to Shibuya but perhaps not as busy. Also fun to walk around in at night, also home to many casinos and fun bars. One of the recommended districts of Tokyo. I found it to be similar to Shibuya and about as much of a sensory overload.


TSUKIJI FISH MARKET

Last but most definitely not least is the fish market. I had the best sushi of my LIFE here. Nothing will ever compare now that I have had sushi at the fish market. This is definitely not an exaggeration, this place was fantastic. We woke up at 4:30am to head to the market. We heard that it is busiest (and thus most fun to see) before 8am. We headed over to the market, which was definitely massive and very very busy. It was a blast seeing the locals bargaining, and the fishermen carving up fish. Some were using mechanical saws on large, frozen fish. A sight to see for sure. I still think the Busan fish market in Korea was more impressive though. The layout was better and it felt larger and more diverse.

Anyhow, after strolling through the market we headed to the outside area, which has dozens of little sushi restaurants, all of which had ridiculous lines to get in. We settled on one place, stood in line for an hour, then were led in to a small, unpretentious little restaurant. We were seated at a table, cafeteria style, with other people. We ordered our sushi—random fish, much of which we had never even tried before. A giant plate arrives and we devour it happily. This fish was so fresh! I don’t think I could stress enough that any sushi lover MUST make it to this fish market at some point in his/her life. Oh, it’s also quite an experience eating an entire sushi meal at like 10am. anyhow, the total was just under $60 for 2 people, devouring massive quantities of ridiculously fresh, delicious sushi. Definitely worth the trip!

NEW YEARS EVE 2010

We didn’t really have a plan for NYE other than wanting to try fugu (blowfish). We found a great fugu restaurant in Shibuya online and made reservations. The standard way of serving a fugu dinner is to prepare the fish in different ways. The course we chose prepared the fish in (I think) 5 different ways: sashimi, in a little salad, 2 types of boiled, and fried. The sashimi was definitely my favorite although the other ways were great as well. I was told that you were supposed to feel a little tingle in your lips after eating it, but neither of us really had that. Regardless, great meal, and only cost about $80 for the 2 of us, can’t beat that.

Then we decided to go to the busiest intersection again, since we were in Shibuya we figured this was where the NYE action would be. As soon as it struck midnight (there was no formal countdown, just some random people screaming when it hit midnight on their watches) the insanity began. People began running back and forth across the intersection high-fiving each other (we partook, of course). This went on for close to an hour, at which point we ran into some French people who told us that it would be to see what goes at some of the temples and shrines for the New Year. Apparently for New Year Buddhists visit the temples and shrines by the thousands (for the bigger shrines, tens of thousands). We walked to the Meiji Jingu shrine in Harajuku, which was crowded far beyond the actual entrance so we didn’t even attempt to get it. However, it was still fun to see and be a small part of the tradition in Japan.

RANDOM THINGS/FOOD

Subway:
We found the Japanese subway system to be extremely efficient but quite confusing and expensive. The subway system in Japan is privatized, so different companies own different batches of lines. So, that makes transferring rather difficult and expensive. Like I said, we were spending about $30/person/day on the subway alone, and a lot of the time we had to ask how much to pay for the ride because we couldn’t figure it out. Luckily we had my handy dandy Tokyo subway map app on my iPod so we were able to map out our routes fairly easily.

Food:
We were on a budget so we didn’t sample a whole lot of food but what we had was great. Of course, sushi tops the dining experience by far, followed closely by the fugu course dinner. The small dinners in between were great too. I really enjoyed trying different kinds of ramen. Oh, and ordering from the little vending machine looking things was fun too. You pick what you want on a machine, pay, then bring your ticket to the counter and they make your food, very efficient and fun. Overall we ate well. I have to say, sushi aside, I enjoy Korean food a lot more (not that there is any reason to compare, but I definitely missed Korean food while in Japan).

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS OF TOKYO

I thoroughly enjoyed Tokyo. I am very glad that we made it the first part of our trip, because it was definitely exhausting. The sheer quantity of people and crowdedness of the streets was overwhelming at times, and the tiny hotel room didn’t help. I loved it though. The people we encountered in various parts of Japan were extremely friendly and helpful. Not one unfriendly or rude person! All we had to do was look mildly confused about where to go and people would come up to us, ask if we needed help, and go out of their way to tell us where to go. We both thought the sensory overload of Tokyo was a bit much, so it was nice that the next part of our Japan trip was Kyoto which was definitely more relaxing and the historic sightseeing leg of our trip.

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