Japan trip: Part II - Tokyo

Time:  14.03.2015-05.04.2015
So once we arrived to Japan, we spent first 3 days in Tokyo. If I have to say my impression about Tokyo with 3 words it would be - busy, crowded and entertaining. Three days and limited budget are not good companions to have in Tokyo.

16.03.15 
We woke up in our really cool backpackers place in Asakusa, Ueno and booked it for another night. We went out around 11 am and I must say that at first I could not believe that I am actually in Japan after all these years. The weather was amazing, of course due to the fact that my own country is rather cold at the moment! Especially interesting was to buy onigiri for breakfast (~120¥) that made me understand that I should start studying Japanese again, especially kanji.. thank Gyoza that we have Yanne for that. But already on the first day I noticed something really annoying: a lot of Tokyo girls like to wear wear too big shoes so the shoe is always falling off. It made me go crazy - I am big fan of high heels, so wearing high heels and not being able to stand properly in them is unacceptable for me and definitely not cute.

For the first thing we went to Meiji shrine. Here I mention that transportation is the most expensive thing in Japan, so we ended up using most money on that. In addition, we had to make calculations about which train or subway tickets we need and which are cheaper. Basically, if you have another train line ticket for a right train line, then you do not have a ticket. Why cannot they make system where all companies use one system in one city? It is really complicated to understand what I am talking about, but once you experience it, it makes your head explode. Or maybe I am just used to system back at home where things have made really easy?

But back to Meiji shrine. Meiji shrine is built in 1920 for emperor Meiji and his wife after their death. I think I do not have to talk about the background and things more, if you want to read it - Google it! I liked it because when you are on the shrine grounds then you do not feel that you are in Tokyo.. and definitely not in Shibuya. We also took our luck there, because this is one thing that you definitely want to do. Even though they have it in English also,  I took in Japanese. The translation is "Open heart is just as inspiring as morning blue sky".

Next we went to Yoyogi park to see plum blossoms as cherries were not blooming yet. I must say that for me almost everything that blooms is beautiful so I enjoyed it much. But even cooler was to see "obaachans" with their doggies. So called "obaachans" are elderly women whose children have grown up already and now spend time dressing up their doggies and taking them everywhere. (of course there are some who prefer cats).  

After enjoying time in a bit more quiet area we decided to go to crowded Harajuku. I actually believed that it is much bigger, but in reality it is more like bunch of small narrow and crowded streets, full of small shops, purikura and Johnny's... and crepes. It was interesting to see, but I am not a person who would enjoy this - the good thing with travelling: you discover new things about yourself. In Harajuku we also had our lunch - Ramen!!  In the end ramen and curry became my favorite foods.

Suddenly it started to rain, so it was not so good anymore to go around the town. We went to Mandarake - it is Yanne's one of the favorite a manga shops. Well of course I found there a lot of things with Johnny's and I almost ended up buying Massu's uchiwa, but as it does not replace real him, then I just took a photo with it. (Notice: Doing it actually in the store is not welcomed!)
The weather got even worse so we decided to take the crowded train and go back to hostel.

17.03.15 
On the second day we took direction to Imperial Palace, but before we went to Zojoji temple and Tokyo Tower. Zojoji is Buddhist Temple, It is the Great main temple and six Tokugawa shoguns are buried there. In addition there are many Jizo statues and at the moment they were all dressed up and had wind whirls. As there was some kind of event going on, we did not stay there for long.

I did expect a little bit more from Tokyo Tower, because they had taken Eiffel Tower for example and Eiffel is amazing up close with all its details, but Tokyo Tower.. :/ sorry, but it is just a tower made of metal painted white and red. We did not go up, because we already heard that it is impossible to see Mt. Fuji, because there was this weird clouds in front of it. But we ate crepes and did not let our mood down. Crepes are one thing that Japan has done really great! French crepes are not nearly as great as Japanese. I had this crazy idea to find one viewpoint to Tokyo Tower that was used in "Hanawake no yon shimai" and believe me - IT WAS DIFFICULT TO FIND! but we more or less found it  I hope :D During that time we also met with one American who was working in Japan, but his knowledge about Japan was almost not existing at all, but we all have one weird memory to remember.

Finally after a long walk we arrived to Imperial Palace, as Yanne said to me before "we can laugh or cry how less traditions and culture is kept there". There really is not much to see, You can go and see the garden and some buildings, but nothing impressive. We decided to go to Akihabara, but as non of us is so into games and technical things we did not stay there for long. Of course we managed to see many maid cafes and middle aged men going there. Did not expect it to be so famous. AAA I forgot about AKB O.o They are everywhere.. just everywhere.. and mostly without proper clothes. I think the company should be rich enough to finally put some clothes on them!

We went back to the hostel to take our bags, but as I had neglected my university work for 2 weeks, then I still had to make at least one assignment before forgetting that I should be in university. 

This night we were going to spend CouchSurfing (I just love that site!) at Ichiro-san's place. While we were trying to reach his place we stopped in Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to see the night view of Tokyo on 45th floor. The view was truly amazing, but I did not like the fact that they had made inside of the floor as a shop with a lot of lights that all reflected on the windows and made the view less enjoyable. In addition, it is not so comfortable to be in place like that with really big bags. But while we were coming from there I saw a guy who looked like Massu - he had outstanding fashion sense, red hair, but he also wore face-mask and a cap... and a skateboard...

Ichiro is a really great Japanese guy who works in Shinjuku, owns a house and has a plan to host at least 200 couchsurfers - if I remember correctly then we were somewhere in 90ties. We made a lot of origami at his place and we found out that my sister Chris is hopelessly horrible at origami O.o Made me even think that we are not sisters at all.  

18.03.15 

It was the last day in Tokyo for us. We started the day with going to see the almighty Tokyo Sky Tree that we had seen almost everyday from far. Already when we walked out of the house, the sky was very foggy and it stayed the same when we arrived to the Sky Tree - this means that paying a lot of money to go to the viewing platform is just a waste of money as you will not see anything. We decided to take a walk and go to Asakusa.

In Asakusa we spent time in Asakusa temple where for the first time we became the "sightseeing" instead of the temple - we ended up being photographed for so many times in Japan that we even thought about making business with it. We saw a lot of plums blossoming in the park - compared to sakuras they blossom sooner and longer. This day we went back to Ichiro-san's place sooner. We went with him to Odaiba - we actually had left it out of our plans before because of lack of time, but he took us there with a car. It is awesome feeling to see Tokyo at night and especially drive in a car at night. It makes you feel that you are in sci-fi movie or in far far future.

Odaiba was wonderful. All the views, students practicing dance or just hanging around. Of course this was the first time I managed to lose everybody while I was fighting with my camera which decided to get low battery. For the first time in my life I felt really lost - exactly the right time when to mention that my phone was the only one working in Japan and I had forgot to ask Yanne's or Ichiro's Japanese phone number. Thank Gyoza that they happened to notice short after that I was missing and came to find me. We went on to see the life-sized Gundam model that made quite a show. Standing in front of it made me feel reaaallly small.  And Yanne got to kiss at least somebody..

But this was it for our days in Tokyo and  next day we headed toward Kawaguchiko to stand close to Mt. Fuji, that put a curse on us, but about it in a next post.