Advertisement
Published: June 27th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Tokyo Taawaaa-----
The great Tokyo Tower! the sight all Parisians hate to see Dec 30 - So... Tokyo! It was a madhouse! All those people at 5 am! (That was when we arrived) We arrived at Shinjuku and i arranged to meet Ayako at around 7 am in the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. We met and she took me to this temple in Harajuku because all the stores open at 11. Harajuku is a shopping district for young people and the prices are pretty reasonable, but because i was saving up for my trip i didnt buy anything. hohum. Ayako also took me to Shibuya another shopping district and I met Sophie there to discuss our travel plans for going back to Osaka. Later on Ayako and I went to Asakusa to see a small temple with the giant red lantern and then we met Kathleen (atenean student studying in Ayako's univ) and we went to Ayako's house. Her house is so far from Tokyo it costs about 1000 yen one way to get there. Anyways, we had dinner at her place and we slept until very early the next day because we were set to go to Yokohama.
Dec 31- Going to Yokohama, Ayako (with her mom, dad and older sister)
Shibuya
One of my favorite places in the whole world. Amazing buildings, knock out fashion and the biggest organized stampede to cross the street. me and Kathleen took the undersea road. Its the road built under sea level that connects Tokyo to Yokohama. We went to this sightseeing spot called Uminohotaru (Sea fireflies) where you get a view of the ocean and where you can spend a couple of hours wondering how the hell they were able to make that road under there. In Yokohama, its such a pity that they only took us to Chinatown (its supposed to be the biggest chinatown in the world) but we only went down one street because Ayako doesnt want being out in the cold. Then we went to a chinese eat all you can and then another snowstorm brewed up and the major highways were closed. It was awful because it only took us about 30 minutes to go to Yokohama and it took us 4 hours to get back to Tokyo. We drove past Tokyo Tower and Ginza (The most expensive shopping district in Japan, here we saw the biggest Chanel store in the world) and then we went back to the house. I was pretty disappointed because what were supposed to do then is just watch TV until New Years and I didnt really
Meiji Shrine
In the heart of crazed Harajuku stands the peaceful and majestic Meiji shrine, perfect for a quiet walk to contemplate the atrocities of life. want to do that. Viviane and Sophie emailed me regarding a new years countdown in Tokyo Tower and a visit to a shrine afterwards but Ayako said i could not go because the monorail would be closed. I was really saddened by this and i felt really pathetic watching TV for new years but after a while I figured its all good coz this was how real Japanese people spend their new years.
Jan 1. I insisted to Ayako that I really wanted to go to Disney Sea. Finally, after much prodding, Ayako finally agreed to go to Disney Sea with me and Kathleen and it was really fun. It was soooo cold but i enjoyed myself very much. The little mermaid castle was soooo pretty and the shows were fantastic too! Disney Sea is different from Disneyland because there were not so much Disney characters, but it was more on the shows. A friend of mine said if you're a kid, you should go to Disneyland, but if you're an adult then go to Disney sea. The rides were pretty lame but the sights were cool. Theres a mediterranean theme, then aladdin, then little mermaid,
famous red lantern of Asakusa
The huge red lantern hangs in front of the temple entrance. ayako was nice enough to take me there then discovery and new america, etc. We watched most of the shows and rode the rides and just walked around. My favorite was the Little Mermaid theater show. Its like this aerial dance where Ariel was attached to a swing that is lifted in the air and she twirls and flips in the air like shes swimming in water and the entire theater was filtered with different kinds of light so it gives the feeling of being underwater. It was just weird because first she will sing in english and then break off into a high pitched "Minna san! Konnichiwa!". I will never look at Little Mermaid in the same way.... again.
It was also cool because I saw Mickey and Minnie and Donald and Pluto and the Chipmunks in kimonos for the new years celebration program. It was really fun, I kinda felt bad when we had to leave. The ending show BraviSEAmo is this water and lights and fire show on the Disney bay This huge body of water that is part of the Sea but is made to look like a bay. Its a story about how the water spirit and fire dragon met
Umihotaru
nice look out spot over the sea that holds the undersea road connecting Tokyo to Yokohama. etc etc. It was really beautiful because the water effects really looked like a woman and there was a dragon coming out of the water (the dragon was made of fiberglass or something and looked painfully scrawny) but the water, lights and music was very dramatic, it really moved me. It would have been great though, had there not been all these people taller than me standing in my way. thus i had to stand on tip toe the entire time. Unfortunately, the wind was pretty strong so all the shows were showed in an alternate format. But still, they were all so good and I really enjoyed myself.
On the way home from Disney sea, I could see that Ayako was really miserable because of the cold and I felt it would not be too good to bother her anymore with going out. So I emailed all my friends in Tokyo to ask if they can adopt me for a couple of days and Sophie mailed me back to say that I can stay at her friends place where Viviane is also staying. This made me really happy and i told Ayako about this, and
Yokohama Chinatown
Cleanest china town you'll ever see she looked really happy about it too and poof! Good everyones happy. So the next day, I packed my bags and she walked me and Kathleen to the train station where I arranged to meet Robin, another friend of mine and we went to the Imperial Palace together. It was a crazy affair because we had to stay in line for about 40 minutes and then when we finally got to the place in front of the balcony, the imperial family came out (they stood behind bulletproof glass windows) and waved for approximately 5 minutes, The emperor gave a speech (lasted about a minute) and I couldnt hear it because all these people were cheering and waving Japan flags and getting in my way I had to stay on my toes again. After that they walked away and i felt like this is the natural order of my life, wait around for these "important people" to come out and then have a few moments of gratification. I couldnt even tell which one of those people were the emperor. They were all too bloody far away, I could only see little figures. Its like watching the F4 concert all over again.
Yokohama view
Yokohama, a view from above with Mt. Fuji looming overhead. photo courtesy of Viviane Sigh.
Anyways, after the imperial family left, Robin and I walked around the imperial palace. (The palace is open on only 2 days in the entire year: Dec 23 (emperors bday) and Jan 2.) We skipped on the park that gives homage to the "heroes" of world war 2, i figured my ancestors might roll in their graves. and went to a temple and looked around and ate tokyo okonomiyaki. We then walked all the way to Akihabara this is the electronic hub of tokyo. a long street with everything electronic you can think of, After quite a long time in akihabara. we went to tokyo tower to do some sight seeing. We didnt go up tokyo tower because there were so much people and we have to wait a long time and we didnt have enough time for that. after that we went to Shibuya to meet Sophie. Robin then went to the bus station to go back to Osaka and Sophie took me to her friends house. After leaving stuff there we went to meet Viviane and we had a night out in Tokyo (Which i specifically requested for) After that we separated and
Tokyo Disney Sea
welcome photo op of Tokyo Disney Sea viviane and i went to sophie's friends house to sleep.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 22; dbt: 0.0524s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb