Taking on Tokyo

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August 15th 2008

Published: August 15th 2008

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Megamuffin

Shibuya in the morning

It seems so quiet, but just wait 'til the afternoon!

Konnichiwa!

I hope you enjoyed my account of my first couple of days in the land of the rising sun. I will now attempt to further entertain you with my masterful storytelling. (Cue Japanese-ish music to set the mood) And now my faithful readers, we begin with last two days in Tokyo before journeying to Tsuru...

07/31/2008

With our complimentary breakfast coupons in hand, Michelle and I ventured out of the hotel room bright and early thanks to the lingering jet lag. (I really never should have gotten over it, it made getting out of bed at 7 am a breeze) We got our free breakfast of a hard boiled egg, toast, and some kind of an interesting breakfast salad at the same little cafe that we had killed time in the afternoon before. It was at this point that we realized that the Japanese can make a mean piece of toast. Seriously. Since I've been here, I have had some of the most ridiculously delicious bread I've ever eaten. They're better at making our staple than we are! And it's not like we can compete in the rice department either...Japan scores again!

We had the whole

there's no place like Shibuya

These shoes are adorably Dorothy-like. I really wanted them.

day to ourselves because our mandatory orientation was not until the next day, so we decided to take the JR line (conveniently located right next to our hotel) to Shibuya and Harajuku. I'm sure that none of you will be shocked to know that Tokyo's biggest shopping districts were the first places that I wanted to see. 😊 When we were done eating, we headed over to the train station to face our first challenge: figuring out which train to take and how much it would cost. Seems simple, right? Not when you are staring at what I'm sure is THE most complicated train system in the world and the entire map is in Kanji characters. Sure, I could recognize the Kanji for Harajuku and Shibuya, but where were those in the messy map above our heads? Michelle decided to be brave and ask an innocent bystander. She was so proud when she was able to ask and understand the answer successfully. Score one for the UCSD kids! With the nice little Japanese woman's help, we got on the right train and made it successfully to Shibuya.

After getting our bearings in Shibuya, we decided just to walk into

one of the cute stores

The side streets in Shibuya were full of cute little stores like this.

the craziness and see what we could find. It was still fairly quiet (for Tokyo) when we arrived because it was only about 10:30 am. Some of the stores weren't even open yet, but we definitely found lots of cute places to look around. The INSANE heat and humidity were catching up with us again, so we found a little coffee shop, bought some tiny drinks (all of the drinks here come in the tiniest sizes ever--we're talking like smaller than kid sized drinks in the US) and sat down to take a little break. We used my guidebook to figure out where some interesting stores were for the afternoon. Michelle wanted to meet up with one of her friends that lives in Tokyo, so we planned to spend a little more time in Shibuya, then go to Harajuku until 4 and meet her friend in Shibuya again at 4:30. With our plans all figured out, we window-shopped a little bit more (and made plans to definitely REALLY shop here when we had an apartment to put everything in) and found lunch at a cute little cafe. This time it was my turn to use my Japanese skills to successfully

BAPE store amazingness

BAPE, a designer label that started in Tokyo, has an amazingly cool store in Shibuya. You can't really tell from the photo, but those shoes are under glass that you walk over as you go in and they're moving! So cool!

snag us a non-smoking table. That has been one of the weirdest things about being here--so many people smoke! We enjoyed our cute little lunches that came with ice cream(!) and then headed back toward the train station to hop over to Harajuku.

By this time, things had definitely picked up in the Shibuya area. On our way back to the train station, we passed through one of the busiest/most photographed intersections in Tokyo. It. was. a-mazing. Seriously. Like clockwork, the lights to cross would turn green and hundreds of people would flood the intersection and miraculously be clear of it by the time the cars rolled through again. It was one of those moments that it really hits you that you're in a city with people basically stacked on top of one another. I took my share of pictures, all the while with my mouth agape.

At the station, we quickly bought our tickets to Harajuku (it was only one stop away, but quite a walk from what we could tell) and hopped on the train again. For those of you who do not know about Japanese street fashion, the main street in Harajuku is basically a

The Dark Night--in Tokyo!

These were some huge posters for The Dark Night, which was going to premier in Tokyo that weekend. I basically took this picture for Sam. =)

catwalk, which became immediately clear as we stepped out of the train with tons of young Japanese hipsters. The street, Ayoyama Dori, is for foot-traffic only and is packed with people at all times. Hundreds of shops--cheap and expensive--line the sides of the little street. My favorite store was a 100 yen store (like a dollar store, but way better) that was 3 stories high. Ridiculous, but so fantastic. Since it was a weekday, we didn't see very many people dressed that crazy (we found out later that the best day to see that is Sunday), but I managed to get pictures of a couple interesting outfits.

After our quick trip to Harajuku, we hopped on the train back to Shibuya and waited outside one of the big department stores for Michelle's friend. We were exhausted, so when she showed up, she shared an insider secret with us and took us to McDonald's to buy a cheap drink and sit. She said that a lot of people hang out in there for hours. The one we went to was about 3 stories and apparently they're all open 24 hrs, so people just camp out in there. We sat and

Shibuya's crazy intersection

This is one of many pictures that I took of the craziness of Shibuya's big intersection.

chatted with her for a while until she had to meet her friends for dinner, at which time we decided we were done for the day and took the train back to our hotel.

We ate dinner at a shopping center near our hotel and forced ourselves to stay up until 10 pm, then we crashed.

08/01/2008

The big day! Today we would go to our orientation at Tokyo's International Christian University (ICU) and then leave for Tsuru! While eating our breakfast, we scoped out the other patrons, looking for our fellow Californians. We were pretty sure that anyone who didn't look Japanese was probably with our group. Turns out we were right. We asked a couple of the most definitely not Japanese kids and sure enough they were part of our group. They were planning to meet downstairs right before the bus left that we were supposed to go on to ICU, so we told them we'd see them outside. We grabbed our bags, checked-out and met up with the two that we had talked to, along with the rest of the UC group. With quick introductions, we got on the bus together and headed

We found a payphone!

Apparently, it's really hard to find a payphone in Tokyo. But we succeeded! Michelle's calling her friend in this pic.

to ICU.

We had gotten packets at the hotel from the UC Student Center in Tokyo and we had a map of the ICU campus to help us find our orientation building, but it must have been pretty funny to watch. How many UC kids does it take to find a building on a small campus in Japan? Apparently ten. We found the building and were on time, so we rolled in, luggage in tow, for a 3 hour orientation. Woo-hoo! Welcome to Japan; now sit in this stuffy class room and listen to us tell you not to do anything stupid for 3 hrs. It wasn't so bad, though. And they had free food at the end! The people studying abroad at ICU were already doing their intensive language program for the summer, so they were invited up for lunch. Michelle and I were surprised to see a couple of the other kids from UCSD there and we exchanged our Japan stories with them.

At 12:30, Takiguchi-sensei showed up to take us to Tsuru. She's the one in charge of the exchange student program at Tsuru. She's very nice and speaks very clear English. She took us

Harajuku!

Heading into Harajuku's Ayoyama Dori.

to our tiny bus and we were off! On the bus ride we all talked and got to know each other. We were evenly divided at 5 girls and 5 guys, with one student from each UC except LA, Davis, and our school, which had two students each. Turns out there was no one from Merced or Riverside, which allowed some of the schools to send two. (Thank you UCM and UCR!) It became pretty obvious that we had a really fun, outgoing group. We spent most of the ride holding our breath as we went through tunnel after tunnel and cracking jokes.

When we pulled into Tsuru, we found a whole gaggle of Tsuru girls to greet us with a sign that said "都留へよおこそ！" Which means, "Welcome to Tsuru!" (What else did you expect?) They had name tags for each of us and introduced themselves as our tutors. We were brought to a lounge and we took turns introducing ourselves. I have two tutors: Sayaka and Tomoko. They are both very nice and all of the tutors right away were talking to us non-stop as they showed us the way to the apartment. It was overwhelming! None of

there are no words...

This store's clothing is outrageous. I'm pretty sure only Vegas show girls shop there on a regular basis. Might be good for Halloween, though.

us were used to the heat and humidity yet, so we were exhausted by the time we got to the apartments and then our tutors were helping us plug in our tvs and phones and showing us how to use things and wanting to take us to the grocery store and on and on and on...Needless to say, they were very helpful. It was clear that they were going to be much more than tutors, but our own personal guides to Tsuru and our first Japanese friends. After a whirlwind trip to the grocery store, we returned to the apartment and the tutors finally left us alone for a bit. As nice as they all were, I think we all just needed five minutes to breathe!

I was excited about my cute little apartment and started unpacking and settling in at once. My favorite thing about it is definitely the little cubby where I sleep. It's like a loft bed, but it's set into the wall and there's storage space underneath. Very cute and pretty practical. It's definitely a small apartment, but I like it and don't really feel cramped because it's just me. 😊

That evening, the

what a mug

We found these funny mugs in a little store that had lots of American stuff for sale. These are definitely more on the Japanese side, though.

tutors went with us to dinner at a little restaurant right next to the school. I had some yummy chicken katsu don buri. It was the first truly authentic Japanese place I had eaten at during the trip. They had tatami mats and we sat on pillows to eat with our shoes off. Very cute. We chatted happily with our tutors and made plans to hang out again soon. Then, it was back to the apartment to zonk out after the most tiring day yet. But at least I was in my new little home. 😊

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