back in tokyo

5/26/05 continued…

it was a friday night and so we were hoping to go out in tokyo. our plan was to take the train from nara, transfer in kyoto and get back to tokyo by 10pm. unfortunately, things didnt quite work out that way. there was an accident on the trainline to kyoto and so we were forced to take a detour through osaka. it was gonna be a tight connection and we were fairly sure that we wouldnt make it to the train we needed in osaka on time. luckily, a random businessman on the train asked us where we were going and when we told him our concerns, he totally helped us out. he showed us the quickest way to get across town on the subway and led us across the station with him. once again we get helped out by a total stranger. nice!

right before we got on the train, i bought some bento boxes. when we opened them, we were shocked to realize that we hardly recognized anything inside. all of the food was so weird. it’s funny, before we came here, i totally though that we knew a lot about japanese food. i go to sushi all the time. i love tempura, miso, udon, sashimi, etc etc. i even usually eat a lot of the weirder sushi items that most people i know are too afraid to eat. i thought that i would come here and have hardly any difficulties w/ the food… but damn, i was so wrong! the japanese food that we get back home is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to japanese cuisine. there are so mnay different categories of food that i had never even dreamed of. although most of the strange food that we’ve eaten so far has been quite good, this bento box was just not good at all. we reluctantly ate as much as we could, and then closed the boxes.

unfortunately, our troubles werent over yet. we still needed to get to our hotel in tokyo. we got totally lost along the way and walked the wrong direction for almost a mile. eventually we did find our place, but it was a little past midnight by then and we were all beat. unfortunately, there would be no going out that night. we were exhausted and hungry, so to get a quick and easy late night meal, we went to… Denny’s. yup, denny’s. daniel got all excited about the prospect of easy american food… but no. denny’s in japan is nothing at all like denny’s back home. most of the menu is full of japanese foods, and all the stuff that you would regularly expect to see at a denny’s was nowhere to be found. there was actually hardly anything on the menu that my brother could eat. *sigh*. i guess our evening just wasn’t meant to work out at all.

but that wasnt the end of it. it was really really late by the time we went to bed, but if we wanted to stay for an extra day in our hotel, we would have to change rooms in the morning. regardless if we checked out or not, we would still only be getting like 6 hours of sleep. argghh!! i had so been looking forward to sleeping in after so many days of constant touring around. to make things even more annoying, this hostel had a crazy rule where you were only allowed to shower between 7:30am and 9am. what the hell!!! what kind of a stupid rule is that?? we have to get up so damn early just to shower?? weak!! this definitely does seem to be the trend around here w/ hotels… lots of rules and regulations.

we constantly have to watch our backs to make sure we’re not doing anything wrong. and this doesnt just go for hotels. japanese culture in general has a lot of different rules in regard to politeness. there’s so many different rules and stuff that it’s hard to keep track of them all. online there are whole websites devoted to pages and pages of these etiquette rules. for instance, when you enter a home or hotel, you must take off your shoes and put on slippers. you wear the slippers around the hotel, but, when you use the toilet, you need to take off your hotel slippers and change into other slippers that are meant only for the toilet. when you take a bath here, you under no circumstances are allowed to use soap in the bath. you have to wash in the shower *before* the bath, and then you just soak in the bath once you’re clean. you’re not supposed to eat food while walking down the street. you’re not supposed to pass food from one set of chopsticks to another. you cant leave chopsticks sticking out of your bowl of rice. etc etc etc. we spend so much time here a bit nervous as to whether or not we might somehow offend someone. of course, the people here are pretty chill in regards to foreigners, and if you commit a faux pas, it says that they are very understanding, but we still would rather not do anything that people think is rude etc.

5/27/05

in the morning we checked out of the hotel w/ the crazy shower restrictions. once again, here we were in tokyo w/ no hotel. we proceeded to spend almost 5 hours online searching for hotels. i had been looking forward to just spending a day relaxing, but no. the main problem is that we wanted to stay in one of the fun areas of tokyo, close to clubs, bars, etc. unfortunately, those areas are usually very expensive. trying to find a place that is relatively cheap, in a good area, and has rooms available is very difficult. in the end, we got a hotel in Ueno…. way far from anything interesting. unfortunately, this meant that we would have to spend 45 minutes on the subway going there to check in, and then 45 minutes back to meet my brother for dinner. of course, the hotel was impossible to find, so we wasted a bunch of time looking for it as well. *sigh*… we’ve had such bad luck with hotels!! part of the problem w/ finding things in japan is that most japanese people dont use street names when looking for locations. when you tell someone a street address, ususally no one will know what you are talking about. so unless you know exactly how to get where you are going, it’ll probably take forever to find it.

while at the internet place, we got instant ramen to eat. internet cafes here are cool like that. you can get microwaved french fries, fried rice etc right from a vending machine! for the ramen, you just buy it and then go and get hot water from a machine. i fiddled with this machine and kept pressing all the buttons. dammit!! there was no way i could figure out how to get hot water out of it. every once in a while someone would walk by and i would just look away from the machine so they wouldnt see that i couldnt figure out how to use it. damn it.. this thing should be so simple.. how could i, a grown man, not be able to use a hot water dispenser. sure the buttons were in japanese, but i still felt really lame for not being able to figure it out. eventually, after like 5 minutes of playing w/ this thing, i finally got the hot water. phew!

for dinner, we met up w/ my brother, his friend scott who is studying english in japan, and scott’s friends. dinner was at an all you can eat shabu-shabu place. sooo good!! after dinner, we went to do some karaoke. they do karaoke differently here than in america. instead of it being a huge room where eveyone sings together, here you reserve a small booth, and it’s only you and your friends in there. you dont have to wait for other people to sing etc. kind of a cool idea. of course i refused to sing cause i never do, but caryn, randall, and even my brother did some singing. after an hour we all still wanted to hang out, but the metro stops running at 1am. a taxi ride across town costs like 100$, so we absolutely couldnt miss the last train. it sucks that from then on we would always have to end our evenings at midnight. riding the subway back at night is kind of funny. like 3/4 of the people on it are totally passed out and asleep. everyone is nodding off, their eyes shut and head bobbing up and down.

5/28/05

the next morning we met up w/ everyone and headed down to harajuku. this is an area that i’ve wanted to check out for hella days. basically, i guess a lot of the young girls that live in tokyo get frustrated w/ the conformity of daily life at school there and they use the weekends to rebel. so every weekend, tons of these girls gather at this one square and dress up all totally crazy and stuff. i’ve actually seen whole books devoted to the crazy weird fashions that are seen in this one square. walking around this place was so weird! it’s a really well know thing and kind of a major tourist attraction, so 2/3rds of the people there are tourists w/ cameras taking photos of the girls. of course, these girls totally love getting their photo taken and are constantly posing for all these cameras. it’s so weird, cause i think “goth” kids at home would be totally pissed if tourists kept trying to photograph them, but these people loved it. some of the outfits were so crazy. lots of girls dressed in sheppardess outfits. lots of girls dressed up as nurses. even more bizarre was that a lot of people had fake medical bandages over one eye or medical tape on their nose to make it look like they’ve been beat up or something. so weird!

after walking around the square for a bit, we went off towards this park, and all of a sudden, instead of being in hectic crazy wild tokyo, we were in a totally peaceful quiet woodsy area. it’s crazy how mixed tokyo is, and how close together you can find the old traditional to the ultramodern. we walked around this garden, and then checked out a temple. while at the temple, we happened to get to see the end of a wedding procession.

then we walked by through the square again, and walked to the shops near it. all the shops near the square sell the crazy clothing that these girls wear. it’s so funny to think that these girls spend all week wearing their school uniforms and acting polite in front of their parents, and then come down here to buy crazy clothes, change and hang out in the square, before changing back into normal clothes to go back to the suburbs.

daniel and scott try on some glasses

we spent some more time walking around downton tokyo for a while. this one area, shibuya, is totally crazy. apparently like 2 million people go through this intersection every single day. it’s totally crazy packed and swarming w/ people. the whole place is surrounded by crazy buildings with bright neon flashing everywhere. for dinner, we went to a yakitori place. you basically order food on skewers. it was really good, but the portions were kind of small. afterwards, we found a bar nearby and got some drinks. of course, at midnight, we had to leave to catch the last train back. so annoying! one of the cool things about japan though, is that you are allowed to drink alcohol outside. it’s totally legal. so we each bought some beer and continued to drink as we walked through the subway. there’s something really fun about being able to just walk along and drink beer. maybe it’s just cause we’re not allowed to back home?

Shibuya

drinking at the subway station

*v