Around the world in 106 days: Japan: Day 2- Tokyo!

Today I have class, I took a long nap. Watch Django Unchained (Which is such a good movie, go see it) and now I am trying to finish blog entries for Japan before we arrive in Shanghai China tomorrow!

Jan 28^th

Exhausted but up early we headed to breakfast to save some money before going to Tokyo. We planned out our day and decided to find Wi-Fi before going to the metro in order to book our hotel or hostel before arriving to relive stress. While me, Kim , Abby, Rachel and Angela had plans to stay overnight, Bridget and Cindy planned to travel on the ship to the next port. So while we used the internet to make plans they patiently waited and used Facebook. At around 8:30 am we left the Wi-Fi hotspot with a hostel booked in the city of Tokyo called “Hostel Anne” for about 28 dollars a person which included free Wi-Fi and a small breakfast, which we were pretty happy about. We walked toward the Metro with a general sense of where we were going…Tokyo. But no real idea where in Tokyo we were going, but we decided we would ask for directions to the hostel once we were at Tokyo station. Being everyone’s first time navigating in a foreign country, we all were very calm and handed it very well. Not many people could speak any English, some could speak a little and very little spoke it fluently. But surprisingly though charades is a world language we learned well while asking for directions.

So we paid 540 yen to take a train about 40 minutes to Tokyo. 88 yen is one USD. So it wasn’t expensive. The train is really comfortable, with heated, comfy seats. We all got to sit down since it was past rush hour. After about 45 minutes we arrived at our stop, Shaboya station. We went to information and played charades with the man at the counter, and showed him the address of the Hostel. The two girls who were not staying at the hostel stayed behind and we agreed to meet back at that spot at 1pm. We had to travel another 30 minutes by metro to get to it, changing trains twice. We did notice that the trains came frequently and through our whole time in Japan they never seemed late and were efficient. We pretty easily found our hostel after asking a man at a store and playing charades with him again. The thing that is so different about Japan is that they don’t have streets. Instead they have plots of land based on an area and the buildings are numbered based on when they were built…which can make finding places a tad annoying. At around 11:30 though we arrived at Hotel Anne, a very cute Hostel with a Japanese women who spoke great English! We locked up valuables and left our backpacks at the stairs so we could travel lightly. We quickly utilized the Wi-Fi so we could book our night bus from Tokyo to Kyoto for the next night .

Before we knew it, it was 12:45 and we rushed out to try and make it on time with the other group to meet up. As much as we tried, we failed to make it within 30 minutes of when we said we would meet. We looked for them and assumed they had just left (which later they told us they had, which is fine). We left the station and decided to roam the streets nearby and landed in Kora town of Japan. Since we were all pretty hungry we decided to find a place to eat here. We found a good priced place that sold ramen. Not the kind we have in the USA, but fresh noodles that are cold then you place in a meat broth and eat with chopsticks. It’s not surprising how little you actually eat when you suck at using chopsticks. I also ordered dumplings to try though and they were amazing! We sat and chatted for a while and decided to just wander around the city for now, and decide a specific place to see later since we still had the next day too. So we wandered the streets of Tokyo, running into small Shinto shrines and businesses. On a side street we found an arcade of which we got photos taken in a photo booth. When doing it it had a “cutie” and “beauty” option. Little did we know when we chose the “cutie” option our eyes would be blown up for every picture so we looked like aliens. It’s a weird, funny memory though. After about 2 hours of wandering around and enjoying the city we decided we wanted to head to “electric town” an area of which there is a lot of electronics and lots of lights since it was beginning to get dark.

My impression of the electric district was that it reminded me of a small scale times square. Lights everywhere, advertisements, restaurants and lots of people. We were overwhelmed by the beauty and the hustle n bustle. We spent a lot of time just walking around and taking everything in. We took our time, even though it was cold we were all just so happy to be in Tokyo, Japan! We headed into another arcade, one of which people could actually put on costumes and then get pictures done, something I thought was cool but we didn’t do because it cost too much. After though we headed back to the hostel so we could check into our room and then ask where to go to dinner. After making our beds and relaxing on Facebook for a few minutes. On the way out of the hostel on the way to find a restaurant an elderly man came up to us, he didn’t speak an ounce of English but rambled on to us about something, he said we were cute in Japanese that’s the only thing we could make out. But he asked us to rub his head, maybe for good luck? He bowed and walked away after about 5 minutes of talking to us, it was kind of cool because he seemed to be giving us life advice… but I guess ill never know. A few girls headed to a restaurant which was kind of pricy so me and Rachel went to Burger King (I know were so bad). But it was cheap and we got Ice cream. We headed back to the hostel, had a few drinks, played card games and headed to bed around 1 am.