Icon is more appropriate than usual
I'm only two days into my trip, and it's already involved epically delayed trains, cat cafés, and giant robots.
First, it's worth mentioning that I was running on zero sleep for the last two days. I drove to another town on Saturday for lunch with callmecaito and her boyfriend, then a festival in the evening, then karaoke AFTER the festival with the ALTs that showed up. It started to pour rain in the afternoon, and only got worse in the evening. It was raining so hard that the awnings of the festival food booths were threatening to collapse because so much rain water had collected on top. I wore a jinbei to the festival, and I was soaking wet even WITH an umbrella. It was fun times, though, and I'm glad I went. I seem to have a habit of attending rainy festivals. There were a lot of goodbyes that evening, since most people will be gone back home by the time I return to Japan. I'm not great at them, but I'm glad I got to have one last fun evening with everyone.
So after a lot of karaoke and a lot of sad goodbyes, I didn't get home until 2AM. Then stayed up doing last-minute packing. Then got a shower. Then lay down for 45 minutes until my alarm went off at 4AM, so I'd be out the door in time to catch the first train. Wonderful.
proanon and I decided to take the same shinkansen since we were both heading to Tokyo the same day. You never know when little decisions like that will suddenly make all the difference. Because about an hour into the train ride, we suddenly ended up delayed at a station for three hours. It had been raining torrentially the whole way out - enough that every river was flooding and churning brown rapids - but apparently the flooding in the mountains was so bad that the inspector couldn't even get to the tracks to see if they were safe enough for trains to proceed. Which was probably a good sign that they weren't. In the end, they had to bus all the train passengers to the next prefecture so we could take the train from another station outside the danger zone. All of which pretty much guaranteed that proanon was going to miss her flight home that day, so I offered for her to share my hotel room that night so she could fly out the next day.
That worked out spectacularly. I almost never have company while I'm in Tokyo, except the time my parents and cousin came to visit, so it turned into an evening whirlwind exploration of Shinjuku. She knew of a cat café in the area, so we went and played with the kitties for a while. I found a place for dinner, a lot of UFO catchers, and some hilariously pink frozen yoghurt. Shinjuku's a fantastic place to be if you want to see the heart of modern Tokyo, and since most things are open late, it makes a great spot to explore until the wee hours.
After a leisurely breakfast the next morning, and seeing proanon off on at the station (hopefully natural disaster free this time!), I jumped into one of my non-stop Tokyo exploration days. First I headed out to Odaiba to see the latest bit of "JAPAN IS AWESOME!" blogging material on the interwebs: the life sized Gundam in Shiokaze Park. It's...well, a life-sized Gundam. I never watched any of the Gundam series', but an awesome giant robot is an awesome giant robot. Now it just has to come to life and start fighting other giant robots, and Tokyo will be complete.
Odaiba is also home to a lot of giant shopping complexes and amusement centres and things. I skipped most of them, but I did walk around to hunt down something for sabella_a: Solar Bear. Even climate change needs cute, marketable mascots. The base has a question about global warming, and the walkway in front of the display has "STOP THEM CRYING" written in English. So, uh...I guess the message is "stop global warming, because it makes cute bears sad." (Cue flashbacks to Sexual Harassment Panda.)
After Odaiba, I stopped by Akihabara on a brief search for gifts, and found a keychain I've been looking for for ages. AKIBA DELIVERS. I spent most of the rest of the evening in Nakano, visiting my regular haunts there and playing a few rounds of taiko. I'm starting to get anxious about my flight, so I'm losing my appetite already, but a small meal was doable. Nice way to end the evening before meandering back to Shinjuku on the subway.
I'm in my hotel room now, sorting out my suitcase and making sure everything is where it should be. Time for me to get some sleep, so I'll wake up in time to get some things done before I head to the airport. I have no idea how I'm going to feel tomorrow. Least of all when I get to the airport. There's already been enough complications thrown at this trip, but shinkansen has NOTHING on airplanes when it comes to all the many and various ways things can get delayed and go wrong. With so many flights in the next few days, I'm going to need some luck on my side.
First, it's worth mentioning that I was running on zero sleep for the last two days. I drove to another town on Saturday for lunch with callmecaito and her boyfriend, then a festival in the evening, then karaoke AFTER the festival with the ALTs that showed up. It started to pour rain in the afternoon, and only got worse in the evening. It was raining so hard that the awnings of the festival food booths were threatening to collapse because so much rain water had collected on top. I wore a jinbei to the festival, and I was soaking wet even WITH an umbrella. It was fun times, though, and I'm glad I went. I seem to have a habit of attending rainy festivals. There were a lot of goodbyes that evening, since most people will be gone back home by the time I return to Japan. I'm not great at them, but I'm glad I got to have one last fun evening with everyone.
So after a lot of karaoke and a lot of sad goodbyes, I didn't get home until 2AM. Then stayed up doing last-minute packing. Then got a shower. Then lay down for 45 minutes until my alarm went off at 4AM, so I'd be out the door in time to catch the first train. Wonderful.
proanon and I decided to take the same shinkansen since we were both heading to Tokyo the same day. You never know when little decisions like that will suddenly make all the difference. Because about an hour into the train ride, we suddenly ended up delayed at a station for three hours. It had been raining torrentially the whole way out - enough that every river was flooding and churning brown rapids - but apparently the flooding in the mountains was so bad that the inspector couldn't even get to the tracks to see if they were safe enough for trains to proceed. Which was probably a good sign that they weren't. In the end, they had to bus all the train passengers to the next prefecture so we could take the train from another station outside the danger zone. All of which pretty much guaranteed that proanon was going to miss her flight home that day, so I offered for her to share my hotel room that night so she could fly out the next day.
That worked out spectacularly. I almost never have company while I'm in Tokyo, except the time my parents and cousin came to visit, so it turned into an evening whirlwind exploration of Shinjuku. She knew of a cat café in the area, so we went and played with the kitties for a while. I found a place for dinner, a lot of UFO catchers, and some hilariously pink frozen yoghurt. Shinjuku's a fantastic place to be if you want to see the heart of modern Tokyo, and since most things are open late, it makes a great spot to explore until the wee hours.
After a leisurely breakfast the next morning, and seeing proanon off on at the station (hopefully natural disaster free this time!), I jumped into one of my non-stop Tokyo exploration days. First I headed out to Odaiba to see the latest bit of "JAPAN IS AWESOME!" blogging material on the interwebs: the life sized Gundam in Shiokaze Park. It's...well, a life-sized Gundam. I never watched any of the Gundam series', but an awesome giant robot is an awesome giant robot. Now it just has to come to life and start fighting other giant robots, and Tokyo will be complete.
Odaiba is also home to a lot of giant shopping complexes and amusement centres and things. I skipped most of them, but I did walk around to hunt down something for sabella_a: Solar Bear. Even climate change needs cute, marketable mascots. The base has a question about global warming, and the walkway in front of the display has "STOP THEM CRYING" written in English. So, uh...I guess the message is "stop global warming, because it makes cute bears sad." (Cue flashbacks to Sexual Harassment Panda.)
After Odaiba, I stopped by Akihabara on a brief search for gifts, and found a keychain I've been looking for for ages. AKIBA DELIVERS. I spent most of the rest of the evening in Nakano, visiting my regular haunts there and playing a few rounds of taiko. I'm starting to get anxious about my flight, so I'm losing my appetite already, but a small meal was doable. Nice way to end the evening before meandering back to Shinjuku on the subway.
I'm in my hotel room now, sorting out my suitcase and making sure everything is where it should be. Time for me to get some sleep, so I'll wake up in time to get some things done before I head to the airport. I have no idea how I'm going to feel tomorrow. Least of all when I get to the airport. There's already been enough complications thrown at this trip, but shinkansen has NOTHING on airplanes when it comes to all the many and various ways things can get delayed and go wrong. With so many flights in the next few days, I'm going to need some luck on my side.