Go East (March 8)
Going to Utsunomiya, it is so. Home > Kyoto > Maibara > Gifu (Nagoya) > Hamamatsu > Amaki > Tokyo > Utsunomiya.
Cat in Maibara. Has pretty tail.
I love Japanese parking jobs!
Koban (Police Box) in front of Maibara station. I had a 'layover' there for some 40 minutes.
Parking lot in Maibara. Don't look at the cars, look at the mountains and sky!
Gifu, from train platform
First night in Tokyo
I arrived at Tokyo station right on time at 4:24pm. The station and its surroundings are not very exciting at all. I'm still not sure what part of my night made me sick. I ate soba and oyago-don (chicken-egg rice bowl) at a shop near by, with a bunch of single businessmen. I think the lady working the shop was happy to see another female for once.
We went to Shinjuku, supposedly it is a good place by night. We didn't even return by day. It seemed very BIG CITY but nothing terribly special. I guess we just didn't hit the right area. I had an orange juice float at First Kitchen. Mom always said how orange juice and ice cream curdle in tummy make you sick, huh. Lots of people in the area, nonetheless.
On the Yamate line, Tokyo's loop line, there are wider cars and two of these TV screens over each door. Flat screen displays commercials in one, and your upcoming stations in the next. It tells you which doors to get out of, how many minutes to the other stations the train will go to, and so on. There is also a sign somewhere telling you not to sit in the place without seats during rush hour - apparently bad kids do this.
Like four floors of costumes in Akihabara. I couldn't find it in day! Shame. Not like I'd fit any, but hey. We stopped briefly in Akihabara once Shinjuku grew tiresome, but it was rather dead in the night.
Chase this all up with a cold cocoa with whip cream on the train home.
We arrived at midnight in Utsunomiya. Brenden had fought tooth and nail to get me a bike to ride for my time there. Seems he beat up some high school kid for his red Broad bicycle. ('Beat up' meaning take out to a movie and lunch, get offered the bicycle and its key, and so on.) Lovely little bike, though its jagged basket attacked my fake leather purse. This only leaves opportunity to redecorate.
We stopped by the 24 hour grocery store, and finally came home around 1am. I may/may not have checked my mail and stuff, but I know I couldn't sleep once I lay down. Mind was racing on catching trains, this way and that, Miabara Gifu Akihabara, up and down, Kyoto, Shintanabe, in and out, 15:27, 16:24, 7 minute layover, platform 4, express. Whaaa!! I had been awake since 6:17 in the morning for THIS? So I eventually passed out, but woke up shortly, shivering. I turned on the heat once I found it was not going away, but to no avail. I felt weird. I tried sleeping backwards, since the way the pillow pointed confused me to no end (all 5 nights, honestly). I found that Yu (the girl whose room I was borrowing) had a trash can near by, so I pulled it to where I knew it would be, just in case. 4am I woke again, sat up in shivers. Shaking.
Then I thought huh, I'm gonna puke. And I ran to the washroom and did! I brushed my teeth, and despite a rancid taste I slept like a baby from then on.
So I figure it was food poisoning. The similarity to last time is: shrimp flavoured chips earlier in the day, chocolate as last food before bed. I hate shrimp flavoured things! I've been avoiding chocolate for good measure. Never again, stupid shrimp. But it could've been anything. Maybe the Oyagodon. Maybe just the mixture of all that stuff. Ugh.
From here I incubate for a few days. The next day I go to Karaoke with Brenden and his friends - it was really fun! I wasn't feeling 100% but am so glad I went. He just sent out the group e-mail and we had six people come! Only three of us walked in at first, and the other five showed up later. The front desk saw one of the five enter - so we only had to pay full price for three of us, and part for the one that was seen. It was 350 yen for 5 hours of Karaoke. We got to bring in our own snacks and everything. I had a Kirin Nuda - it isn't sweet in the least! No sugar. I would drink it again, just I was surprised. So was the girl (Sannai?) who asked for a sip.
The following day we went to the mall (me complaining the whole way), and rented some CD's so he could do his radio show. He complained all through the show that he had NO CO-HOST hint hint hint. We ordered in pizza for dinner - he got a medium for less than my small!
I'll write this out later.
Shinkansen zooming by [Video]
All right, our protagonist had been suffering the puke. Despite it, she has completed the Karaoke Mission as well as the Bell Mall Expedition. She has also performed the CD Pick Up, though she wimped out of the All WaT Radio Show Co-Host Challenge. All were completed on a fist full of toast, an apple, and a few litres of Mitsuya Cider. Oh, and some pancakes. And aloe yogurt.
Now, we're brought to...
Tokyo: Akihabara
Akihabara. Literally 'The Origin of Fall Leaves'. Nobody said these names had to mean anything.
One thing Den Den doesn't have is girls handing out tissues in costume. They just don't wear costumes. These girls were all Gundam pilots of something. There were a few variations, even a maid.
Nothing to see here, move along move along! Akihabara was much less shady than Den Den Town, but otherwise not much difference. I mean that in both Den Den's covered sidewalks, and the fact that we got horribly lost and ended up in brothelland. Akihabara is surprisingly packed with foreigners. Who'da thunk.
Actual Sight-seeing
We skipped Ginza. We hopped the skytrain -
-across Rainbow Bridge-
- to the other side!
And there she was,
right in front of Fuji Television.
What is this bunder thing near the
Sun Spot? Let's walk around and see.
Check out those AT-AT's!
Boy, it's like California around here!
Ahh, that's what it is! It is a tunnel below the inlet Rainbow Bridge spans.
We walked to the teleporter.
Zooooom
Flash! bang! boom!
Harajuku
After a quick jaunt down Takeshita street, we returned to its mouth to eat at Wolfgang Puck's.
We had a great view of passersby. Boy was I hungry. I had a sauce laden BLTA sandwich (BLT with Avocado!), and a salad, and fries, and a ginger ale. I just wish I had eaten ALL the fries.
Around the left corner were toilets! YAy!
We headed to the park in hopes of finding the temple where the Gothic Lolitas hang out.
It was like a Vancouver park as far as nature went,
But the big wide gravel path down it all was rather unnatural.
We found the sake, and I whined that we weren't going anywhere, and we turned back out to the busy area.
And out again.
Just a sea of people
videooo
all moving perpendicular to the ground! I really must take better videos.
This is much different than the first area. There are two streets that run parallel to each other. This is the new part of town, with wide streets, sidewalks, cars, designer labels. And foreigners. Lots. The best area, though, is the old street (Takeshita) where all the cool kids are.
Shakey's! Yessss!
Let's go back to Takeshita street.
Costume shop, but nobody was in here. Like, ever. Here was next door, note the purple shirt in the back.
Harajuku had much the same stuff shops in Osaka have, as far as new stuff went. But much was unique. There were great vintage shops, often with a theme. One had frumpy dresses from the 70's. Others were 80's based, and had vintage toys - ewoks, popples, ALF, ET, etc. which sold for much more than they were worth in the day.
One store had a Western Hairdryer - for 44 bucks you could buy a big silver, western style gun, to dry your hair with. It was very, very tempting.
There was a Phat Farm, which was totally out of place (skinny Japanese guys??). There were costume shops for the gothic look. There weren't many in the gothic look, though.
Of those I saw dressed up, many of the girls had this sort of Rainbow Brite look. They wore funky glasses with a decorative chain coming down from an edge or two. Not terribly exciting, that. It was only Saturday, though.
The weirdest part was all these black guys in the street, I suppose to call you into their shops. They weren't Americans either. They spoke to themselves in, I dunno.
Takeshita street also had many little branches that would go out for up to 50 metres to less populated shops. Some had vintage fabrics sewn onto belts, into bags, jackets, so on. Vintage meaning Star Wars bedsheets, or Mickey Mouse ones, and so on like that. There were lots of vintage print t-shirts.
There was a big underwear store in the middle of it all. When I returned to it later in the night (like 6:30pm!) there was a lady with blonde dyed hair, big fishnet stockings over her thong, high heeled boots, a tiny leather jacket, big red sparkle helmet to go with her lipstick, and sunglasses. She tore out from in front of the store on her motorcycle. I take it the crowds parted.
I headed back out at 7:30 with little purchased. Am I too old for this?
The middle lady sports a big look - grey plaid pants with black high boots. The suede pink tassle boots are not quite a big look.
I go home. I pass out. Or something. Next day, Nikko.
Nikko
It rained. And rained. We went to Nikko on a Sunday. Whaddya know, lots of foreign tourists! What IS this place!
We walked through the town to get to the temples. In the rain. I found on that walk that my digital camera had crapped out, so I have nothing to share with you but my words.
Temples nestled in cedar forests. Running water, rich from the rain. Bristly mountains half hidden by fog. An English girl stands in front of a concrete doo-hickey, poses, friends take her photo. Giggling ensues.
550 to get in some temple. I walk along the path after seeing the thing, and there's this big white gate. I'm like, huh, this is kinda puny, doesn't lead anywhere, why did they send me here? I fail to take a photo. I find out later it's famous for some reason. 200 to get into another, which wasn't terribly great. What's all this gouging? I forgo the big temple for 1300.
World Heritage site, this Nikko is. I see why.
There we have it - TEMPLES AND SHRINES IN MOUNTAIN FOREST. [end]
We had gyoza in Utsunomiya that night. Dinner cost me a whopping 320. A nice couple sat across from us and chatted. The boy (well, 25 year old boy) had exchanged to Texas for a month back in the day. They spoke English to us at first, Brenden answered in Japanese, and confusion ensued. I had lost all notion of Japanese somewhere around Wolfgang Puck's. The boy asked me my favourite sport, I said Rugby, and he asked 'rugby? rugby??' with hand motions and all. Was cute. But by then we had finished eating and had to leave.
I was up bright and early the next morning to...
Go West
Okay, I was supposed to go home, hit all my stops, so on. But no, I just HAD to get another hour in at Harajuku.
Harajuku II: Daylight Strikes Back
I explored down some unknown territory at the end of Takeshita street. The stencil graffiti photos are just making up for me never photographing 'close blast doors' in the London subway. (There's more where THAT come from!)
Harajuku is considerably slower during the day. Mind you, this photo is a side street. Especially in morning it is slow, because it's only half open. There are still those tourists, as always. By 11 it had really picked up!
Last view down Takeshita street from the station. Wolfgang Puck's is right on that front righthand corner. No no, not that orange sign, there is no sign! It's right underneath that one I think.
On my way out of Harajuku, I grabbed a hot apple pie at McDonalds. The couple in front of me spoke English LOUDLY AND CLEARLY to the girl. Gosh. Eew. So eew. Let's get back on track here:
Home Stretch
I raced into the station and caught my train - I was set! I bought an onigiri (the first of two!) at the next station, and shoved it all into my face heading out of Shinagawa. I traded trains at Amaki, and tried to sleep a bit. But something was keeping me up. The lady across from me was watching out the window. From my window the view wasn't so great:
Ocean, coastline, yeah yeah, bright sun, uh huh.
What a most peculiar cloud...
THAT cloud! It's Mount Fuji. We had just passed Fuji station. I saw it again an hour or so later. We had changed position such that the peak looked different, yet there it still was.
I stopped and bought some bread at Oogaki. I also stopped by the toilet, since the 21 minute layover was, well, long. The toilet had the dumbest thing - a swinging door about two feet high at most, placed at head level. So as I left, the door swung back and nearly took off a girl's head. OOPS. I met her in the bread store, me with a giant backpack all getting in the way. I felt ignorant, or what ever word desribes the person in front of you on the trail who lets the branches whack followers in the face.
I should've bought the chocolate bread with chocolate innards.
A nice couple at Oogaki motioned me over to stand in their line of two. They were older. The man asked me where I was from. The lady complimented my Japanese (this will happen to you too the moment you stumble out an 'arigatou'), and I answered her in the plain form X| bad bad! It likely came across as "yeah, no shit, I'm studyin' it!" The proper answer is "oh, not yet not yet!" which Brenden always says. I always forget the polite bit and take it as a legitimate compliment.
Did I mention the key chain light of a monkey, whose red bottom would light up? I didn't buy one. Should Coulda Woulda. Or what ever order those go in.
Some other lady sat beside me on the train. When she got up to leave, she waved me 'bye bye', it was cute! We didn't even talk or anything. Huh. Almost like it wasn't for me.
(there's no purpose to some of these)
Maibara didn't have the nice electric signs all the other stations in Japan have.
Oh yeah, it was SNOWING.
SEE?
And here I board the Kirin Party Train and stop taking photos. Well, good photos, at least.
I sat across from two fellows. One was normal enough, the other had a combover that was all falling apart after a long day at work. The latter broke out two Kirin beers and some Calbee french fries for munchies. They drank and laughed.
I looked over and saw another fellow enjoying a taller can of beer, also Kirin, and munchies of his own, as he pored (alone) over some work papers. As I got off at Kyoto, I noticed another man also drinking Kirin brand beer. Geez! Up until now it has all been lemon chu-hi I see people drinking on trains (a Korean cooler of sorts).
In Kyoto, I boarded the Kintetsu train to go home, and who should be on my car but a boy I sat across from in Nagoya/Gifu! That was like four hours prior. He wore a burgandy velvet blazer, grey striped shirt, brown dick tracy hat, small moustache. Can't miss him.
Aaaand then I get to our local station, host mom picks me up, I go home, eat dinner, cake, yadda yadda, bed.
End.