After the madness of fireworks, Baseball and pretty lights we headed on the shinkansen (bullet train) for five days in Tokyo. The shinkansen takes about 2.5 hours to travel the 403km from Osaka to Tokyo, hurtling along at 270km an hour. It's a really great way to travel - spacious seats, no need for boarding passes and all the extra details that are needed for flying. You just go to the station, buy your ticket then board the train. Shinkansen trains go every five to fifteen mins depending on the time of day. On board, it doesn't seem as though you're going very fast but at times you pass other normal trains and the speed seems pretty amazing. The seats are big and spacious and they sell food and drinks and it's all very comfortable and we loved it!
We arrived in Tokyo early Monday morning and were met at the station by one of my oldest and dearest Japanese friends, Yumiko. Yumiko stayed with our family in Australia in 1994 when she was 16 years old and an exchange student at our school. At the time, she was a high school student who lived in Chiba, a prefecture right next to Tokyo known for surfing and industry. She and I have kept in touch over the years, writing letters and emails and when I visited Japan in 1998 she was a Travel agent and made a trip to Kyoto to visit me and stay for a weekend. She is a really lovely person and a good friend. Of course, when we made plans to go to Tokyo I let her know and we planned to spend the first day of our week in Tokyo sightseeing with Yumiko. What a surprise when we arrived and she informed us that she had a fiance! How exciting I said and was nearly bowled over by this conversation: "Yumiko, you're engaged! When will you get married?" To which she replied: "To tell you the truth...tomorrow." At first I thought we were having a language barrier situation but no, a conversation in Japanese confirmed it and yes, she was to take me sightseeing on a Monday and marry on the Tuesday! They were married through the registry office and will have a party later on. It wasn't until later that I got my 'second to tell you the truth' and my second shock of the day...'Allie, another to tell you the truth...I'm pregnant'. WOW! To tell you the truth... I am collecting pregnant women friends over here. Rumi, Yoshimi, Yumiko. Very exciting! Sightseeing with Yumiko was really good - she took us to all of the main places on Ross' and my to do list. The weather in Tokyo was hot but much more pleasant (and less humid) than Osaka. My first impression of Tokyo was kind of weird. Hard to explain but once you've lived in Japan you're already a bit used to the dazzling weird Japanesey things surrounding us every day (ridiculous number of vending machines, weird English translations, strange flavoured potato chips and the like...) so going to Tokyo, I was kind of looking the whole time at the differences between it and Osaka. I don't know if I'm just being proud or noble or whatever but i will say that I prefer Osaka over Tokyo. In actual fact, I read recently that Osaka is becoming more and more of a 'place to see' on tourist's lists when they come to Japan. I love Osaka - it's dirty and grimy and concretey and loud and busy and really really really special to me. I can't quite explain it. Anyway, the main difference apparent to me hen we first arrived in Tokyo was the bigness of everything. It is an absolutely massive city and whilst in my mind I imagined that meant big tall building everywhere (and it is) it's also apparent in the nothingness of many of the areas we went through and the length of every train journey. Osaka is a big city too - bustling streets, lots of entertainment and restaurants and buildings as far as the eye can see - but Tokyo was a different kind of big - it's really spread out. So, travelling to different spots and seeing the busy and the bustling even in the 'nothing areas'; the business districts, housing areas, even the areas surrounding our hotel... the VASTNESS of Tokyo as well as it's bigness is apparent. Does that make sense? A few other things I noticed about Tokyo...1)Lots of people in a hurry and they seem to be going to lots of different places in lots of different directions...unlike in Osaka where pretty much everyone is in a big long line heading for the Midosuji subway. 2)People are more rude. Lots more pushing and shoving. 3)Lots of amazing fashion in store windows but people in Tokyo seem much more conservatively dressed and much more boringly dressed than Osaka people. Not nearly as much diversity as I expected. 4)People in Tokyo all think we're tourists. Everyone spoke English to us whereas in Osaka they go with Japanese first. 5)A much more diverse range of food options (countries wise that is...like turkish food, thai food, etc) is available in Tokyo, but the food is NOT as delicious or as cheap as Osaka. 6) They have Dr Pepper in their vending machines whilst Dr Pepper is only for sale in Foreign supermarkets in Osaka 7) They have suicide prevention guard walls up on main station platforms...kinda freaky 8)People push and shove and don't line up as politely as they do in Osaka. Hmm...I think thats all for now. Ill think of some more later, I'm sure.
Anyway, on day 1, Yumiko met Ross and I at Tokyo station. From there we checked into our hotel (and claimed our freebies...socks, an eco bag and the ever popular Toyoko Inn headband - all the girls in the Juse are wearing them). Yumiko took us to some of the main tourist spots in Tokyo - Asakusa, where there is a famous shrine; Sensoji with an even more famous (and very cool) shopping strip (Nakamise Dori) leading up to it. Nakamise Dori features storefronts from Japan's Edo period and many of them sell traditional Japanese foods and crafts. The shrine itself is not as amazing as some of the ones we've seen in Kyoto and Nara but it was still great to see it. Yumiko took us to lunch in a famous soba/tempura restaurant in the same area. From Asakusa we headed up the Sumida river on a cruise. The cruise is promoted as not being very picturesque (Japan doesn't invest in waterfront property so most of the riversides here are pretty undeveloped and unattractive) but a good way to get a sense of the size of Tokyo, and a great way to get from one main sightseeing spot to another. We headed up the Sumida to the Hama Deatached Palace Garden. It was so hot waliking through the garden but there were such beautiful trees and little islands in the garden's lake so I loved the chance to visit it. After Hama graden we headed to Meiji Shrine, the most famous of Tokyo's shrines and really a very beautiful place.
"To tell you the truth" We're a bit 'over' shrines and temples recently...so many of them are similar to each other (or at least in the eyes westerners like us) that it can be hard to be amazied or excited by them sometimes! I did really appreciate the natural beauty and picturesque setting of Meiji though. Tokyo is a city with many parks and gardens and Meiji Shrine is famous for a forest of trees surrounding the shrine. You essentially walk out of the station, through the entrance and into a huge forest of towering trees. It's pretty magical. You walk through the forest along a path to the shrine itself which is built from lots of natural timbers. From Meiji we headed back to the hotel to rest and refresh before heading out to dinner with Yumiko. At dinner she gave me a beautiful necklace as a birthday present. I told her I still remember the first birthday present she ever gave me, about 14 years ago; a Minnie Mouse toy from Tokyo Disneyland...and I still have it! :)
On Tuesday, Ross and i got up early and headed to Kamakura, a seaside village famous for (of course) shrines and temples but also renowned for its giant stone buddha which stands on top of the mountain. It is huge and really majestic, as are the straw sandals hanging nearby at the temple complex, made to fit the size of this buddha's feet...if he ever needed them. From the Daibutsu we walked down the road to Hasedera Temple...easily the best temple complex I have visited since coming to Japan. The temple featured a stunning Japanese garden, an incredible view of the ocean, beautiful olde building, sculptures and an underground cave area - a place of worship where people place little buddha statues. There were thousands of little buddha statues decorating the walls of the cave. Pretty crazy. Pretty cool.
On Wednesday we went to Ginza - all kinds of fabulous and my favourite part of Tokyo for sure. We spent lots of time wandering around the shopping areas, Ross taking pictures of the incredible buildings of the designer stores...Chanel, Mikimoto, Ralph Lauren, etc and me gazing at the goodies in each of the stores. It really is architecturally an amazing area. We also checked out Akihabara on Wednesday, known as the electronics district of Tokyo and chockfull of socially awkward nerdy men (known as Otaku), electronics stores, and sexy shops full of life size dolls that men can purchase and dress up in all manner of uniforms. There are lots of signs in the area pleading with foreigners to not take photos and lots of vending machines with instant meals like sausages and eggs in a can, noodles in a can etc. For some reason the food in a can set me more on edge than the dolls and costumes...I think I found it just really strange that grown men could be so socially awkward and preoccupied with electronics that normal functional things like eating a meal become canned and instant...just weirded me out is all. That night we went on an epic (and truly frustrating) trek all over Shinjuku looking for the government building viewing tower so we could check out the Tokyo night sky. Moronic security guards had us and several others wandering around dark and confused searching for the right entrance to a massive building. Some gave up but we pressed on and after I got a little carried away saying 'Dame, Dame!' (Bad! Wrong! Bad!) at one of the security guards we eventually found our way in. The sheer size of the city is incredible to see my night and the view was awesome but after all our trekking we really didn't appreciate the view from the tower nearly as much as the cans of Dr Pepper from the tower's vending machines which we drank as we sat on the floor of the tower.
Thursday was my birthday! Woohoo! Waking up on your birthday in Tokyo - pretty special. Friends were staying in the same hotel as us and came by with gifts and of course darling Ross game me lots of lovely things too. I was spoilt this year with a definite Burberry theme - Burberry fragrances, Burberry little towels and handkerchiefs for my handbag, and a really gorgeous little handmade bear from a special store near us back in Juso. I call him 'Akaichan' (Akai means red and he's a little red bear). So cute. We went to Tokyo National Museum and Ueno Park for the day and I loved seeing the exhibits with Noh and Kabuki masks and costumes from traditional drama performances. The art was gorgeous as well - beautiful old prints. In the international exhibits we saw a mummy - very eerie and some beautiful pottery and handcrafts too. Thursday night we headed out for drinks and dinner with Sally, a friend from Juso who was also exploring Tokyo for summer vacation. We started with drinks at the famous cocktail bar featured in the movie 'Lost in Translation'. In the film, Bill Murray's character famously remarks that the cheapest item on the menu is a domestic beer at 1000 yen (about eleven australian dollars) and sure enough Bill was right. Actually domestic beers were 1100 yen but we chose to live it up and tried the awesome cocktails and soaked up an unparallelled view of Tokyo in incredible luxury...for 30 mins before we left because after 8pm there's a surcharge of 2000 yen per guest just for sitting there. Understandable due to its popularity...but we weren't prepared to pay! :) We headed to Roppongi for dinner. Roppongi is a bit of a grotty area - basically its the foreigners playground of Tokyo. Lots of English being spoken as bar and club hosts plead with you on the street to please come into their establishment. We weren't having any of it. There was only one place for us that night...Outback Steakhouse. What's that Australian friends? You haven't heard of it? How strange. It's only the most American steakhouse in the world posing as the most stereotypically Australian steakhouse in the world. Oh yes. The toilets are marked with 'sheilas and blokes', there's some indigenous art on the staircase and Ken Duncan masterpiece in the hall on the way to the loos. It's quite the experience...and I haven't even started on the food! Yes, we've been in Japan about six months now and we really are missing our "Blooming Onions", blue cheese dressing and buffalo wings. Hmmmmmm....not so Australian after all. What is a blooming onion I hear you gasp? Only the biggest onion I've even seen (described aptly in the menu as colossal), battered, deep fried and served with creamy ranch dipping sauce. Ah, Australia, we've really been missing out!
On Friday we headed back to Ginza area for Tsukiji Fish Market (the biggest in the world) to try the sushi - famed as the freshest sushi in the world and available at any one of the number of little sushi restaurant dotted around the market. The auction is no longer open to the public (foreigners sniffing around and getting in everyone's way) and the market itself is only amazing at around five in the morning. Quite frankly i was happy to head there at ten and just do the sushi! I had also read about a place called '100% chocolate cafe', a cafe that features fresh chocolate in big tubs and is run by Meiji the main chocolate company in Japan. Massive tubs of fresh chocolate are along the walls and you can purchase dishes of pastries served with your choice of fresh chocolate - almond, cassis (a kind of blackcurrant), vanilla, etc. We also wandered around Shinjuku and Shibuya to check out the famous shopping, busy crossings, etc then walked around Yoyogi Park and were startled by the number of homeless people and dazzled at their incredibly well set up communities. We headed back to Tokyo station to buy the customary Tokyo souvenirs (banana and strawberry cakes that are YUM and can only be tried if you have kind ECC students who occasionally commute to Tokyo or you get the chance to head there yourself). We took the train back home to Osaka; 'Tokyo Bananas' and 'Ginza Strawberries' in hand at around seven pm and were thrilled that we'd left our place tidy to come home to. Yes, we are an old married couple.
After the madness of fireworks, Baseball and pretty lights we headed on the shinkansen (bullet train) for five days in Tokyo. The shinkansen takes about 2.5 hours to travel the 403km from Osaka to Tokyo, hurtling along at 270km an hour. It's a really great way to travel - spacious seats, no need for boarding passes and all the extra details that are needed for flying. You just go to the station, buy your ticket then board the train. Shinkansen trains go every five to fifteen mins depending on the time of day. On board, it doesn't seem as though you're going very fast but at times you pass other normal trains and the speed seems pretty amazing. The seats are big and spacious and they sell food and drinks and it's all very comfortable and we loved it!
We arrived in Tokyo early Monday morning and were met at the station by one of my oldest and dearest Japanese friends, Yumiko. Yumiko stayed with our family in Australia in 1994 when she was 16 years old and an exchange student at our school. At the time, she was a high school student who lived in Chiba, a prefecture right next to Tokyo known for surfing and industry. She and I have kept in touch over the years, writing letters and emails and when I visited Japan in 1998 she was a Travel agent and made a trip to Kyoto to visit me and stay for a weekend. She is a really lovely person and a good friend. Of course, when we made plans to go to Tokyo I let her know and we planned to spend the first day of our week in Tokyo sightseeing with Yumiko. What a surprise when we arrived and she informed us that she had a fiance! How exciting I said and was nearly bowled over by this conversation: "Yumiko, you're engaged! When will you get married?" To which she replied: "To tell you the truth...tomorrow." At first I thought we were having a language barrier situation but no, a conversation in Japanese confirmed it and yes, she was to take me sightseeing on a Monday and marry on the Tuesday! They were married through the registry office and will have a party later on. It wasn't until later that I got my 'second to tell you the truth' and my second shock of the day...'Allie, another to tell you the truth...I'm pregnant'. WOW! To tell you the truth... I am collecting pregnant women friends over here. Rumi, Yoshimi, Yumiko. Very exciting! Sightseeing with Yumiko was really good - she took us to all of the main places on Ross' and my to do list. The weather in Tokyo was hot but much more pleasant (and less humid) than Osaka. My first impression of Tokyo was kind of weird. Hard to explain but once you've lived in Japan you're already a bit used to the dazzling weird Japanesey things surrounding us every day (ridiculous number of vending machines, weird English translations, strange flavoured potato chips and the like...) so going to Tokyo, I was kind of looking the whole time at the differences between it and Osaka. I don't know if I'm just being proud or noble or whatever but i will say that I prefer Osaka over Tokyo. In actual fact, I read recently that Osaka is becoming more and more of a 'place to see' on tourist's lists when they come to Japan. I love Osaka - it's dirty and grimy and concretey and loud and busy and really really really special to me. I can't quite explain it. Anyway, the main difference apparent to me hen we first arrived in Tokyo was the bigness of everything. It is an absolutely massive city and whilst in my mind I imagined that meant big tall building everywhere (and it is) it's also apparent in the nothingness of many of the areas we went through and the length of every train journey. Osaka is a big city too - bustling streets, lots of entertainment and restaurants and buildings as far as the eye can see - but Tokyo was a different kind of big - it's really spread out. So, travelling to different spots and seeing the busy and the bustling even in the 'nothing areas'; the business districts, housing areas, even the areas surrounding our hotel... the VASTNESS of Tokyo as well as it's bigness is apparent. Does that make sense? A few other things I noticed about Tokyo...1)Lots of people in a hurry and they seem to be going to lots of different places in lots of different directions...unlike in Osaka where pretty much everyone is in a big long line heading for the Midosuji subway. 2)People are more rude. Lots more pushing and shoving. 3)Lots of amazing fashion in store windows but people in Tokyo seem much more conservatively dressed and much more boringly dressed than Osaka people. Not nearly as much diversity as I expected. 4)People in Tokyo all think we're tourists. Everyone spoke English to us whereas in Osaka they go with Japanese first. 5)A much more diverse range of food options (countries wise that is...like turkish food, thai food, etc) is available in Tokyo, but the food is NOT as delicious or as cheap as Osaka. 6) They have Dr Pepper in their vending machines whilst Dr Pepper is only for sale in Foreign supermarkets in Osaka 7) They have suicide prevention guard walls up on main station platforms...kinda freaky 8)People push and shove and don't line up as politely as they do in Osaka. Hmm...I think thats all for now. Ill think of some more later, I'm sure.
Anyway, on day 1, Yumiko met Ross and I at Tokyo station. From there we checked into our hotel (and claimed our freebies...socks, an eco bag and the ever popular Toyoko Inn headband - all the girls in the Juse are wearing them). Yumiko took us to some of the main tourist spots in Tokyo - Asakusa, where there is a famous shrine; Sensoji with an even more famous (and very cool) shopping strip (Nakamise Dori) leading up to it. Nakamise Dori features storefronts from Japan's Edo period and many of them sell traditional Japanese foods and crafts. The shrine itself is not as amazing as some of the ones we've seen in Kyoto and Nara but it was still great to see it. Yumiko took us to lunch in a famous soba/tempura restaurant in the same area. From Asakusa we headed up the Sumida river on a cruise. The cruise is promoted as not being very picturesque (Japan doesn't invest in waterfront property so most of the riversides here are pretty undeveloped and unattractive) but a good way to get a sense of the size of Tokyo, and a great way to get from one main sightseeing spot to another. We headed up the Sumida to the Hama Deatached Palace Garden. It was so hot waliking through the garden but there were such beautiful trees and little islands in the garden's lake so I loved the chance to visit it. After Hama graden we headed to Meiji Shrine, the most famous of Tokyo's shrines and really a very beautiful place. "To tell you the truth" We're a bit 'over' shrines and temples recently...so many of them are similar to each other (or at least in the eyes westerners like us) that it can be hard to be amazied or excited by them sometimes! I did really appreciate the natural beauty and picturesque setting of Meiji though. Tokyo is a city with many parks and gardens and Meiji Shrine is famous for a forest of trees surrounding the shrine. You essentially walk out of the station, through the entrance and into a huge forest of towering trees. It's pretty magical. You walk through the forest along a path to the shrine itself which is built from lots of natural timbers. From Meiji we headed back to the hotel to rest and refresh before heading out to dinner with Yumiko. At dinner she gave me a beautiful necklace as a birthday present. I told her I still remember the first birthday present she ever gave me, about 14 years ago; a Minnie Mouse toy from Tokyo Disneyland...and I still have it! :)
On Tuesday, Ross and i got up early and headed to Kamakura, a seaside village famous for (of course) shrines and temples but also renowned for its giant stone buddha which stands on top of the mountain. It is huge and really majestic, as are the straw sandals hanging nearby at the temple complex, made to fit the size of this buddha's feet...if he ever needed them. From the Daibutsu we walked down the road to Hasedera Temple...easily the best temple complex I have visited since coming to Japan. The temple featured a stunning Japanese garden, an incredible view of the ocean, beautiful olde building, sculptures and an underground cave area - a place of worship where people place little buddha statues. There were thousands of little buddha statues decorating the walls of the cave. Pretty crazy. Pretty cool.
On Wednesday we went to Ginza - all kinds of fabulous and my favourite part of Tokyo for sure. We spent lots of time wandering around the shopping areas, Ross taking pictures of the incredible buildings of the designer stores...Chanel, Mikimoto, Ralph Lauren, etc and me gazing at the goodies in each of the stores. It really is architecturally an amazing area. We also checked out Akihabara on Wednesday, known as the electronics district of Tokyo and chockfull of socially awkward nerdy men (known as Otaku), electronics stores, and sexy shops full of life size dolls that men can purchase and dress up in all manner of uniforms. There are lots of signs in the area pleading with foreigners to not take photos and lots of vending machines with instant meals like sausages and eggs in a can, noodles in a can etc. For some reason the food in a can set me more on edge than the dolls and costumes...I think I found it just really strange that grown men could be so socially awkward and preoccupied with electronics that normal functional things like eating a meal become canned and instant...just weirded me out is all. That night we went on an epic (and truly frustrating) trek all over Shinjuku looking for the government building viewing tower so we could check out the Tokyo night sky. Moronic security guards had us and several others wandering around dark and confused searching for the right entrance to a massive building. Some gave up but we pressed on and after I got a little carried away saying 'Dame, Dame!' (Bad! Wrong! Bad!) at one of the security guards we eventually found our way in. The sheer size of the city is incredible to see my night and the view was awesome but after all our trekking we really didn't appreciate the view from the tower nearly as much as the cans of Dr Pepper from the tower's vending machines which we drank as we sat on the floor of the tower.
Thursday was my birthday! Woohoo! Waking up on your birthday in Tokyo - pretty special. Friends were staying in the same hotel as us and came by with gifts and of course darling Ross game me lots of lovely things too. I was spoilt this year with a definite Burberry theme - Burberry fragrances, Burberry little towels and handkerchiefs for my handbag, and a really gorgeous little handmade bear from a special store near us back in Juso. I call him 'Akaichan' (Akai means red and he's a little red bear). So cute. We went to Tokyo National Museum and Ueno Park for the day and I loved seeing the exhibits with Noh and Kabuki masks and costumes from traditional drama performances. The art was gorgeous as well - beautiful old prints. In the international exhibits we saw a mummy - very eerie and some beautiful pottery and handcrafts too. Thursday night we headed out for drinks and dinner with Sally, a friend from Juso who was also exploring Tokyo for summer vacation. We started with drinks at the famous cocktail bar featured in the movie 'Lost in Translation'. In the film, Bill Murray's character famously remarks that the cheapest item on the menu is a domestic beer at 1000 yen (about eleven australian dollars) and sure enough Bill was right. Actually domestic beers were 1100 yen but we chose to live it up and tried the awesome cocktails and soaked up an unparallelled view of Tokyo in incredible luxury...for 30 mins before we left because after 8pm there's a surcharge of 2000 yen per guest just for sitting there. Understandable due to its popularity...but we weren't prepared to pay! :) We headed to Roppongi for dinner. Roppongi is a bit of a grotty area - basically its the foreigners playground of Tokyo. Lots of English being spoken as bar and club hosts plead with you on the street to please come into their establishment. We weren't having any of it. There was only one place for us that night...Outback Steakhouse. What's that Australian friends? You haven't heard of it? How strange. It's only the most American steakhouse in the world posing as the most stereotypically Australian steakhouse in the world. Oh yes. The toilets are marked with 'sheilas and blokes', there's some indigenous art on the staircase and Ken Duncan masterpiece in the hall on the way to the loos. It's quite the experience...and I haven't even started on the food! Yes, we've been in Japan about six months now and we really are missing our "Blooming Onions", blue cheese dressing and buffalo wings. Hmmmmmm....not so Australian after all. What is a blooming onion I hear you gasp? Only the biggest onion I've even seen (described aptly in the menu as colossal), battered, deep fried and served with creamy ranch dipping sauce. Ah, Australia, we've really been missing out!
On Friday we headed back to Ginza area for Tsukiji Fish Market (the biggest in the world) to try the sushi - famed as the freshest sushi in the world and available at any one of the number of little sushi restaurant dotted around the market. The auction is no longer open to the public (foreigners sniffing around and getting in everyone's way) and the market itself is only amazing at around five in the morning. Quite frankly i was happy to head there at ten and just do the sushi! I had also read about a place called '100% chocolate cafe', a cafe that features fresh chocolate in big tubs and is run by Meiji the main chocolate company in Japan. Massive tubs of fresh chocolate are along the walls and you can purchase dishes of pastries served with your choice of fresh chocolate - almond, cassis (a kind of blackcurrant), vanilla, etc. We also wandered around Shinjuku and Shibuya to check out the famous shopping, busy crossings, etc then walked around Yoyogi Park and were startled by the number of homeless people and dazzled at their incredibly well set up communities. We headed back to Tokyo station to buy the customary Tokyo souvenirs (banana and strawberry cakes that are YUM and can only be tried if you have kind ECC students who occasionally commute to Tokyo or you get the chance to head there yourself). We took the train back home to Osaka; 'Tokyo Bananas' and 'Ginza Strawberries' in hand at around seven pm and were thrilled that we'd left our place tidy to come home to. Yes, we are an old married couple.
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