006 - Tokyo at night

So I promised to write this post before this weekend, which is when I go to Kyoto.

I have so much to say, my fingers are having a hard time maneuvering around this Japanese Keyboard. AAAA!!!

Okay I`ll just start writing.

Teh ride over
Was freakin awesome. Bullet train is the way of the future. No smoke, and its fast. I mean, I traveled halfway through the country in an hour and 40 minutes. AAAAND. I love magnets.

Tokyo station
Was freakin awesome.

Harajuku and Omotesando
Omotesando street has this New-York feel to it. My friends and I basically were drooling over the Fendi and Gucci stores (or maybe it was just me) and at the utter cuteness at all the displays. Thats one thing that is probably unique in Japan. They make things cute. Forget dignified and respectable, stick em in ruffles and pretty colors and youve basically got the culture in a nut-shell.

My host mom told me before we left that this street was a good street to walk by. But not when you want to shop, so we made this small bunny track towards Harajuku, a subset of the Cho (kind of like district) we were in, and looked at smaller shops with uphill architecture.

It was kind of great, we found this cute little store that sold novelty items, and they were all so cute. I took several pictures (because mostly I cant buy them all... in fact I didnt buy anything because if I bought one cute thing, I wanted to buy one more to sort of accent one cute thing. One cute thing is uncute, which I found out the hard way. You need to buy a dozen cute things to really get your moneys worth. But I dont have that kind of money, so I just didnt buy anything... Im now uber sad talking about this) inside the shop. They had porcelain kittens, dogs, wooden cups, chopsticks, little koi, sushi models, hand made scenery thingies... all in beautiful colors! Gah I cant believe I didnt buy anything!

Anyways we went on walking through Harajuku. A friend of mine commented on how the street was basically a photographers dream place because it had so many angles and interesting things to look at. The English signs made our day, basically.

Then we all got hungry and split up. Guess what I ate.

SUSHI!!!! ALKJLKEJRIOAIELJHRLK!!!!!!!!!!!! Kaitenzushi of the more expensive kind. I got (and yes I do remember what I ate until now) two plates of Hokkigai (each plate consists of two sushi pieces unless otherwise noted, fish miso soup, one plate of salmon, one plate of octopus sushi, one plate of chuootoro (second to the best kind of tuna, they ran out of the best kind), one trisushi plate that had salmon, tuna, and some other fish I didnt ask the name for, one yellowtail a bite from a friends spinach/seaweed salad which I would have gotten had I not been conscious of the total amount I already had to pay (not to mention the total amount of sushi I had already eaten at that time). Be jealous.

Oh but I do want to remain friends with you, if youre feeling offended by now. I just like gushing about the most awesome kind of food that youre just missing out on, you know.

Okay okay, thats the end of that section.

Asakusa
Was also freakin awesome. This is where I blew most of my money. Guess on what. GHIBLI MERCHANDISE!!! They had a Miazaki store that made my life complete. There was also this awesome shrine, but I didnt go to it. I spent most of my time shopping at the street vendor shops IN FRONT of the shrine. I think I went in and perused about a hundred shops scouring for good souvenirs (see I can be a good friend too).

When we all got tired, we went to this shaded shopping area and started to shop some more, momentarily stopping to get a drink and be given a gross show of PDA by an American couple, boldly sucking each others faces at this quaint little Japanese coffee shop. I dont think I hated anyone so much before in my entire life (except for that one retard in high school, who just popped into my head right now at 11:37 pm since Im talking about `hatred`). The least you could do in a foreign country is respect the culture. Okay vent over on that.

I own several keychains right now.

Akihibara
WAS SUPER INTERESTING. We went here on the suggestion of a friend who had seen a lot of anime-ish things here. Something about girls dressed up as maids and waiting on you hand and foot (I exaggerate, but they do have kinky things like this here, I very sadly did not get to experience this). Best I can say in this PG-13-rated blog is that its interesting. See picture of a building sign (lime green sign) that informs of the products sold on every floor. Also, take a good look at the anime figure supporting it. Okay now stop, cause its gross and just to add to the detail, my friend notes that the anime figure`s panties can be seen through her shorts.

Okay quitting that. Im just saying, Akihibara is a must see ONCE place.

See building with kinky lingerie displayed on three floors.

OH BUT I TRULY ENJOYED THE LOVELY BOOKSTORE (once you get past the uhhh risque things). Bought the first 5 of the Rurouni Kenshin series. In Japanese. No english. My project for the summer is to translate all five, and start collecting *coughmylovercough* Kenshin stories in full Japanese. See picture of bookshelf aisle that mostly has red and pink covers. Note that its all girls. Im proud of myself for having avoided this aisle. I only fangirled in the shonen section. Haha.

And thats all we really looked at in Akihibara, the place where you would want to go if you REALLY like anime.

OUR HOTEL
Was AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG!!!
I got to stay in a TOP NOTCH hotel for 200 bucks. Our friend who booked the tickets through this deal her mom found at the travel agency said that such deals are often found in Japan. The deals value in American dollars (bullet train roundtrip + awesome hotel) should be around 500 bucks, but I only paid 200. See MANY MANY pictures of hotel. I took so many pictures of the beds and camera, I had to pick ones that were not blurry, because I was so excited about where we were and my hands couldnt hold still.

I had a life changing shower in that hotel. It was great. And you know I know my showers.

Im sorry for those of you who will live in hostels next year so that you could travel the country. This is me rubbing it in very very hard. But dont worry, half of my pocket money was spent thinking of you. (Chaa not really, youd be lucky if I actually give you your souvenir, make sure you visit me so you can pick it up. haha jk.)

Fuji TEREBI
Was so wonderful, all of it is still very vivid in my mind. Tokyo is made of lights at nighttime. This I realized while I took the monorail (also called skyrail) to this place. Took so many pictures of the city and was just slightly sad that my camera wasnt the heavier pricier and more professional kind, like that of a friend from college. I RODE THE FERRIS WHEEL to see the city better. By the way theres this viewpoint thats popular with the tourists where theres this mock statue of Lady Liberty so that the view looks like New York (find Lady Liberty in pictures), which I thought was really clever. It really looked like the Brooklyn bridge.

Then we had Soba. It was amazing too, and my anorexic friend found her salvation in it.

Fuji Terebi is made of lights. Pretty lights. Lights that make my soul very happy.... hmmmmmm ;D

---EnD---

Yeah that was all in one day. We started at 7 in the morning, rode the train to Tokyo, and went back around 11 ish in the evening to our hotel. I felt very accomplished after single-handedly owning this whole being a tourist thing.

But I would like to take this time to say, Im definitely coming back to Japan. Maybe, Godwilling, Ill be able to take my family here after I graduate and before grad school. I have to see this place again, in its entirety I hope.

ANNND (some of you will feel my pain on this) I DIDNT GET TO VISIT THE GHIBLI MUSEUM! The process includes reserving tickets, which I tried one week before my intended visiting date AND IT WAS ALREADY ALL OUT. Crazy thing was, I tried to buy it on auction too (which someone was selling for some crazy nonsense reason. If I had a ticket, I would never ever sell it!!!) and I WAS BEAT BY ONE YEN!!

One yen is one cent in dollars.


I WAS BEAT BY ONE YEN. I WAS ONE CENT AWAY FROM PLAYING ON THE CAT BUS IN THE GHIBLI MUSEUM. Me is hyperventilating right now.

Okay Im calm. I need to finish typing this up.

So yeah, I had to promise myself Id come back, otherwise I would have cried for a very long time. I only had one bad day about this, so no harm done. Just one quiz that I made a B on. I can take that.


After Tokyo, I stayed over at this Christian couple`s house for a night. They took me to church, and walked with me by the beach to adore the amazing sunset. It was beautiful, and I had one of the greatest epiphanies of my life on that beach. But that is irrelevant, maybe even misplaced, to the purposes of this blog. I will tell you later about this epiphany of mine, since it really deserves a face-to-face conversation. Putting it on blogspot cheapens it for me. And Id like you to truly get what Im saying.

Okay end post. Oh good flickr is done uploading all 200 something photos. Sugoi.

BTW EDIT: props to the bee-eff of my malaysian, since he comments (and to sis for that one small comment of hers). I cant believe I call you guys my friends. I really should just keep those keychains.... (Me is only half sarcastic, but also half sad as well. Me take so much time off to write blogs, send post cards, and budget money for key chains and nobody seems to read this)...