Tokyo

Wang and I arrived in Tokyo at around 3 and the flight was only about 3 hours but the train ride from Narita airport to the area our hostel was over an hour long. We never knew a third of our traveling to Tokyo would be in a train in the city. Once in the city we checked into our 4 person room at the hostel which resembled a clean Frat room and headed out for the night. Shibuya which is a very popular part of town for restaurants and such so we decided to get dinner there. The original draw was that the area put Times Square to shame at night with lights and excitement and it didn’t fail. The area was PACKED with people and the buildings were lit up like giant advertising light bulbs. Four lane, 4 way intersections were swarming with people at the sign of each green walk light. We grabbed dinner at a sushi bar that had a conveyor belt with sushi running around the seats at the sushi bar. It was pretty good but by no means the best sushi I have ever had. After dinner we wandered around Shibuya for far too long until we settled on a bar called Lad’s bar. It was extremely small with probably about 25 seats but all of them were filled. We sat down and had a pint of Japanese light draft. Another great thing about this particular beer was that it was only 280 Yen or about 3 bucks which would be like a tourist finding a 3 dollar beer in Manhattan. When we sat down and this Asian guy couldn’t stop making eye contact with me and it just so happened that the two seats next him opened up at the bar. The seats were way better so we sat down. This guy and his buddy immediately asked where we were from (in English). It turns out there were from Malaysia, 20 years old, and studying language at a local university in Tokyo. They both spoke 6 languages (Chinese, Cantonese, English, Japanese, Malaysian, and Taiwanese) and smoked like chimneys. It was quite impressive. We hung out with them for a few more beers, talked about places they liked in Tokyo and then headed home. We got back to our hostel and met our two roommates. They were two girls from Australia who were traveling for several months like us during their summer break. Very nice girls but really not that interesting.

The next day we woke up a little later than planned and headed to the Tsukiji fish market. This is the largest fish market in the world and each day brings in over 2250 tons of fish valued at about 1.5 billion US dollars. It was a pretty unreal sight with trucks, motorized carts, and men running around everywhere trying to ship off that mornings catch to the rest of the world. One of the very popular things to do at the fish market is to eat a sushi breakfast so that’s exactly what we did. The place we chose was a hole in the wall place that had pictures and a little bit of English on the menu. When I say a little I mean “salmon” and “tuna”. We liked both so we figured why not? Our meals were similar and started with miso soup and about 8 cuts of sashimi over a bed of sushi rice in a bowl. It may have been the best salmon I have ever had and the whole meal was only about 8 US dollars. A little better than the 16-20 it would cost in the states. After the fish market, the next place on the agenda was the Imperial Palace. It was not as interesting as we had hoped because the actual palace is only open to the public two days out of the year. We didn’t find that out until we got there… awesome!

To get around the city we used the train system which proved to be complicated for two well educated men. The train system in Tokyo is the most elaborate system in the world with way over 15 different lines that are operated by three different companies. This meant that you need to be aware of which types of trains you were taking to get where and what kind of ticket that travel required. To give you an idea… we took 3 different lines to Shibuya and returning we couldn’t take the same three lines even though the fare we paid was the same. This was due to the fact the even though our fair costs were the same and a logical person would think that going back the way you came was an acceptable approach, we in fact had to route through 2 different stations than on the way out there to get home. It was a headache every time we needed to use them which was about 4-5 times a day.

After the Imperial Palace we headed to Roppongi which is an area of town with very cool architecture and tons of shopping, none of which we could afford. We settled for a café where we had a fix of caffeine to help us through the afternoon. We happened to meet a couple from Toronto who also gave us a few ideas on where to go in the city. From Roppongi we were able to take in great views of the Tokyo tower as well.

Wang and I decided to grab dinner in Shinjuku which is supposedly the center of young, trendy culture in Tokyo. From the minute we exited the station the streets were packed with young people looking for places to eat and drink. For the most part everyone was dressed to impress! We grabbed dinner at an Udon noodle place called Noodles & Live, where we waited in a line for about 40 minutes before we were seated. The food was very much worth the wait and at the 12 US dollar price tag, you couldn’t beat it on a Saturday night in the city. After dinner we wandered around Shinjuku impressed by all of the restaurants, bars, clubs and even their red light district where we were literally accosted by people at every turn to enter their “shop”. We again went looking for a chill bar because it had been a very long day. We went to the Hub which is an English bar where we found quite a few English speaking patrons and sat down for a beer. After a couple drinks we headed back to the hostel and anticipated the great weather the next day, a huge contrast to the weather of today that was windy, rainy and grey.

The sun was shining and it was off to the Senso-Ji Temple in Asakusa which was the area where we were staying. This temple was built in the 7th century and also has the second highest pagoda in the city. It was a beautiful temple with plenty of worshippers and great souvenir shopping to boot. Akihabara is the technology center of Tokyo and was next on our list of places to see. There was shop after shop of electronics with multiple vendors yelling from each one. Five story Sega buildings and street side gaming was everywhere. It was a dorks heaven… Paul you interested?? Needless to say Wang and I only needed a walkthrough to get our tronics fix for the trip. We then grabbed lunch at a place near the electronics district and had some Sobu noodles at Kanda Yaba Sobu.

Next was my favorite part of the Tokyo trip… Harajuku. Harajuku is the area known for the Harajuku girls that Gwen Stefani made so famous. They are all dressed in crazy clothing, congregated in large numbers on a particular bridge on Sundays. People are everywhere taking pictures of the street performers whose only talent was dressing very oddly. They did however take odd fashion to an interesting new level. The rest of the area was very hipster for a few blocks with shops and such with stores selling exclusively socks or others called ‘Condomania’. Once through the hipster part of the district the streets opened up to very high end shopping and modern architecture. The streets housed stores like Harry Winston, a five story Tods, a 4 story LV with a separate men’s and women’s entrance, YSL, Dunhil, and many other stores of equal or greater status. One thing is for sure… the Japanese LOVE to shop and it is very apparent throughout the city.

A note on fashion in Japan: It felt like everywhere we went, people throughout Tokyo looked like they were all wearing new clothes. Everyone was dressed well. Most Japanese women were put together like a very well dressed American woman but the men took it to a new level. They wore jeans as tight as the women’s (sometimes tighter), extremely long pointy shoes and about half of the time carried a man purse. This wasn’t just a district or two, this style carried throughout the city and only got more extravagant as you went to the more trendy districts.

We then ended up in Ikebukuro where we when to Sunshine City which housed a place that had 23 different steamed dumpling vendors. We grabbed some dinner and decided it had been a very long day and headed back to the Hostel. Once back I walked into the main room and found about 8 hammered Australians none of which I had any interest in meeting. About 30 minutes later a few Americans walked in and we ended up chatting with them. They were all from SF but had ended up moving to NY and Shanghai. The guy who lived in Shanghai, a Harvard graduate, offered to show us a good place to have dinner once we arrived in Shanghai. We ended the night early as the travel time back to the airport was long and our flight was at 10:40 am.

Tokyo was an amazing city with a very proud attitude. Most people understood English but unlike Taiwan and China, everyone always started to talk to me in Japanese and until I told them that I didn’t speak Japanese would they try English. They don’t particularly care for imperfection so I think speaking English embarrassed them slightly. Even with this barrier, everyone was extremely nice and helpful. Also in contrast to Taiwan and China, the Japanese respect ones personal space. There is no bumping into one another with no remorse or packed markets with people pushing one another. I also found their disdain for germs very interesting. I was in a train and could see about 20 people in my immediate view… 7 of them were wearing masks like the ones worn in a doctors office. This is to protect them from germs and illness but I can help but think about how it could affect the entire country and a possible lack of immunity to certain illnesses. Overall, Japan is an extremely respectable, clean country with a great culture. I would go back anytime!