Born to a Japanese mother (my Dad is as white as the snowcap of Mt Fuji), this part of our journey is particularly exciting for me, and equally as much for Autumn. Now that I think on it, everyone is excited for the next three weeks as we have lots of fun stuff ahead.
We landed in Narita airport and right away I knew I had found my kindred spirits. Likely one of my greatest frustrations about arriving in a new country is slogging through the passport and customs control. (It always takes too long and the agents are likely the grumpiest people on the planet). My last two years at work before this trip was to study the Japanese management philosophy and how to apply it to our construction industry to increase efficiency. So it was with great excitement that we entered border control and saw all of the agents standing next to portable passport scanners on wheels, and we moved thru in one fluid motion. Total elapsed time was 2 minutes! All waste was nearly removed (Somebody forgot to enter an address on the form in front of us slowing the machine down slightly).
Our Airbnb for the first leg of our Japan journey is in an older part of Tokyo called Asakusa. Little did we know that the pathway from the subway to our place was literally thru one of the iconic buildings of Tokyo, the Sensoji Temple. When we finally popped up from the bowels of the underground, we were treated to a quiet and surreal night time stroll through a cherry blossom shrouded shopping corridor leading up to the temple.
A Couple of Initial Thoughts:
> The Japanese people are a bit different from the Koreans (and the rest of Southeast Asia for that matter). They are modest, subdued, businesslike yet so phenomenally friendly and courteous. They are cute, not cutesy. They don't wear much make up, their wardrobe speaks to their individual personalities, and they wear different color jackets (the Koreans all wore black long coats). There are surprisingly few selfies being taken, and definitely no peace signs. To be sure, both the Koreans and Japanese are incredibly helpful, friendly, courteous, and positive.
> There is just enough English here to get by, but definitely less than other countries we have visited. Apparently it's far better now than 10 or 15 years ago. I can't imagine how hard it would have been to travel here without Google Translate, and the English subtitles in key places. Although, Google Translate isn't foolproof...I tried to find out what was in a package that looked like cookies, and google said it was "Moist Mosquitoes".
> It's true what they say, the trains and subway are everywhere, but it still takes forever to get anywhere. It's old but clean. Looks like New York or London, but clean like Singapore or Seoul. If there is one complaint, the mixture of multiple systems is a mess. Transferring from one train to the next often requires exiting one station only to walk right back in a different entrance to tag back in to another line. The map looks like a bowl of multi colored ramen soup. Thank goodness Google Maps can navigate this tangled web.
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| This is madness. There are three systems inter-twined here, with a half dozen other private lines zipping off in all directions. |
> Speaking of Ramen, people will line up for hours for a bowl of soup.
> Tokyo is the cleanest city in the world with over 13 million people. Scratch that, it's the cleanest city with anything over 13 people. I might actually be willing to eat off the street here. Funny thing though, you don't see any garbage trucks, street sweepers, or people picking up garbage. And you hardly see garbage cans in public spaces either. All I have seen were a couple people with dust busters sucking lint from the cracks between the subway tiles. (That is not hyperbole, it's true, dust busters to remove dust from the stairs in the subway!). The mutual respect for everyone else (and themselves) must drive this fastidiousness. It's infectious.
Feb 22: Bryce Bday
I don't mean to boast, but we managed to craft the best birthday of all time for Bryce (who is now 8). We didn't have anything to do with it, but we did wake up to snow! Apparently a bit of a rarity for Tokyo this time of year.
Step 1 - Denny's for a pancake breakfast. Bryce was quite happy, but my yearning for a Moon's Over My-Hammy went unfulfilled as it turns out that the Denny's in Japan is skewed to the local cuisine. During breakfast, Autumn's phone crashed. And crashed hard. [foreshadowing tomorrow's challenge]
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| Yes, that's a bowl of miso soup and rice to go with my scrambled eggs with bacon. Eating eggs with chopsticks was easier than I thought. |
Step 2 - Pokemon Mega Center for a shopping spree.
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| Bryce was particularly excited about getting authentic Pokemon cards with Japanese writing. |
Step 3 - Spent an hour at a Hedgehog Cafe, a small room where Bryce could play with hedgehogs. For those that don't know, Bryce is infatuated with these little insectivores and has been toting around two stuffed hedgehogs during our entire trip. So it was an obvious choice among-st the myriad options for pet cafes.
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| Bryce wasn't the only one that was fond of these little creatures. |
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| The cafe also had this little furry guy running around. |
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| I felt like this one most of the time at the cafe. (I was a bit under the weather today) |
Step 4 - Met up with Bryce's new friend Wesley from New Zealand for an hour of gaming. I don't have the slightest clue what the game was about nor whether Bryce and Wesley did well, but they seemed to be having fun.
Step 5 - Went out to a wonderful Ramen dinner with Wesley's family. Bryce is a Cup O' Noodle fiend.
Feb 23: Lost day
We had three primary goals for today: Pickup our bus tickets for our ski trip; Send Autumn's phone back home; Buy ski gloves and goggles. We just barely got one thing done.
After navigating the tangled web of public transit we finally made it to the main bus terminal, and presented our phone to the information desk to ask how we can convert it to a paper ticket. The kindly lady said, "just show this phone to the bus driver when you board." What? That's it. Why did the website tell us to pick up the tickets ahead of time? Oh well, at least we got some good food, and a dry run for how to board the bus.
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| In the basement of the Shinjuku Station is a food department store. I have never seen anything like it. It was like browsing for a nice perfume or jewelry, but with food in the cases. |
Seeing as it was now 6pm, we gave up on our final errand of visiting Jimbocho area for goggles and gloves.
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| That tiny little square white sign is a UPS logo. We were under a freeway overpass next to a construction site. What a find. |
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| I spent the day wearing one of these. I blended right in as many Japanese people wear these to help prevent spreading of illnesses. |
Feb 24: Ski gear and Ueno
Picking up where we left off yesterday, our first adventure of the day was to visit the Jimbocho area for ski gear. This section of Tokyo is the epicenter of outdoor adventure stores and a great place to find cheap goggles and gloves. Success! We're now ready to brave the Japanese Alps. And we had our first authentic Udon Noodles for lunch.
Not too far from our apartment is Ueno Park, a central location for lots of museums and a zoo. Despite Zane and Bryce's absolute discontent with looking at flowers, Nicole loved how the Japanese created little straw hats for all their Peonies.
While we have generally written off most zoos and aquariums, the zoo in Ueno is the oldest and largest in Japan so we figured we should check it out. And for $6 ticket, it would have been silly not to take a look. It was fairly average, but with a couple of highlights: Panda exhibit, Hippo feeding, the Japanese Macaques on Monkey hill, and these cool night creatures called Aye Ayes.
Feb 25: Harajuku and Yoyogi park, Shibuya
Despite a sluggish start to the day (we didn't leave the apartment until noon), this turned out to be a jam packed day. We hit up Takeshita St in the Harajuku district for some people watching and cotton candy, then headed off to Yoyogi Park nearby.
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| Did I mention how cool it was to walk through this area every time we went to the subway? |
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| Long! |
Entering Yoyogi is a bit surreal as we transitioned from people chaos, to a misty and mysterious forest just across the street. It wasn't the park we expected (and by "we", I mean "Zane"). This was a place to have a contemplative stroll, not a place for climbing, jumping, and sliding. Our walk passed through the Meiji Jingu Shinto Shrine where we inadvertently crashed a beautiful wedding procession. This was particularly endearing for me as the husband was Caucasian and the wife was Japanese. (They will certainly have beautiful children....)
We rounded out the day in the Shibuya area to take in the evening madness, not unlike Time Square in New York. It did not disappoint. After a quick visit to the increasingly rare seven story Tower Records store (which everyone enjoyed putting on the headphones and sampling the music), Autumn and I camped out at the main intersection to capture the energy.
https://youtu.be/qglXEBEFNX4
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| All around Tokyo are people dressed up in Mario costumes and driving around the streets in real Mario-Carts. It's quite amusing. |
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| On our way back, Autumn got a free hug. We really love the Japanese people. |
I said it before, and I'll say it again, one of the great joys of our apartment is having to walk directly passed the Sensoji Temple from the subway. Tonight was no exception.
All for now... Next Stop, Hakuba! (Japanese mountain area for skiing)
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