Tokyo Times: Part 2

Everyone told me to go see the Tsukiji Fish Market.  Everything I heard or read about it made it sound like a bustling, exciting place where you could see every kind of fish and, probably, get incredible pictures.  Everyone told me that if I wanted to see the Tsukiji Fish Market, I needed to wake up at 4 a.m. and get there by at least 6 to see the good stuff.

SCREW you, everybody.

I did wake up at 4.  I was out of the ryokan by 4:30, and arrived at the train station shortly afterwards, only to discover that the trains weren’t running yet.  So, after waiting around for a while, I was at last on my way.  I was exhausted, but delighted by the prospect of seeing human-sized tuna.  And when I arrived at the Tsukiji market, do you know what I discovered?

I discovered it wasn’t open to the public.  Not until 9:00.

Of course, I didn’t discover that right away.  I discovered it after wandering aimlessly around the vicinity of the market, getting horribly lost, and finally abandoning hope and buying a sushi breakfast.

On the bright side: the sushi was the best sushi I’ve ever had, I DID get some pretty cool pictures, and when I got back to the ryokan the boys were still asleep, so I went back to bed for another three hours.

Super Tuna

Creepy red fish

A 4a.m. roller coaster

In conclusion, if you are planning to visit Tokyo in the near future, DEFINITELY go see Tsukiji.  DEFINITELY DON’T wake up at 4 a.m. to do it.

Later that day—you know, at the time of day when REAL PEOPLE exist—we headed to Ueno Park to see the sights.  I wasn’t totally sold on the plan, because nobody had been able to tell me what was so great about Ueno Park, but almost immediately I got the answer.  Observe:

Things happening in that video: old Japanese ladies in absurd outfits are dancing to Latin music.  One of the musicians—who are, incidentally, awesome—is playing two instruments at once.  And one of my friends puts his hand awkwardly in front of my camera.

Things you may have missed: the guy in the yellow shirt, yellow tiger-print knee socks, a pleather newsboy cap and STUDDED PLEATHER SHORT SHORTS.  What a winner!

When we’d had our fill of…all…that… we continued on through the park and ended up at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.  I was pretty stoked because last semester I took a Japanese art history class, so I actually recognized some of the works and artists featured in the museum.  

Like this bronze sculpture by Vincenzo Ragusa (who is, surprise surprise, not Japanese)

Oh man, this post is getting long.  We had a busy day.

After the museum, we took a train with no driver (OMG) to an island called Odaiba, where there happened to be a Mexican festival happening.  We all had fun taking pictures in Odaiba, because you get a really good view of the city, and the sun was just setting when we were there.

I hope you like lights cuz lights are coming your way

That big red tower in that picture is Tokyo Tower.  Its design is based on the Eiffel Tower, but is several meters taller (which is a bit douchey, in my opinion).  And speaking of Tokyo Tower…

It's really hard to get the whole thing in a photo

…that’s where we ended our evening.  You can get a pretty impressive view of Tokyo from up there.  Check it out:

Everywhere you go in Japan looks like something out of Bladerunner at night

Whew!  What a busy day.  And now, our parting gift:

They just keep rocket launchers, y'know, around...

Tokyo Times: Part 1

Some icy fruity things at Sensoji.

Okay, so Portland is still my favorite city in the world, but Tokyo is a very close second.

At the end of last month, five of my friends and I took an overnight bus to Tokyo, where we spent three amazing days doing pretty much every touristy thing there is to do in Tokyo (with the tragic exception of the Parasitology Museum).

Here’s a quick rundown of the weekend (or at least the beginning of it).

Thursday, 11:20pm. Just barely make it in time to board the night bus at the Osaka Sky Building after accidentally taking the wrong train and getting trapped in the subway. Soon realize that between the driver’s recklessness, the lights shining right in our eyes, and the lack of legroom, we will not be sleeping much.

Friday, 6:00am. Arrive in Tokyo and make our way to Ikebukuro, where our ryokan is located. Within minutes of disembarking the bus, we discover who is not a morning person, and I have my very first encounter with a squatting toilet. Oh joy.

A ryokan is a traditional style Japanese hotel. Ours was pretty bare-bones (five futons and some public bathrooms) but they gave us these sweet yukata to wear!

So photogenic!

After dropping our bags off at the ryokan, we headed to Akihabara, which is the place to go in Tokyo if you love electronics or anime porn. I’ll let you guess why I was there.

This girl gave us stickers.

It’s fun to walk around Akihabara because there are all these girls dressed as maids and stuff handing out flyers. And yes, we went to a maid café. And no, it wasn’t as creepy as I thought it would be. We got delicious desserts and drinks, and the maids all said “nyan” at us a lot. You’re not allowed to take pictures inside the maid cafés, but if you buy a Polaroid with one of the maids they give you a wide selection of animal ears to wear.

...Yes, of course I did that. When I find a scanner or get back to America, I’m showing that Polaroid to EVERYONE.

My friend Sean, and in the background, naked anime chick!

After we had exhausted the delights of Akihabara, we continued onward to Asakusa to visit the Sensoji. It is a pretty impressive sight, for a number of reasons. First there’s these big lantern things.

Thanks, Japanese ladies, for adding to the drama of this photo.

Then there’s these guys in short shorts who want to carry you around.

These aren't even the shortest shorts I saw men wearing in public.  More on that later.

And then, there’s what seems like a mile of shops filled with omiyage (souvenirs) or candy or other little knickknacks. 

And lots and lots of tourists.

And THEN, on top of all that, this lady was there.

I have so many questions.

I mean, DAMN.

After a brief nap at the ryokan and the second most welcome shower of my life, we once again ventured out into Tokyo. This time, we headed to Shibuya, which is what you are probably thinking of when you think of Tokyo.

Poor Hachiko had to deal with this every day.

Unfortunately, after the excitement of getting through that giant crosswalk fades, we realized that there is actually not much to do in Shibuya except eat and shop. And since I was the only girl in the group of five, we decided to eat.

Fun fact: in Japan, instead of saying “buffet-style,” they say “baikingu.” That means “Viking.” I take this to mean that you’re supposed to guzzle your food like a goddamn Viking. And that is what we did at the underground Indian restaurant in Shibuya. (And Ali Davis, if you’re reading this: just as we were leaving a music video from Endiron started playing, and I made everyone stay and watch it).

And thus ended our first day in Tokyo. Further adventures will be recounted in further blog posts, but for now I will leave you with this image:

The best part?  It's a chain.

Touring around Osaka: Kyoto and Arima

I'm a little sick right now and feel pretty incapable of writing, so here's a pretty picture-heavy blog post.  Last Friday, my friends and I spent the afternoon in Kyoto.  It's only about a half-hour train ride from where we live, so it was a fairly easy commute.  While in Kyoto, we toured a lovely little temple called the Ginkaku-ji.  Some images:

In Kyoto, we also saw this charming lady playing the accordion by the river:

The next day, we went to a town called Arima.  Apparently some really famous stuff happened in Arima--I guess Hideyoshi lived there?  Don't take my word for it, I was just piecing together bits of information.  Anyhow, my friend and I went to an onsen there, which is a really cool kind of public bath.  We were the only ones there, and we used lots of complimentary beauty products.  Here are some pictures from Arima:

Arima Cider is okay, but the bottle is the coolest thing about it.  This monkey was a very charming monkey, but his trainer was being very mean to him and it made us all feel really uncomfortable.

We have no classes on Monday, so hopefully we can find something GREAT to do with our three-day weekend.  First stop: Karaoke tonight.  Not a bad start.

Jya, ne...

The Best Things in Life Are Aquariums and Food

Hello friends.  I continue to live in Japan!

Okay, I know I promised that this post would be about showers, but frankly that sounds boring compared to what I did last weekend.  Know what I did last weekend?  I went to the AQUARIUM!

I freaking love aquariums.  Any old kind of aquarium is good.  But this aquarium... oh man.

This aquarium is enormous.  The biggest aquarium I've ever been to.  It was also filled with people, which was slightly frightening at times.  But mostly I was excited because the cover of the brochure proudly proclaimed "Ocean, You See Whale Shark!"

And I DID see whale shark, as well as a number of other great aquatic (and semi-aquatic) critters.  Take a look!

Oh man, I freaking LOVE aquariums.

So other than the aquarium, probably the most exciting thing I've done lately is go out for okonomiyaki with my Japanese class.  Not familiar with okonomiyaki?  Well maybe this video will help:

It's basically eggs, cabbage and other various fixin's mixed together and fried, then covered in mayonnaise and sauce.  It's pretty incredible, though I shamefully could not finish my enormous portion.  Here are some pictures of that experience:

Yummmm.

So that's basically what's been happening so far.  I hope to do something interesting this weekend as well, but it looks like there's a typhoon on the way (not a joke) so we'll see if I can actually leave my apartment.  In other news, I am now an official CET Osaka correspondent, which means that I'll be blogging for CET as well as on this blog.  Expect a link to that shortly!

Until next time!

Week 1: Roxanne’s Jetlag-Addled Musings about Japan

 
So I’ve been in Osaka for roughly 4 days, and I have yet to get lost or die. All the things I’ve been up to so far are pretty mundane—shopping, preparing for class, eating—so rather than chronicling my adventures, I am choosing to just give you a couple of musings about my trip so far. Here goes:

1. Anime prepared me for pretty much everything in Japan.

While many of the other kids on my program seemed surprised about where we were living, I was not. I hold anime responsible for this. Not so much the anime that takes place in the past, or in a magical land, or in space…but the ones about high school or college-aged kids, who maybe just happen to also have magical powers. Those kinds of shows actually show a pretty realistic view of what Japan looks like, so when I got to Osaka and saw where I’m living, I was not surprised.

Although the kitchen was a bit disappointing.

2. Everything is a little bit different here.

Some of it is subtle, like brands written in Japanese.

 
Some of it is a little more amusing, like the fact that hair dye almost never has real people on the box.

And some of it is just awesome.

3. Being in a foreign country forces you to do things you normally wouldn’t.

Okay, this one’s a bit obvious, but it needs to be said. I mean, in the past couple days, I’ve wandered alone through a city I don’t know, asked complete strangers for help in a language I barely speak, and eaten (and enjoyed) food I never would have tried if anyone had been able to explain what it was. For example:

On my first morning in Osaka, my roommate handed me this onigiri and told me it was “chikin”. I should have been suspicious since I know that the word for chicken is “tori-niku”, but I figured it was slang. Had I read the label, I would have realized that it was “shi-chikin mayo”—basically, tuna salad.  Inside an onigiri.  Sounds weird, but it was actually surprisingly good. 

So, that's basically what's been going on so far.  Next week I start classes, which is both exciting and terrifying.  Stay tuned for my next post, in which I will explain the wrong way to shower in Japan (but I do it anyhow).