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Published: September 28th 2012
Konichiwa from Tokyo!
We have been in Tokyo for a few days now and it has been crazy but a great introduction to Japan so far. Tokyo is a huge city, so big that it is the World's most populous metropolis, with over 8.7 million people living in the city, and also the capital of Japan, which is not surprising considering how diverse it is and how much it has to offer. Tradition sits alongside innovation here, old and new combine, young fashion concious teens clash with an older, more serious generation, and whilst on the whole everything sems very orderly and efficient, there is definately an undercurrent of seediness which you wouldn't expect from Japan. So far, we love Tokyo!
After an AMAZING 1st class Virgin flight, which saw Vic sleep for half of it in a flat bed complete with duvet and pillow, and Scott eat and drink his way though it, 12 hours later we landed in Tokyo. If only we could fly like this all the time! We collected our luggage, navigated our way through the busy terminal to buy train tickets, and jumped on the train to our hostel in the Asakusa area of
the city, which is about 20 minutes East of the main city and quite a traditional area, home to several important and visually stunning temples and shrines.
We found our hostel easily enough (Khao San Kabuki) as the ever efficient Japanese had supplied us with a full colour printed map with directions from the train station, and as it was too early to check in, we left our bags and went out to explore the area. It was a really sunny day which we weren't expecting, so first headed to the nearby Kaminarimon (Thunder) Gate, a big red and gold outer 'gate' which leads onto a pedestrianised street full of stalls selling a variety of Japanese products, from fried bean curd buns (a delicacy apparently) to waving porcelain cats and paper lanterns. We strolled through this street for a while taking everything in, before coming to the impressive Senso-ji temple at the end of it, which is a Buddhist temple and the oldest in Tokyo, built in 645.
Inside the temple we spotted a type of 'fotune cookie' activity, so of course we had to have a go. First you shake a wooden box which has chopsticks inside,
each with different Japanese fortunes written on them and one falls out. You then match the symbols on this one to the ones on a chest of drawers above, no easy task for us when a lot of the symbols and characters look the same! Then you open the corresponding drawer and read your fortune. There was English translations on these thankfully, and Scott was lucky to pick a good fortune first, but Vic was less so and picked a bad fortune! Obviously this was just a practice so she picked again and got a good fortune so we left happy. Alongside this temple was the Five Storey Pagoda which was equally beautiful, and we immediately fell in love with Japanese architechture.
We were feeling quite jetlagged by this point so decided to stop for a lunch break, anticipating the Japanese food which we had heard so much about. What we weren't expecting was the complete lack of any English on any menu's in the surrounding cafes and restaurants, and although this was substituted to an extent by either pictures or rubber displays of the food in the windows (!), it became apparent that it wouldn't be easy to
choose what we wanted to eat, let alone know what we were eating! We thought that maybe because this was quite a traditional area it wouldn't be like this everywhere, but after a while we gave up guessing what the food pictures were and headed to the supermarket where we emerged with some Japanese pot noodles and went back to our hostel to make them. We must have been really tired earlier as we failed to notice the Japanese toilet near reception - not just a regular toilet, the Japanese have found some wacky way to make a toilet technical, and this one includes automatic flushing noises to drown out sounds, a 'man' spray and a 'lady' spray for um, cleaning after finishing your business, heated seats for a comfortable experience, and a 'dryer' used on your bits after completion! Only in Japan!
Soon after lunch our room was ready so we were able to check in and have a much needed nap, before we put a plan of action together for the next day, and went back to the supermarket to get something for dinner. After looking around and questioning the shop assistants on whether the meat on
display was chicken or pork, and getting no real answer, Vic took to doing the typical 'chicken' and 'pork' impressions, flapping her arms like wings and oinking, which the staff found hilarious and still didn't fully understand, so we went for microwave Bento boxes this time - containers filled with different food items in sections, such as chicken/beef, noodles, rice and salad, as well as a microwave portion of Gyozas (Japanese dumplings). We ate this at the hostel and then went for a walk around the area to see it at night, where we spotted the Tokyo Sky Tree lit up (the tallest structure in Japan) before going back and calling it a night around 11pm, looking forward to what our 2nd day in this city would hold.
Due to the jet-lag, I (Scott) was wide awake at 5.45am and decided that now would be as good a time as any to go for a run (If I was going to keep it up during this trip I would need to start straight away). I had planned out a rough route the day before so set off on a 6k loop taking in various shrines, temples a
local park along the river Sumida and passing various older Japanesse residents practicing Tai-Chi. I got back to the hostel around 7.30, woke Vic's up and got ready for the day ahead.
We started off by making our way by foot to Ueno Park (a huge park which has various museums (science and nature), Japan's oldest Zoo and a vast lily pond aswell as several shrines and Pagodas). During the walk there we stopped for a quick breakfast of steamed buns and finallly arrived at the main entrance 45 mins after leaving. After gathering our bEarings and picking up a map we decided to head over to the Tokyo National Museum which holds the Worlds largest collection of Japanese art. We managed to get free entry using our ISIC student cards and quickly set out to explore. The displays were all very interesting, especially the Samuri stuff for me and the Kimono dresses for Vic's. We then stepped back outside to visit the large gardens of the museum - which were again very impressive and had plenty to see.
Before entering the museum, Vics had spotted a huge fountain in Ueno park which she wanted to check out
so after exiting we headed there before making our way round to the Zoo in the middle of the park. We weren't too sure about the zoo but when the lady said we got discounted entry as we were foreign we thought why not. It was a pretty good zoo, with all the usual suspects you would expect to see in a zoo, and after an hour and a half of walking around we were pretty tired and also hungry, so left to search for food. We walked down the main street and veered off to some back streets which seemed more interesting which paid off, as we found a great selection of market stalls and small cafes. We picked one which looked nice from the pictures, a Katsu curry place, and after feeling brave and agreeing we could order from the pictures, we entered and were greeted by not only pictures to choose from, but a vending machine?! You had to place your order through this machine by pressing the corresponding button to the picture of food you wanted, much like a drinks vending machine, however the pictures outside were not actually on the vending machine, so instead we
had to try and match up the Japanese characters from the posters outside to the ones on the machine! Very bizarre but we got there in the end, and the food was great.
We then carried on walking towards Akihabara, aka Electric city, and also home to 'anime' and 'manga' (think Pokemon/Dragon Ball Z cartoons) and 'maid cafes' - this was our first glimpse of modern Tokyo. Skyscrapers sit alongside 8 storey electrical mega stores and amusement arcades while themed 'maid cafes' offer a different type of entertainment - Japanese girls dressed as French maids serving men in cafes! Giant robots, martial-arts super hero's and magical schoolgirls are the norm here, amongst real people as well as on screen. Sounds like pretty childish entertainment? Thats what we thought until we saw Japanese businessmen playing penny slot and claw machines in the middle of the day and reading anime/manga comics on the tube home! This was a real eye opener for us into this side of Japan and we found it both strange and fascinating.
After walking a good few miles that day we jumped on the metro two stops back to our hostel and while Vic was happy
to have a rest (nap), Scott wanted to check out the local Onsen (Glen if you are reading this section, it takes our Jacuzzi club to a whole new level), called Jakotsu-yu, an indoor and outdoor public bath, which are popular all over Japan, where men and women bathe naked (seperately) in hot mineral springs, jacuzzi's and pools (and in electric current water in this case!), before having a thorough cleanse/wash afterwards. Needless to say Scott loved this experience and it helped his aching muscles after a long day! Once he was back at the hostel we decided to go into the area of Shibuya, for a bite to eat and to see the famous Shibuya Crossing. The crossing goes several ways so can look hectic but as typical Japanese efficiency goes, it works well. This area is also known for its neon lights, large buildings and huge shops - Zara was 6 floors high - and is comparable to Times Square in New York. We enjoyed walking around this area and tried but failed to find Love Hotel Hill - an area of themed 'love hotels' which can be used by the hour or for the whole night...say no
more! We found a small place to eat and had yummy Beef Bowls (rice and beef) with Miso soup before getting the train back to Asakusa around 11.30pm, just in time for Scott to grab a couple of pieces of fresh sushi before going to bed after another full on day in this mind blowing metropolis.
On our 3rd day in Tokyo, we were up and out by 10am and heading to a small Parasite museum out of town which Scott had read about and wanted to visit. After a yoghurt breakfast from the 7/11, we got our metro passes for the day (good value if you are making a few journeys at around £5.50 for the pass) and made our way to the area of Meguro. After a 45 minute journey, which included changing lines 3 times, and a 15 minute uphill walk, we arrived at the 'museum' - I use the term 'museum' very loosely as the combined floor space was smaller than our flat at home - and spent a very underwhelming 15 minutes looking at different jars of picked parasites wtih only Japanese explanations of what things were. We definately wouldn't reccomend visiting
this place! We soon left and headed back to the station, stopping off for a bit of lunch in a yummy noodle cafe which again had pictures and vending machines which you ordered your food from - we are getting braver!
Back on the train we headed towards a large area of the city called Shinjuku, the Covent Garden/Leicester Square/Oxford Street of Tokyo, somewhere we had been looking forward to seeing a lot and it didn't dissapoint. The train station is the busiest in the world and had over 20 exits, luckily it wasn't rush hour and we found our way out to the street to be greeted by a 6 storey high Topshop which Scott had to drag Vic away from! We wondered through all the small side streets as well as the main street taking everything in - the sounds, the people, the traffic - before coming to a large department store called Tokyu Hans which seels a manner of all things both practical and not so practical. We checked out every floor of this place, and came across a variety of strange and seemingly useless items (if anyone has seen an Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington,
this is where he finds a 'crisp picker-upper'!) - a full face massager which looks more like a bike crash helmet complete with built in Storm Tropper-esque glasses, a torch in the shape of a cow with the eye being the lights which goes on the handle bars of a bike, combs which claim to make men's hair grow, umbrella handle accessories, electric ear pickers and a whole host of other mad things which would prove useless for the average human being.
We carried on walking through the streets and ended up in the red light district which we soon left and the plesant Golden Gai area - a selection of tiny bars which each hold no more than 6 people on narrow streets, before jumping back on the metro to the area of Ikebukuro and to the thing that Vic had been looking forward to most - visiting a cat cafe! These cafes are very popular in Tokyo (naturally) and the idea is that you pay about £8 to spend an hour with a dozen or so cats whilst having tea/coffee and cake. Again, only in Japan! We located the one that Vic had been reading about online
for the past few months with the help of a local man, the conversation went like this as we were looking at our map -
Local man - Excuse me, hello, are you lost?
Scott - No its ok, thank you
Local man - Are you sure? Where are you trying to go to, I can help you very much?
Scott (looking sheepish) - Erm, do you know the Cat Cafe on Sunshine Street?
Local man - Yes yes yes! Follow me I show you way- its very nice. I love cats!
We looked at each other and laughed thinking Tokyo is so crazy, and before we knew it he had rushed ahead to the other side of the street and was waving us to follow him. He actually led us to the cat cafe and on the way told us he was practicing to be a tour guide (so different to a lot of places in Asia where you have difficulty sometimes in trusting people, Japanese are very honest). The cafe was located in an apartment -come - business block on the 5th floor, and as soon as we were out of the
lift and there Vic couldn't wait to get in, and Scott upon seeing some of the furry friends, wasn't too far behind. The cats in here were amazing - they were all different breeds, mainly persian and really fluffy, some had flat ears and some were asleep, and we enjoyed stroking them, feeding them treats and playing with them for a good hour before sadly it was time to leave. This sounds a bit odd but it was another wierd and wonderful Japanese experience for us which we (especially Vic who loves cats) really enjoyed! We wondered if this would make a good business model back in London...
When we left the cafe it was getting dark and the area had come alive with lights and sounds, so we decided to stay for some dinner. We passed a large Sega World amusement arcade so had a look inside, and soon discovered it consisted of 8 floors which various games on each level, and after playing a couple of games each (Mario Kart! etc) we started to make our way out to find some food, but not before a quick toilet break for Scott. When he came out the toilet
he had a big smile on his face and explained to Vic that inside the actual urinals there were targets with a screen on the wall in front of you showing two Street Fighter type characters, and the idea was to urinate both the fastest and longest to beat up your opponent (CPU) and push him off the screen to win - Unbelieveable but something I am thinking of installing in our bathroom when we get home! We then found a Yakitori (grilled skewered chicken) place for dinner which was delicious and Scott got to have his first beer, before calling it a night at 11.30pm and heading back to the hostel to bed.
These first few days have been a whirlwind for us and we have enjoyed every minute of it! We still have another couple of days in Tokyo, including a day trip to Nikko and exploring the central Tokyo area.
Arigato for reading this lengthy first blog, and Sayanara for now!
xx
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Claire
non-member comment
Amazing xx
Sounds very weird and funny:) love reading your blogs wen I'm on the train home love u guys xxx ps I hope they don't eat those cats :(