Crazy massive Japanese post of super awesome!! (part 1)

I'm currently sitting at a hotel lobby's laptop that's probably not meant to be for long use, but I can't understand what the signs say, so I'll use it anyway. I'll split up the Japan updates into three, one for each leg of the trip. We're currently on the eve of the third leg but this is the first time I've actually had time to sit down at a computer and write something comprehensive.

Bright lights, big city

It was raining when we arrived in Tokyo. The trip from Sydney was long as we had a layover of a few hours in Cairns where we met up with Luke's friend, Brendan. We also ran into a friend of Dave P's on the flight to Cairns - coincidentally taking the same route to Japan, and spending some time snowboarding while in the country.

After a long but uneventful line-up at customs and quarantine, we were met by a massive map of Tokyo's transit system and had no idea which buttons to press. Some kind Japanese girls helped us out and it turned out that it was actually quite easy to understand the whole ticket system. We briefly split up with Luke and Brendan because they decided to use the first day of the JR Pass and had to take a different line to Asakusa. I was quite impressed by Tokyo's trains. Not only were they impossibly efficient but they also had warm seats! Obviously the latter was important considering the weather.

From Asakusa station we made our way to our hostel through the rain and the seemingly lifeless streets - it turned out a lot of places close early in Asakusa even on a Friday. The room we got was tiny, which meant that we hung out at the lobby most of the time, drinking and socialising with the other backpackers. For dinner, we had food at some random 24 hour Japanese diner. I had some sort of katsu dish.

We had to take care of some formalities the next day, namely to pick up our JR East Pass and train reservations from the service centre in Ueno. It was still raining outside, and it was quite amusing seeing people riding bikes around with umbrellas.

We spent most of the day hanging around Akihabara. I was hunting down some Nintendo DS games and Dave was looking for an elusive Olympus camera. We had food at a yakitori place and inadvertently ordered some food we didn't particularly desire to eat. I had chicken gizzards and Dave had a chicken breast cooked rare. Dave looked far more uncomfortable eating raw chicken than I did eating chicken guts.

On my search for a games store that sold the games I was looking for, we came across many shops selling entertainment of a questionable nature. I wasn't surprised about the availability but at how openly they were displayed. Ironically, we went to a Maid Cafe, which we thought would be dodgy, but ended up being rather innocent (albeit expensive). After finding what we had been looking for, we had a snack at Mos Burger, a Japanese burger chain that had a few items that used rice instead of bread as buns.

After dinner at a sushi train (where we made quite a good mess of some green tea), we headed to Roppongi for a night out. Despite telling him that the Hard Rock Cafe was mostly a restaurant that happened to have a bar, Dave insisted we make that our first stop. After an expensive drink, we went to the Gas Panic, a bar that made sure you had a drink in your hand at all times. We met some Aussies and Kiwis there, and went with them to another bar, though we split suddenly to catch the last train back (trains stop running at about midnight). We made it as far as Ueno, but the connecting line had stopped running trains, so we had to walk from there to Asakusa.

Castle on a cloud

We had a flexible 4-day pass for JR East, two of which would be used to get to Yamagata and back. This meant that we would have two extra days of free rides on any JR East line. We decided to use the first of those to hop on the Shinkansen and head towards Aizu-Wakamatsu, whereupon we would find an old Japanese castle.

This was our first trip on a Shinkansen and it was very impressive. The trip was smooth and fast. We got off at Kōriyama to transfer to a conventional line. This leg of the trip was much shorter than the Shinkansen leg, but took a few minutes longer. The differences between the two types of trains was obvious.

The snow cover began to get thicker as we approached our final destination and we even passed a mini blizzard. Aizu-Wakamatsu was much colder than Tokyo, and I regretted not wearing my thermals. We decided to walk to the castle instead of catching the bus service, which was quite a bad idea due to the weather and the distance. My legs were killing me by the time we got there.

The castle was quite impressive, though perhaps not worth the walk. It was surrounded by a moat, and stood majestically atop a tiny incline of stone walls. It was surrounded by a few shrines and looked great with the thin scattering of clouds above it.

We got momentarily lost on the way back to the train station, and had to wait an hour and a bit for the next train. By this time we just wanted to get to the Shinkansen and have a rest. We missed the first train from Kōriyama and ended up staying at the station watching Shinkansen go past at crazy speeds. One thing I noticed on the Shinkansen was that they had normal toilets and male-only toilets. The male-only ones had a urinal, no lock on the door, and a little window on the door to see if there's anybody in there.

We had dinner at a ninja-themed restaurant in Akasaka, which I would equate to dinner theatre. The meals were expensive but it was worth trying it once for the experience. After speaking to the receptionist a ninja would come out of a trap-door wall and show you through a series of corridors with secret passageways. During dinner, a ninja would come along and do some magic tricks for you. It was entertaining but as I said, it's something I would not want to try again due to the cost.

Fish!

We woke up early the next morning to check out the fish market at Tsukiji. It took us a while to find it but once we got there we were greeted by a slew of trolleys driven with abandon by people looking to transport goods around. It was amazing how aware everybody was considering the lack of road rules in the fish market area. There certainly would have been many accidents had the drivers (and the pedestrians) not been on the ball.

Amongst fish and weird-looking seafood of many shapes and sizes, we managed to find a whale vendor. The kind man sliced us a piece to sample. It was kind of fatty. Instead of eating a proper meal at one of the restaurants at the market, we made the silly decision of getting grilled eel from a street vendor. It was cold and still had some bone in it (a bit of which was stuck to my mouth for most of the day).

The next stop was Harajuku, fad capital of Tokyo. One particular street, Takeshita Sreet, was lined with shops catering to every fashion fad you could think of. We bought novelty tees while we were there. Nearby was Yoyogi Park, but we were too tired from the early start and the constant walking to bother going through all of it.

Dave went on to the Tokyo Tower, an Eiffel Tower style commications tower (that's slightly taller), while I looked for a bank to exchange some money. I found one but it was pretty extortionate. Not only did they want to charge me a ridiculous exchange rate, but they said that they couldn't change one of my notes due to the series of the serial number. I ended up not getting any money changed since taking money out from the ATM was more economical. We finally headed back to the hostel afterwards, ending 12 hours of exploring the city.

We had okonomiyaki for dinner, a Japanese type of pancake cooked on a hot plate at the table. We had no idea how to cook the things because we weren't given any instructions. Fortunately, the Japanese couple sitting next to us gave us some pointers.

We headed to Odaiba the next day, an artificial island off Tokyo Bay. It was very hazy, which we first thought was pollution, but which may have been related to the volcano that erupted elsewhere in the mainland.

Some highlights of the island was the miniature Statue of Liberty replica, the architecture of the Fuji TV building, and a shopping complex that copied the faux Roman atmosphere of the Forum Shops at Caesars in Las Vegas almost to a T. After checking out free exhibits by Toyota and Panasonic, we grabbed some rice buns and headed back to the port. The rice buns - filling covered in rice wrapped in seaweed - were incredible and inexpensive.

We hung out at the hostel lobby until 1 in the morning sharing photos and stories with other backpackers, perhaps a bit too late for our early morning start to head to Yamagata the next day.

Japan (part 1) overview

Days spent: 5
Maid Cafes visited: 1
Most outrageous food eaten: Chicken gizzards on a stick
Vending machines: Too many to count