I realize this is a week late...just pretend it's a week ago
Red metal statue near Tokyo Central Station
Oh, so alone again. Last week was totally bitchin’ fun, with three of my best Americajin pals visiting from the States. We got some major traveling done, managed to hit a wealth of places I had never seen before, and just generally enjoyed a week of vacation in each other’s company. Our story begins in that mega-cosmopolis of wealth and luxury…Tokyo!
We spent our first night in Akasaka, in the capsule hotel of previous journal-entry fame. Before cocooning in for the night we decided to get some dinner and walk around Akasaka a bit. A yakiniku place was found that provided bibs, which is always a good sign. The lettuce wraps and barbequed pork were great, although the raw crabs were met with much less enthusiasm. I refused to touch them, Sarah attempted it once and gave up, Jeremy bit into one dubiously, and it was left to Elisha to eat a few of them, to prove to the staff that we had known we were ordering raw crabs (we hadn’t) and were just a bit full from before (we weren’t). We paid up, helped ourselves to some dessert gum (dessert gum?), and hit the Akasaka pavement.
Bibs!
If attending school drinking parties has taught me anything, it’s that the best chaser to any odd meal is always, always, KARAOKE! If there’s anything easier to find after dark in Japan than a karaoke place, I don’t know about it-nor do I care to. Without any effort at all we found a karaoke booth, some peach fizzes, and two hours at our disposal. Bon Jovi was heavy on the playlist, but the only song that was sung all the way through twice, was Ziggy Stardust. Man-OH-man, is that a great song or what?
We emerged from our capsules the next morning feeling refreshed, except for poor J-tronic, who I fear just felt squished. In order to rally spirits and plan our next move, we began what was to be one of the major tropes of this vacation: The search for ko-hi. (That’s ‘coffee’ for all you nihongo wo wakaranai no hito out there.) After mobbing a Tully’s and throwing back a few cups, we headed out for Ueno Park…and adventure!
Ueno is a big ‘ole park in Tokyo that hosts, among other things, several temples and shrines, a zoo, and a large collection of cherry trees. It was a bit too early for there to be many trees in bloom, but as we learned, it’s never too early for crazy old men to come up and start long rambling, conversations. I’m still not sure if this is another feature of the park or if we just got particularly lucky, but this dude asked us why American women don’t want Japanese boyfriends, why so much American culture was exported to Japan but not vice-versa, and if we would come by tomorrow morning and hand out meals to homeless people in the park with the Salvation Army. I found a lot of what he was saying a little insulting and his overall manner to be a bit pushy, so when we exited for the zoo, I was not sorry to see him left behind.
Ducks!
Sakura!
Ueno Zoo is quite a nice zoo, with an expanse of exotic birds, an excellent bat exhibit, and a whole mountain of goats. I think the bats were my favorite, but then I have a soft spot in my heart for bats. They’re the only mammals that can truly fly, you know!
Have warm blood, will travel. How could you not love bats?
While neither warm blooded nor flight-ready, penguins are still pretty cool. Just not as cool as bats.
After Ueno we metro-ed into Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s more amazing areas; this is the Tokyo you see in movies, and what you imagine when you think of the city. Big, crowded, and lit up like X-mas, Shibuya embodies Tokyo excess to a tee; it’s a far cry from the quiet suburban feel of Ueno, at any rate. Our first objective was to find lodging for the night, which we attempted to do at Love Hotel Hill-a densely packed neighborhood of, well, love hotels. Sadly, unlike in laidback Osaka, staying at these love hotels for the night included a strict check-in time of 12 am, which was four hours away. Everyone was tired and ready to ditch his or her luggage, so we conceded to staying in a pricier-than-usual hotel near the station. Still, the rooms were comfy and warm, and we were finally able to put down our bags, freshen up a little, and embark upon that evening’s entertainment.
For a while we just walked around, observing the mad whirl that is downtown Tokyo. Eventually though, we started looking in earnest for a place to eat. Though Sarah and I were intrigued with a creepy basement restaurant, done up in a gothic cathedral theme, we all finally agreed on an above ground izekaya (Japanese-style bar). The food was your usual izekaya fare, but it was tasty, and the drinks were economical-a happy little place all around. A long bout of eating and drinking left us all rather sleepy, so it was back to the hotel for a good night’s rest before setting out for the Studio Ghibli museum the next morning.
On the train to Mitaka
Studio Ghibli, which has produced such animated hard-hitters as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, has a museum in Mitaka, Tokyo. We headed out Sunday morning for Mitaka, and made it there by 12:15, only fifteen minutes later than our tickets said we should be there. The museum is an Escheresque three-story building, with a giant metal robot statue on the roof. After wandering through the many rooms, cluttered with concept drawings and Ghibli realia, we grabbed some hotdogs out on the veranda before attending a screening of a new, as yet unreleased, 55 minute Ghibli short. Though I enjoyed walking through the museum and seeing all the sketches and research that gets put into these films, you really can’t duplicate the magic of the films themselves in “real life.” I’m glad I’ve been but, and I feel a bit guilty saying this, getting “Howl” on DVD might make me a bit…gladder.
Giant Robot statue on the roof of the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka
From Mitaka we rode the train back to Tokyo Central Station to buy our tickets for the bullet train, because it was on to Kyoto! The bullet trains of Japan are simply amazingly fast, and little else can be said. On the inside they are pretty identical to the nicer trains I’ve ridden in, it’s just that they go incredibly, incredibly fast. From Tokyo to Kyoto took 2 hours and 40 minutes. This is astounding. I think Jeremy put it best when he said, “Boku no ai mo shinkansen wa onaji desu.” (My love and the bullet train are the same.) I’ll leave it at that.
Kyoto was a bit rainy that first evening, but it didn’t dampen our spirits one bit. We had rooms booked at the cozy APA Hotel, which was close to the station. Unfortunately, the lousy Lonely Planet maps (or my poor map reading skills) kept us from reaching it quickly. We got there in the end, though, and after a quick trip to Lawson (I love you Lawson!), the girls changed into yukata and we had a little room party before going to bed.
The next day, we traveled to the Temple of the Golden Pavilion to procure the sacred scroll to give to the mysterious art dealer…just kidding! We really did go to the temple though, which was quite pretty, and had some lovely koi as well.
Coming back from the temple was a little muddled, but we did hit another huge temple/shrine complex on the way back, so it all worked out for the best. That night we were staying at a hostile called the Tour Club, one of the best hostiles I’ve stayed in in Japan to date, so we went to check in and plan the rest of the evening. The Tour Club had a map of the surrounding neighborhood, with a few restaurants and amusements pointed out in detail. One of these was a sento (public bath. Not quite an onsen, but hey, we’re not picky.) The girls were all crying “Bath! Bath! Bath!” so we set out in that direction. Jermo, for some reason, didn’t seem to relish the idea of gettin’ nakey with a bunch of Japanese men, so he opted to stay behind and hold down the fort.
The bath was pretty nice, although they had an electric bath, something I’d never seen before, that was unsettling and uncomfortable. It was basically a bath with a low electric current running through it, which made dangling a toe or fingertip feel like a mild electric shock. Weird. Overall, though, we emerged rejuvenated and ready for a night on the town.
After meeting back up with Jeremy at the hostile, we headed out for dinner and after-dinner amusements. There was a funky looking okonomiyaki restaurant nearby and we were all getting pretty hungry, so we ducked in there and had us some tasty “Japanese pizza” as it is sometimes called, although it neither looks nor tastes like pizza. Nevertheless, it was nourishing and didn’t taste half bad. After dinner we decided to head into downtown Kyoto, which was a long-ish walk that yielded a cool collection of bars and nightspots, all completely empty. There must have been people drinking and laughing and talking somewhere, because there were plenty of them walking around outside-we just couldn’t find any of these mysterious locales. It all ended well, though, when we found a cheerfully crowded yakitori place. A few skewers of meat and cool drinks later, we taxied back to the comfy mattresses awaiting us at the Tour Club.
Our last day in Kyoto was spent visiting Adashino Nembutsu-ji (a temple in Sagano, Kyoto) and the Imperial Palace Gardens. Sightseeing completed, we hopped on a local train to Osaka.
Bamboo forrest near Nembutsu-ji
Paupers’ graveyard at Nembutsu-ji
Nembutsu-ji’s image of the Buddha
Osaka was the first place we visited that I’d actually been to before, and sorta, kinda knew my way around. If you recall, gentle readers, my last trip to Osaka, you’ll remember that we stayed at the illustrious Hotel Pamplona. Though the love hotel quest in Tokyo had failed, I assured my companions that Osaka would not disappoint-and disappoint it did not! We dined on Mexican food that night before checking into our rooms at the Pamplona. Sarah and I opted for a model with chains, while Elisha and Jeremy went for a Ghibli themed confection (creeeee-py!). Karaoke and combini food later, everyone went to bed satisfied.
The day that followed contained what I will always remember as a truly momentous occasion; the day I went to Spa World. What is Spa World, you ask? Why, only the most fabulous bathing experience one could imagine! A huge building with two full themed floors of baths and saunas, and a water park perched on its roof. And how much was this luxury bathing experience, you ask? 4,000 yen? 5,000 yen? Ha! ‘Twas a mere 1,300 yen…unbelievable! It would be impossible for me to commit to words the amazingly fantastical experience that is Spa World, so I’ll simply outline some of the more wondrous of its features. Firstly, the women’s floor this month is the European themed level, so there is a heavily Ancient Roman influenced décor which means lots of fake crumbling plaster pillars, Greco-Roman statuary, a golden bath, and a red wine bath. Additionally, there was a room entitled “Atlantis,” which included a bath with a clear plastic floor, under which live sharks were swimming. Sarah and I also enjoyed some special spa attentions; I got an akasura, a deep body scrub that removes about ten years of dead skin (and live skin) from your body, leaving it as smooth and silky as that of a newborn babe. Sarah went for a mini facial, and had precious oils and unguents applied to her winsome visage. I could seriously wax on about Spa World for the rest of this entry…but I won’t. I will say, though, that there is a naked snack bar one can visit, should one get hungry whilst pampering oneself silly; we got some nudie nuggets. If you’ve never eaten chicken nuggets naked with your best friend…well, can you really say you’ve eaten chicken nuggets?
That night we all went to a nice sushi restaurant for dinner. Jeremy, Elisha and Sarah all tried poison blowfish and thankfully didn’t die. Poison or not, I’m just not that into sushi, so I politely declined, and stuck to my pork shabu shabu (hotpot).
We left Osaka behind the next morning for Himeji. I think the only reason people visit Himeji is to see Himeji-jo, a castle built in 1580 by Hideyoshi Toyotomi (see Osaka Castle Entry.) It really is a beautiful building, and is all the more impressive for actually being the original structure and not a concrete replica. It also contains a creepy, life-sized doll of the princess who lived there with her husband, back in medieval Japan.
Himeji Castle
After an unexpected attack of ramen-hunger (I don’t get it often, but when I do, it must be sated before I can do anything else), we left for Nagano-ken, and Tatsuno. This was a harrowing journey at times, and included a train-change in Nagoya with a window of only eight minutes. Thankfully, our hustle (and flow) proved both fresh and jive, and we all arrived in Tatsuno that night. We hit the new 7-11 for dinner and watched “View From The Top,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow, at my apartment. What more could a person want?
The next day we rode out to Matsumoto to see Matsumoto-jo and the enormous koi that live around it. They’re looking good after the cold winter, although I did not see the Big Boss koi anywhere. I sure hope he’s all right, because he promised me a wish if I let him go, and as far as I can tell he hasn’t delivered yet. After a bit of shopping at Parco, we returned to Tatsuno for some homemade curry and packing, for it was our last night together. The next morning everyone but me was getting on an early bus back to Tokyo for their final day of vacation.
We all trudged up to the highway bus station the next morning and said our goodbyes. It was sad, but I had so much fun, and I’ll always remember it!
To: Sarah, Jeremy, and Elisha
Guys, I had such a good time, and I’m so glad you could come! We ought to take more trips together. Anyone up for Russia in 2008?
