Japan, Day 3
JR Rail passes allow free use of Japan Rail trains while they're active, and come in 7, 14, and 21-day variants. As were were only in Japan for 8 days, it made no sense to pay extra for the 14 or 21 day versions. Tuesday was the first day our passes were active.
I was still suffering from jet lag, and found myself awake hours before our scheduled meeting time. I tried going back to sleep, but in the end still had some time to kill. Thinking about the trip to Akihabara, I realized I shouldn't be looking for series which were popular enough to be imported to the US, but instead the more obscure titles I couldn't find even at my local Japanese bookstores. I came up with about 6 titles to keep an eye out for, and then it was time to go.
Now that our JR passes were active, we could go to more distant locations without burning money. Our first destination was Kamakura, home of a giant metal buddha statue. There were also shrines in the area, but we skipped them because we planned to visit a bunch of shrines later in the trip.
The big buddha was about what it sounds like, but I'm not convinced it was worth the 1 hour trip each way just to see it. We all napped on the train, though, so in that sense it took no additional time. For the very modest fee of 20 yen, you could go inside the statue and see some of the interior construction. There was also a nice garden behind the statue, and a pair of giant-sized sandals.
Lunch was at a restaurant by the train station, which we picked because nothing else had jumped out at us on the way back (though there was a bunch of soft serve ice cream shops). We got the shop's special, tempura shrimp on rice with sauce, which turned out to be surprisingly tasty.
Tokyo Tower was next on the list. Disappointingly, Godzilla didn't show up, nor did magical girls, aliens, mecha, dimensional rips, or anything else interesting. False advertising!
There was, however, a ridiculously cute guide robot wandering around, complete with an anthropomorphic smiling face and polite manners (asking you to move if you were in the way). Every so often it would turn to some landmark and recite a spiel about it in English, while displaying supporting material.
We were a bit ahead of schedule, so tried going to Miraikan, or the Future Museum, mostly based on the name alone, as we didn't know anything about it. My mental picture is that Japan's so cool, they're not content to just build time machines, they bring back stuff from the future and put it on display. After the now-usual series of puzzled questions and pantomimed gesturing, we were able to find it, only to find it was closed on Tuesdays. Oops. Travel tip of the day: Check the days of places you want to visit!
Next to the Miraikan was some sort of international dorms, which was spookily empty. Actually, the entire island of Odaiba in general was pretty empty, but this place doubly so. Four large residential buildings surrounded a central square, and there was nobody in sight. Walking across the square felt like we were some still-clueless characters in a post-apocalyptic movie.
We went to a nearby mall for dinner, which continued the trend of being largely unpopulated. This evening's meal was an okonomiyaki set - the waitress started things off by mixing up okonomiyaki in bowls, then placed it to cook on the table's central grilling surface. While it was cooking, various dishes came out for us to munch on. After we were done with all the other dishes, the okonomiyaki was done cooking and we could dig in.
Partway through the meal a dozen girls came in to the restaurant. They couldn't have been older than middle school, but they were unaccompanied by an adult, which seemed really odd to me. I have a hard time imagining parents in the US allowing something like that.
Once more to Akihabara, but I again arrived shortly before stores closed and had to return empty handed. It didn't help that not only was I only vaguely aware of what titles should look like, I wasn't even sure I was looking in the right sections, so could be wasting my time in a completely wrong part of the store.
For the third night, I wanted to try a capsule hotel, and got a pod at Hotel Nihonbashi Villa. I left my suitcase with my friends, and my backpack just barely fit into the provided locker. The capsule itself was a little roomier than I had imagined, there was enough room to sit up, and I didn't feel claustrophobic at all. On the downside, the mattress was a little thin and the privacy curtain was useless as soundproofing. Even though there weren't many other people (when I arrived, there were one or two; when I left in the morning, maybe 5), and they were all polite, I could still hear them moving around. Still, once I got to sleep, there was no problem, and it was the cheapest accommodation I stayed at of the trip.
I was still suffering from jet lag, and found myself awake hours before our scheduled meeting time. I tried going back to sleep, but in the end still had some time to kill. Thinking about the trip to Akihabara, I realized I shouldn't be looking for series which were popular enough to be imported to the US, but instead the more obscure titles I couldn't find even at my local Japanese bookstores. I came up with about 6 titles to keep an eye out for, and then it was time to go.
Now that our JR passes were active, we could go to more distant locations without burning money. Our first destination was Kamakura, home of a giant metal buddha statue. There were also shrines in the area, but we skipped them because we planned to visit a bunch of shrines later in the trip.
The big buddha was about what it sounds like, but I'm not convinced it was worth the 1 hour trip each way just to see it. We all napped on the train, though, so in that sense it took no additional time. For the very modest fee of 20 yen, you could go inside the statue and see some of the interior construction. There was also a nice garden behind the statue, and a pair of giant-sized sandals.
Lunch was at a restaurant by the train station, which we picked because nothing else had jumped out at us on the way back (though there was a bunch of soft serve ice cream shops). We got the shop's special, tempura shrimp on rice with sauce, which turned out to be surprisingly tasty.
Tokyo Tower was next on the list. Disappointingly, Godzilla didn't show up, nor did magical girls, aliens, mecha, dimensional rips, or anything else interesting. False advertising!
There was, however, a ridiculously cute guide robot wandering around, complete with an anthropomorphic smiling face and polite manners (asking you to move if you were in the way). Every so often it would turn to some landmark and recite a spiel about it in English, while displaying supporting material.
We were a bit ahead of schedule, so tried going to Miraikan, or the Future Museum, mostly based on the name alone, as we didn't know anything about it. My mental picture is that Japan's so cool, they're not content to just build time machines, they bring back stuff from the future and put it on display. After the now-usual series of puzzled questions and pantomimed gesturing, we were able to find it, only to find it was closed on Tuesdays. Oops. Travel tip of the day: Check the days of places you want to visit!
Next to the Miraikan was some sort of international dorms, which was spookily empty. Actually, the entire island of Odaiba in general was pretty empty, but this place doubly so. Four large residential buildings surrounded a central square, and there was nobody in sight. Walking across the square felt like we were some still-clueless characters in a post-apocalyptic movie.
We went to a nearby mall for dinner, which continued the trend of being largely unpopulated. This evening's meal was an okonomiyaki set - the waitress started things off by mixing up okonomiyaki in bowls, then placed it to cook on the table's central grilling surface. While it was cooking, various dishes came out for us to munch on. After we were done with all the other dishes, the okonomiyaki was done cooking and we could dig in.
Partway through the meal a dozen girls came in to the restaurant. They couldn't have been older than middle school, but they were unaccompanied by an adult, which seemed really odd to me. I have a hard time imagining parents in the US allowing something like that.
Once more to Akihabara, but I again arrived shortly before stores closed and had to return empty handed. It didn't help that not only was I only vaguely aware of what titles should look like, I wasn't even sure I was looking in the right sections, so could be wasting my time in a completely wrong part of the store.
For the third night, I wanted to try a capsule hotel, and got a pod at Hotel Nihonbashi Villa. I left my suitcase with my friends, and my backpack just barely fit into the provided locker. The capsule itself was a little roomier than I had imagined, there was enough room to sit up, and I didn't feel claustrophobic at all. On the downside, the mattress was a little thin and the privacy curtain was useless as soundproofing. Even though there weren't many other people (when I arrived, there were one or two; when I left in the morning, maybe 5), and they were all polite, I could still hear them moving around. Still, once I got to sleep, there was no problem, and it was the cheapest accommodation I stayed at of the trip.