I am writing this as I hang out in my hostel with a few precious hours of free Internet remaining. I have spent the last week just hanging out in Tokyo and seeing the sights, eating the sushi, and meeting the people. The culture is quite amazing and different but at so many points I couldn’t tell the difference between being in the states or being in Japan.
After picking up my luggage at the airport I met a group of backpackers also headed into Tokyo for the first time. After reading the signs and butchering our japanese pronunciation we made it onto a train from Narita Aiport to Tokyo. The major international airport (Narita) is actually about a one hour train ride from the city and you get a contrast from farmland to city on the ride in. During the ride I spent some time getting to know my fellow travelers who were spending 10 days in Japan coinciding with one of their spring breaks. We were all amazed at how silent and smooth the train was. There was no rocking, screeching, or rumbling even as speeds were clearly 45 mph+. At the station in Tokyo we split ways and I began my walk to the Hostel.
The hostel is in an area known as Asakusa in the northeast of Tokyo. There is an old Buddhist temple hear and a large pagoda. In addition, there is a park of cherry blossoms along a river which cuts Asakusa in half. The hostel was about a 10 minute walk from the station, clean and rather spacious compared to what I was expecting. In addition to being a hostel there was also a bar near by that the owner also owned and offered anyone staying in the hostel a free drink. The bar would become a great place to meet people during the trip and I often planned the next day’s events with people I met there.
The first thing I did after putting my stuff down was use the bathroom. I am talking about this because the toilet in Japan is a complicated device. There is a large keypad that accompanies the toilet with about 20 buttons. What do they all do?? [WILL INSERT PHOTO LATER] I have no idea. I’ve been told they do everything from washing you, to adding background noise, complimentary flushes, change tv channels, adjust temperature in the bathroom, warm the chair, and more.
After that I decided to get some food and found a group at the hostel also looking to eat. It comprised of an Australian artist, a Finnish Flute player studying some music style, and an American doing the JET teaching English program. The American had been here for a few years and helped order our food, which turned out to be amazing… and so was every meal after that.
The meals in Japan usually comprise of either rice, noodles, or a soup and a meat/fish. Usually fish. Apparently Japanese people consume something like 1/10th of the world’s total fish (statistic not at all verified). While on the trip I’ve had sushi every day and the best being at the Tsukiji fish market on my Third day in Japan. In addition to eating fish during most meals, every meal there is a hot moist towelette to clean your hands.
That night I was so exhausted I went back and was in bed by 10 PM and up at 5 Am the next day. The jetlag would persist and it would cause me trouble because it was hard to find someone to go out with and explore the city at 5 AM in the morning. So the first day I went around myself to the sites.
I travelled via the use of the Tokyo Metro. The metro is large and very connected: http://www.bento.com/subtop5.html . The only problem with it is that each of the lines are owned separately and you can’t buy a day pass for all trains like you can at the NY or Paris metro. I had to buy each trip separately and it usually came to about 300 yen and required one train transfer at each point. The amazing thing about the metro was that you could have 300 people crammed into a space that was fit for about 100 and yet there is absolute silence. In fact, in most places that were bustling with thousands of people there were very few audible conversations and everyone had a calm and reserved look in the face of apparent chaos. The trains were all very clean and announcements were in Japanese and a few of the lines had them in English. For all trains there was some form of electronic display to show the route of the train and inform you of the next stop incased you missed the announcement.
My first stop was the Tsukiji fish market. After getting off the incorrect subway stop I walked around for an hour looking for the area. One of my many times of random lost wandering. When I got there it was however closed, and I found out that it is so one wed every month, bad luck. So then I got some sushi for breakfast and headed to the imperial palace. Again I was lost while out of the subway but luckily the area is full of parks so I just went site seeing park to park. The palace was also closed and is only open 2 days out of the year; new years day and the emperor’s bday. Even without going indoors it was clear that the site was popular amongst Japanese business workers who were out in their suits eating and drinking in the park.
After strolling for a few hours and a few miles I decided I would take it easy and go to the fashion district, Ginza, and grab a bite to eat. The restraunt I picked had plastic food displays on the window sill [photo of plastic food]. The plastic food design is an artform in Japan and the quality of the plastic food denotes the quality of the food within.
When I got into the restaurant I found that the menu had no pictures, the waiter spoke no English, and I was unable to order what I wanted. So the waiter pointed to the door and I thought I was being asked to leave. However, he walked with me outside to the plastic food display and asked me to point to my dish of choice. I pointed to a ramen/beef dish and said “kore kudosai”. A few minutes later I would be having the best noodle soup dish of my life.
The rest of day was also consumed in sight seeing and when I returned to my hostel I was so exhausted I went straight to bed. Waking up the next day I felt a little lonely as I didn’t have any full conversations the day before. This morning however after my shower I met a group of people from Seattle who were trying to go to the fish market. After talking to them for a few minutes I joined into the group and we made our way for the subway.
The group composed of 2 females; Miko and Vivian and 2 males; Tony and Lingo. They all couldn’t recount how they knew each other but this was their first trip as a group and seemed to be having a great time. Of the group Tony and Miko were into photography and gave me a few pointers on how to use the SLR to its full perspective. Vivian is a web developer and has a great site called Sushimonsters.com .
Miko had some previous knowledge of Tokyo and she lead the group as we went from site to site. We reached the fish market without getting lost as I did the day before and it was a site to be seen. I would say it was the size of a football stadium just covered with fish vendors. I saw tuna larger than me, octopus, shrimp, squid, and hundreds of fish varieties i’ve never seen before. All this fish viewing perked the groups interest in Sushi and we decided to have a meal at the market. We walked around about 20 stores or so until we found one with a line of local Japanese and went in. Regardless to say the sushi was incredible [INSERT PICTURE OF SUSHI HERE]. The more adventurous of the group even had some whale sushi (might have been illegal) but apparently it wasn’t the best.
After that we made our way to Ginza again and the Sony display building. While enroute we found a large building that tourist could go to the top of and get a view of Tokyo from. The one thing I was suprised with was that there is no defined city center like there is in NY, Paris, or Chicago with a great skyline. Instead there are 5-6 huge buildings together and then not another one for a few miles.
At the Sony building we saw the new technology and the preview for Final Fantasy XIII amongst ｏｔｈｅｒ ｍｏｄｅｒｎ ｔｅｃｈｎｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌ ｗｏｎｄｅｒｓ． Also at the top of the building there was a place to relax and watch a giant hi-def TV so we relaxed for while up there.
After we had seen enough japanese rock/rap videos we made our way to an area known as Shibuya. Shibuya is famous for having the world’s busiest intersection. As soon as we got off the train it was clear that thousands upon thousands of people were getting off at the same stop. Again the whole crowd was extremely silent as they pushed their way outside. Once we got to the main intersection at Shibuya we took a breather to wait for friend of their’s who was also in Japan at the time. We waited for about 30 minutes and saw all manners of young Japanese people with crazy outfits and haircuts crossing the street.
After meeting up with their friend we decided to get a little more to eat and went to an authentic Japanese restaurant for the meal. Instead of ordering single dishes we had a family style meal with 5 or 6 dishes accompanied with Sake. The Sake in Japan has totally ruined my liking for Sake in the US. Here it is not served piping hot nor does it have any after taste what-so-ever like it does in the states. Everyone enjoyed the dinner and then I said my goodbyes as I had a prior engagement.
I made my way back to the Hostel got changed and made my way back to Shibuya to meet the individual who contacｔed me from www.couchsurfing.com . His name was Staurt, originally from Canada but currently working for a media company in Japan. He also had another friend along with him, Adam, who was in Japan on a volunteering trip. As I got talking to Adam I learned that he grew up in Brighton NY, the town adjacent to where I grew up. He asked me about some people that went to my HS and I about his. We didn’t know any of the same people but still were amazed at how small the world can be sometimes.
Staurt had a friend who was VJing (video jockying) at a club that evening so we all went there and met up with some of Staurt’s other friends. The club was pretty intense playing house and trans music with some insane laser lights and massive video screen. The party was on two floors both packed with both local Japanese and tourist looking to have a good time. We stayed out dancing past the last train for the evening and I ended up taking the first train of the morning (5AM) back to the Hostel.
Needless to say I was extremely tired when I returned and spent the morning sleeping and took it easy the rest of the visiting a local park and river festival. Also I made my bookings for the rest of my trip in Japan and Hong Kong. I spent most of the day talking to people in the hostel who had been traveling all over Asia. I heard about the sites to see in both Hong Kong and Thailand and even met a group of Austrian’s to take the bullet train to Kyoto with the next day (March 31st). I slept early that night so I could finish up some tasks in the morning, including writing this blog.
Currently my time at the Hostel is coming to a close. I will update again in Hong Kong.
GOOGLE EARTH LOCATIONS:
(To use you must have Google Earth installed on your computer.
Ｍｅｔｈｏｄ １：
A) Rightclick on the file and go to “Save file as…” and save the file to your computer
B) Open the file, it should automatically open up Google Earth and place the mark
Method 2::
A) Right click on the file and go to “Copy link location”
B) Open up Google Earth.
C) Go to File->Open and then paste the link location into the open bar (It works trust me)
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stIndiana.kml
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stSanJose.kml
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stjapBall.kml
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stHibKoen.kml
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stImpPal.kml
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stFishMkt.kml
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stGinza.kml
http://www.saurabhgombar.com/worldtrip/stShibuya.kml
If ａｎｙｏｎｅ ｉｓ ｈａｖｉｎｇ ｔｒｏｕｂｌｅ ｐｌｅａｓｅ ｌｅｔ ｍｅ ｋｎｏｗ． Ｉ ｗｉｌｌ ｄｏ ｗｈａｔ Ｉ ｃａｎ ｔｏ ｆｉｘ ｉｔ．
