Tokyo Vacation 2008

Day 11 - The Longest Thursday of My Life

Click here to see all of the photos I took on this day...although there aren't too many.

When I say "the longest Thursday of my life" I mean that quite literally.  From midnight Thursday morning to 11:59 Thursday night about 36 hours passed.  The Sun rose and set twice, but it never quit being Thursday.

We started off the morning with a McDonalds breakfast.  As I mentioned yesterday, we had discovered that in spite of packing loosely for the trip over we still didn't have enough luggage to carry all our stuff back home.  The Limousine Bus to Narita Airport was leaving at 1 PM, so we had all morning to find another bag to buy.  We decided that we'd buy a new carry-on that was as large as airlines allow and I'd use it instead of the backpack I had used on the way to Japan. 

Day 10 - Roppongi Hills, Kichijoji, and Shibuya

Click here to see all of the photos I took on this day.

The last full day!  Time to spare up any "we have to do such-and-so when we're in Japan" items on our list.  Some of these things included eating at a kaiten sushi restaurant, getting a view of Tokyo from the top of Mori Tower in Roppongi, and seeing the statue of Hachiko the dog in front of Shibuya station.  First stop:  Roppongi.

We hopped on the subway and headed toward Roppongi (just a few stops down the line from our hotel).  It was rush hour, and the train we got on was completely packed.  We were squished together in the middle of the car.  Erin was facing me and I had my arm around her so she hopefully wouldn't get groped.  Groping is a huge problem on Japanese subways...so much that they now have "Women Only" cars during busy times of the day. 

Day 9 - Express Train to Nikko

Click here to see all of the photos I took on this day.

Our trip to Mt. Fuji and the Hakone region had required very little walking, so we decided we were well enough rested to try catching a train to Nikko.

Nikko is a small mountain village about two hours North of Tokyo by train.  The town is famous for its many shrines and important artworks concentrated into a small area, including the tomb of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first Shogun of Japan.  The entire area has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

From my research I had learned that there were several ways to get there, but the best was to take the Tobu Line from the Tobu-Asakusa station.  We took the subway until we reached Asakusa, where we had to head out onto the street and walk about a block to the Tobu station beneath a department store.

Day 8 - Mt. Fuji, Hakone and Lake Ashi

Click here to see all of the photos I took on this day.

The best blue cheese and fried chicken I've ever eaten were at an Italian restaurant shaped like a carousel and sitting at the foot of Mt. Fuji.  How many people can say that?

As we did on the morning of our Kamakura tour, we ate a quick breakfast at McDonalds and walked the half-mile to the Keio Plaza Hotel to catch the bus to the bus station where we would meet our tour guide and get on a different bus headed for Mt. Fuji.  In the lobby of the hotel we saw women greco-roman wrestlers from around the world who we had seen competing in Tokyo on television the night before.  We also ran into the same Italian couple we had come home from the Kamakura tour with, but they were headed elsewhere today.

Day 7 - Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, and Yoyogi Park

Click here to see all of the photos I took on this day.

On this morning we intended to get up very early and visit a flea market in Yoyogi Park, then listen to musicians play on the street. However, due to a slightly late start and accidentally taking the subway instead of the JR line (which would have gotten us there about a half an hour earlier), we didn’t arrive until nearly 10 AM. I was a bit frustrated about wasting the time, but we arrived at Meiji Jingumae station and walked out to see what we’d find.

Some street vendors and musicians were beginning to set up their equipment. There was a rabbit foraging. It looked like a few people were beginning to set up some flea market wares. There was no crowd at all. We walked through a rose garden and saw a bandana-wearing worker carefully pruning the bushes. We guessed that we hadn’t missed anything after all and decided to visit Meiji Jingu (right next to Yoyogi Park) and then check back later.

Heading Home Today!

We've had a fantastic time, but it's time to head home.  I've fallen several days behind on this blog because we've been out so late or going to bed so early, but I hope to catch up a bit on the airplane for as long as my battery lasts.  Don't forget, though, that you can see all of our photos by clicking here.

Day 6 - TGS and the Tokyo Sea Life Park

Click here to see all of the pictures I took on this day.

When we woke up this Saturday morning and saw that it was cloudy, we decided to go ahead and go to the Tokyo Game Show in the nearby town of Chiba.

Tokyo Game Show (TGS) is an annual expo where all of the video game manufacturers and developers showcase their upcoming products to the media and -- for the final two days -- to any fans who want to pay the 1000 Yen admission fee.  There are closed screenings of footage from upcoming projects, demos to play, etc.  I have always wanted to attend, and it just so happened to be taking place while were were visiting Japan.

We bought a ticket for a JR train that would take us to Makuhari-Messe (the convention center where the event was being held).  On our way there, I noticed the route seemed a bit strange, so I asked a Japanese girl and her mother if we were on the right one.  They indicated that we were, but seemed to be trying to tell us something else.  Noticing this, another Japanese girl told us that we would have to change trains at a particular station.  She and her French boyfriend were on their way to TGS as well, so we just stuck with them all the way there.

Day 5 - Trip to Kamakura

Click here to see all of the pictures I took on this day.

Along with the hotel and flight package to Tokyo that we purchased, we also bought a couple of guided tours: Kamakura and Mt. Fuji.  Today was the day for Kamakura.

We had to walk about half a mile to the Keio Plaza Hotel to catch a bus at 7:55 AM, so we grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonalds on the way.  In the lobby, a woman from the tour agency was attempting to corral all of the foreigners into their correct groups.  We got on a bus that took us across town to the tour agency's main office.  On the way, a woman got on the microphone and said what I actually thought was, "Prease rook out the window.  Godzilla is coming."  As it turned out, she was saying that we might want to see a tunnel we were driving through.  Oh well.

Day Four - Walking through Ueno and Taito, and visiting Senso-Ji

Click here to see the photos I took on this day.

The weather forecast for this day was "scattered showers", but when we woke up the weather looked pretty clear.  On this day we did more walking than we will probably do on any other day of our trip, and we had the privilege of taking our shoes off to enter buildings twice, which was an unexpected surprise.

After breakfast at the hotel buffet again, we took the subway to Ueno Park.  This part of the subway was actually the first subway anywhere in Asia and was built in the 1920s.  This was obvious from the low ceilings and cramped passageways.

Day Three - Mitaka and the Ghibli Museum

Click here to see all the photos I took on this day.

Today was the day to use the tickets we bought in August for the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka.  Foreigners must purchase tickets to this museum before they enter Japan, as they limit the number of daily visitors and the tickets sell out months in advance. 

Erin was still having stomach problems when she woke up, which unfortunately wasn't a contingency we had planned for.  Still, the tickets were for today only and she wasn't about to miss it, so we decided to proceed as if things were going well.

First we had breakfast in our hotel's restaurant.  The buffet was a combination of Western and Japanese breakfast items.  Even some of the Western foods were not quite as we were used to.  The scrambled eggs seemed unnaturally orange and very runny, but they tasted normal.  There was bacon, but it was short and fat.  There was also a container of poached eggs, cherry tomatoes, and some tiny potatoes.  On the Japanese side of the buffet were salmon, miso soup, tofu, several different kinds of pickles and some white stuff labeled "shirasu", which I took to be some pickled white vegetable.  I got some of each kind of thing I didn't recognize to try.

Trip Photos

I've finally managed to work out a system so I can get my photos on the web quickly.  I'm batch converting them to JPEG and shrinking them, then putting these smaller photos up on Flickr.  You can look at all of my Tokyo trip photo sets by clicking here.  Feel free to comment on them!

Day Two - Part Two: Akihabara "Electric Town"

Click here to see all the photos I took on this day.

After we had rested we decided it was time to try and figure out the subway system.  The ticket kiosk had an English option, so all we had to do was type in the first two letters of the station we wanted to travel to, put in the cash it said we owed, and it spit out the tickets.  Unfortunately, we got on an express train by mistake, which skipped our stop and went on to the next one.  We got off there and put our tickets in the "fare adjustment" kiosk, which told us we didn't owe anything.  However, we still had to buy another ticket and travel back one station to reach Akihabara.  We now realize how the express trains are identified, so that's a lesson pretty painlessly learned.

By the time we got to our intended stop we were starving.  The first thing we saw on the street was a McDonalds, so we thought we'd try their dinner menu. 

Day Two - Part One: Shinjuku-Gyoen

Click here to see all the photos I took on this day.

I have to admit something here:  At the end of day one we did not want to be in Japan.  Total exhaustion and culture shock combined to make us almost regret our trip altogether.  We went to bed agreeing that after a good night's sleep we would probably feel differently.

It was true.  Day two was fantastic.

I woke up at 5:30 and, after a shower, called Sid on the Skype phone to ask him how school and Cub Scouts had been.  After that, we headed down to the McDonalds, determined that we could at least get a breakfast order right.

As we walked up to the counter -- which happened to be open-air on the ground floor of this three-story McDonalds -- a girl started to ask us in Japanese what we wanted.  Another girl nudged her and gave a look which indicated, "these people are obviously foreigners" and set a picture menu in front of us.  It is interesting to point out here that in Japan, the Filet-o-Fish is on the breakfast menu. 

Day One: Getting There

Click here to see all the photos I took on this day.

As I sit typing this, I am looking out the window of my teeny-tiny hotel room at a fantastic view of some of the skyscrapers in Tokyo's Shinjuku district.  It all feels very surreal to me.  That's gotta be either because I imagined this day for so long, or more likely because it is 6:30 AM on Monday Morning back home (8:40 PM here in Tokyo), and I haven't slept since about 8:00 AM last Saturday.

Yeah, I just dozed off in mid sentence there, so I'm gonna chalk fatigue up as the cause. 

Google Earth

Another vacation planning tip:  Download Google Earth.

With Google Earth you can literally see pretty much everywhere you want to visit before you get there.  You can scope out the neighborhood through satellite maps and see what restaurants and shops are nearby, draw paths to figure out walking/driving distances, see everything in 3D including buildings and elevation changes, even make screenshots to print your own custom maps.  As if that weren't enough, in most major cities you can zoom down and view "virtual reality" photos from every few feet down major streets.  Because of this I know that there are a couple drink vending machines in an alley just around the corner on the north side of my Hotel in Tokyo, and that the McDonalds at the end of the block has a sign that says "24 OPEN" and a walk-up ordering counter outside.  It really is amazing.