Japan Part II

Ok, are you ready for my adventures in Tokyo ? Before I start let me just add that I did not sleep for more than 9 hours in 72 hours. Saturday evening, November 15th ,I met my friends Eilis and Charles at the ship. My host mom drove us to Kobe ’s bullet train station and we got a train to central Tokyo at 7 p.m. We arrived in Akihabara around 9:30 p.m. Charles made a capsule hotel reservation the day before we got to Kobe, so we walked around for about 30 minutes trying to find this place. We finally did and it was awesome. If you have seen America ’s Next Top Model, the Japanese season ,you will know exactly what I slept in. Once we dropped all out stuff of we hit the town. I started talking to this group of Japanese people and asked if they would sing karaoke with us and of course they did so we went to a near by karaoke bar and sang for 2 hours. Then we retired to our capsule around 1 a.m. We woke up at 7 a.m. Ate sushi for breakfast and walked around the city of Akihabara . This is the famous electric town of Japan , it had every Japanese made electronic you could ever imagine. That afternoon we took a train to Shinjuku where Japan ’s Times Square exists. We ate lunch at a rotating belt sushi restaurant. Then we stumbled upon Hanazono-Jinja, a shrine surrounded by a flea market on Sundays. Well it was our lucky day. There were so many amazing smelling food stands; I ate a hot dog with an egg wrapped around it like a crepe, a banana dipped in chocolate and sprinkles, and these square little donut things. We hung out around the shrine for awhile and then decided we wanted to go to a spa. Down the street was the Green Plaza Ladies Sauna and across from that was the guys sauna. The first thing they asked when Eilis and I walked in was whether or not we had tattoo’s. So I said yes and she said sorry you have to leave. This was the first time in my life I have ever been discriminated against. I was not that offended because the Japanese have a fear of letting members of the Mafia into the hot springs . The woman thought I was in the Mafia, awesome! Eilis and I instead went somewhere else and got a massage. We met up with Charles for dinner and had the most amazing fried rice and gyoza of my life. After dinner we walked around the Golden Gai and Kabukicho which is their red-light district. There are so many details I am leaving out but they will make for good in person stories. Around midnight we decided we wanted to go to Akasaka and watch the Tsukiji market unfold. This is Tokyo ’s world famous seafood market. We knew the last train stopped at 1 a.m, so we ran to catch the last train, almost didn’t make it because the ticket office people told me no, and many of you know I do not take no for an answer when I want something. So somehow I managed to go somewhere else, get tickets and jumped on the train as the doors were shutting. Oh another side note, none of this trip was pre-planned, we did everything spur of the moment, which is the best thing I could have ever done. Ok ,back to my story, the fish are brought in at 3 a.m. and so we had 3 hours to kill. We found a super nice hotel and tried to find somewhere to crash but of course there was a bunch of people roaming around and we couldn’t fall asleep. We went to the 13th floor where the lobby was located and asked if they had computers we could use. They did but since we were not staying in the hotel we were not allowed to use them. One good thing we got from this hotel was a view of the whole city. I saw Tokyo Tower lit up in all its glory. We went back to the street in search for an internet café. We found one and rested there until 2:30 a.m. At that time we went to a restaurant and ate udon noodles and then made our way to the fish market. This was one of the highlights of my Tokyo trip. Japanese workers were hustling and bustling throwing huge fish to each other, driving little motor things that look like the ones in Sams Club they use to stock stuff on high shelves. I almost got run over by these numerous times. It was really cool that no one cared that three Americans were aimlessly wondering around, getting in every ones way. I saw every marine animal imaginable; octopus, eel, and tons of fish I don’t know the names of. There was one that squirted water out their mouths at us. We would move our hands around and they would aim for our hands. After walking around for about an hour we found out that there was a tuna auction at 5:30. We were all too tired to walk around for much longer so we decided to go back to that restaurant and sleep until it was time to go to the tuna auction. As I finally closed my eyes I heard stomping footsteps coming up the stairs. I opened my eyes to the owner yelling at us to get out. So we were kicked out of the restaurant and decided to go back to the fish market and find somewhere to just sit down. We finally did but then a few worker guys on break were curious as to who we were and started asking us questions. He was excited I could speak Japanese and had a conversation with me for a half hour. At this point I had been up for almost 24 hours, I’m sure I did not make a lot of sense to him. It was finally time to go to the tuna auction. It was awesome except for the fact that we could not go into the building, we had to watch from windows. The tuna were laid out on the ground on to of pieces of wood. Some were bigger than me. I took videos of the whole fish market experience and will edit them all when I get home. I will never look at a piece of fish the same way again. Now it was about 6 a.m. and Charles found an onsen called Asakusa Kannon in his traveler book. We figured we would just fall asleep for a little bit there. We took a train to Asakusa but we were all too tired to walk around searching for this onsen, so we got a taxi who also did not know where the onsen was, so he asked a bunch of people on the street and finally got us there. At that point it was 6 am and all I wanted to do was sleep. We went in the onsen and the first thing the guy in charge told us after we paid was no sleeping. We all kinda just ignored him and walked to the back where the lockers were and got undressed. This onsen was not nearly as nice as the one I went to with my host mom in Kobe . There were only two different baths. Eilis and I got in one and then this older woman was yelling and telling us to get in the other one. No really sure why we had to but we just did as we were told. It water was so hot I could not stand it for very long. Behind a wall was the men’s onsen so we yelled over to Charles asking if he was ready and he answered a very quick “yes” back. So we all met in the lobby after we washed up and Charles explained why he was so adamant in his answer. At first he was the only guy in the bath and then 3 men walked in covered in tattoo’s. oh side note, while in the fish market I took a piece of tan duct tape and put it over my tattoo and planned on telling the people at the onsen that I had just had surgery there. Anyways, the men had tattoo’s from their elbows down to their knees. Charles got really nervous because he knew they were most likely members of the mafia because not that many regular people would get that much skin covered in tattoo’s. Then one of the guys said hello to Charles and tried to speak English to him. This is when we yelled over. When we met in the lobby I asked the owner where we could sleep and he suggested a hostile a few blocks away. It was called the Sakura Hostile, and we each paid $10 to sleep for 3 hours. I don’t even remember climbing into bed. I was so delirious, we had been up for over 24 hours constantly on the move. We left at noon and ate lunch at a tiny little restaurant, who’s owner was confused as to why we wanted to eat there because there was a McDonald’s right next door. Then we walked over to the Senso-ji temple with a five story pagoda. Then we got a train to Shibuya, another district in Tokyo . This is where gyaru can be found, girls with big hair, fake tans and exaggerated eye makeup. There is a lot of youth culture in this area, in fact the majority of the people there were under the age of 30. We went around to all the malls and shops; I got hot pink shorts with suspenders, black knee high boots, and gray leggings that I wore out that night. There is an awesome 6 way intersection at the center of the city and looks crazy at night when thousands of people are walking in all different directions at once. We stood on the corner and stared at the Q-Front building with high screens and Byonce singing a song on her new album. Very cool. I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before but in every country, American singers were very popular and well know to most of the public. It’s crazy how influential a pop idol can be around the world. Went to Tower Records and listened to J-pop, saw the Hachiko statue outside the train station. That night we made more Japanese friends and hung out until midnight. Eilis, Charles, and I decided then that we just wanted to go back to the ship and sleep. We had no idea where the ship was because it was in a new port; Yokohama . Again we caught the last train and took a taxi straight to the ship. It was the most amazing feeling to see the ship again. It was about 3 a.m. and I finally got a few hours of good sleep. Woke up at 8 a.m. and ventured out in Yokohama . Went to a silk museum, China town, and Cold Stone because I really wanted cake batter ice cream with heath bar chunks in it, but of course they did not have that. I can not wait to get home and eat everything I have been deprived of for the last three months. My time in Japan was exhilarating, tiring, memorable, and too short. I can not wait to return to my most favorite place in the world.