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Mar. 18th, 2007 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amatyultareAaaaaand I'm back! Tokyo was absolutely AMAZING. First of all, we hardly had jet lag at all (well, B wouldn't have as he was just coming from Beijing). Second, the weather was gorgeous all week (and fairly warm; I wore a sweatshirt all week, no coat, and was perfectly comfortable). Third, it was with K and B, both of whom I hadn't seen in months. Fourth, it was TOKYO!
A fairly brief (all things considered) but still somewhat lengthy account of my trip:
Saturday/Sunday: really long plane ride from D.C. to Narita airport outside Tokyo. K and I managed to sleep quite a bit, which made it seem much shorter. At Narita we changed money, found B, and bought subway tickets into Tokyo. Narita is actually a LONG way outside of Tokyo, so we were on the subway for over two hours (and at one point had to buy another ticket because we were switching lines, which led to confusion). It was fine though, as it was quite literally a talkathon. Everyone got caught up with everything, which was great. Got to the hotel, which was absolutely gorgeous, and immediately ran out to a convenience store for a late dinner. Mine was really salty but I loved the flavored onigiri. We crashed and went to bed really early.
Monday: K and I woke up VERY early (like, 5 AM) and slowly got ready for the day. Once B was up, we went down to the breakfast buffet, which had 'American food' (really runny eggs and french fries, along with pastries) and Japanese food (miso, dried fish, kimchee). After breakfast we headed out towards Tokyo Tower, stopping along the way a couple of times at post offices to find the limited edition Eva stamps. We finally found a place that wasn't sold out, yay! Got some great pictures of Tokyo Tower with the sun behind it, then headed up. We basically took pictures of the views from the tower like crazy, then wandered through the stores and 'attractions' in the bottom floors. K had a place in a different district where she wanted to eat lunch so we got going, but had to stop at a store titled 'Samurai Arts'. It was so neat, like a museum because it was full of antique swords, except everything was for sale. Headed towards the Hama Rikyu gardens (a park), getting slightly lost on the way and also making a stop at a crazy store called DON.K: Discount Entertainment. It was just a store that sold everything, but it was excellent. Finally found the park and wandered around; it was beautiful and seeing high rises behind the trees was interesting. By that point it was 2 PM so we decided to find this sushi place for lunch. After getting slightly lost AGAIN, this being a continuing theme in our trip, we found the place and ate lightly, it being 3 PM and us planning a big dinner. Still, the sushi was DELICIOUS. After resting a bit we started looking for our restaurant for the night; we had an address but no directions, meaning searching would be necessary. We found the general area but were distracted by a really cute toy store that had all sorts of cute and random stuff. We tore ourselves away from that and actually found the restaurant, which was Alice in Wonderland themed. There were drapes everywhere making it a bit maze-like, all of the plates and drapes and so on had prints from Alice in Wonderland on them, the menu referenced it as well, and the waitresses were all dressed as Alices. It was adorable. The food was expensive but delicious and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. After dinner we wandered around the neighborhood (Ginza) for a bit and headed home.
Tuesday: Woke up with the alarm, got dressed etc. and headed down to the buffet. Croissants and kimchee, yum...this was a more 'educational' day. First we went to Ueno Park, which had various shrines and also housed the National Museum. The park was lovely, another of those 'green surrounded by skyscrapers', and it even had some blooming sakura trees! We meandered, going to several smaller shrines before hitting the one we had gone to see. There were statues and Buddhas and lines of stone lanterns and all sorts of interesting things. After a brief stop at what appeared to be a small carnival in order to get crepes, we went into the Ueno Zoo. We divided our time between looking at cute animals and plotting to kidnap the adorable small children who were visiting the zoo. We also encountered the EMO PENGUIN, which became a running joke throughout our trip. After doing a circuit of the zoo we went to the National Museum which was a history/cultural museum. Their exhibits were very minimalist (the room on 'calligraphy' might have four or five scrolls, beautifully displayed) but interesting, although my feet were killing me by this point. Strolling back towards the subway station, we realized it was already 3 PM and decided to skip lunch altogether since we had a place picked out for dinner. Wandered through Ueno's shopping district a bit and then headed to Asakusa to another temple. Along the way we accidentally gave another foreigner incorrect directions....whoops. We got fortunes at the temple; mine was 'Fortune but Finally' which basically meant good things would happen eventually. K got a bad fortune so she tied it to a rack in the temple to keep it from coming true. We had a bit of a hard time finding the place we wanted for dinner, but eventually we were successful....it was a make your own okonomiyaki place (okonomiyaki is a sort of pancake with cabbage and various other things in it depending on what kind you make). Each table had a sort of stove/skillet thing on which you made your pancakes and noodles and so on. It was really delicious and also a lot of fun. A bit more wandering, in which we stopped at an arcade and K won some odd flat plushies, then back to the hotel.
Wednesday: Akihabara day! Akihabara is a sort of geeky mecca with tons of electronics stores and anime/manga stores galore. We got there early...and nothing was open. It's really strange but a lot of Japanese stores don't open until 11 AM, sometimes later....anyway, we wandered around and and went to stores as they opened. It was very intense. Honestly, this day was a bit of a blur for me and I'm afraid I wasn't as cheerful as I ought to have been because a) my feet really hurt b) there were so many stores selling the same things. I don't know if it's a cultural difference or what, but you don't realize from the American anime market how extremely popular models (small and large) are in Japan. Character model kits, mecha model kits, nude-girl model kits....they just went on and on, and I....got a little tired of them. Still, it was pretty amazing. I especially loved one store that had 'character goods' i.e. random stuff from all kinds of series. I bought a Beauty Pop pencil board (because I like the series and I'll probably never see merchandise from it again) and was VERY tempted to buy all sorts of other things (like L's teacup and saucer from Death Note) but resisted. We actually ate lunch at a normal time on Wednesday, at a great little ramen place. It was delicious and very filling. After a lot of hard core shopping, we headed back and ate dinner at a place called Freshness Burger near the hotel. Spice Girls playing=much amusement on our part.
Thursday: We headed to Nakano Broadway, a 'department store' aka mall which had some amazing anime stores. Unfortunately, they also opened quite late, so we wandered around aimlessly a lot. It was fun, though, and we did eventually get to see every store at which we wanted to look. We took the subway again to find lunch at Jackson Hole, a cowboy-themed restaurant which is semi-famous among otaku now as it is often featured in Nana. The food was delicious, the atmosphere was great, and we were refreshed. Then we wanted to go to Shinjuku's Marui Department Store to Marui One, which has a lot of lolita stores. Haha....our karma from giving someone else wrong directions caught up with us. We got REALLY lost, stemming from taking the wrong exit from the subway, and wandered around for two hours before getting correct directions from a very nice guy with an adorable little daughter named Momoko (Momo-chan). No joke, by the time we met him we were almost a mile south of where we wanted to go. Nevertheless we did eventually find the store, and it was worth it--so many cute lolita clothes! There was even a small Baby the Stars Shine Bright boutique! At a different store K got the most adorable purple and black dress. Dinner was a 'sushi conveyer belt' place, where sushi is made by the chef and put on a conveyer belt on plates, and you choose whatever plates look good. Then they tally up your bill by counting how many plates you have. Delicious and VERY filling. We were kind of wiped out by then from all of the walking so we just went back to the hotel.
Friday: Harajuku! So many lolita stores, it was crazy. We learned our lesson this time and didn't show up until about 10:30, so things were starting to open. We saw so many amazing outfits....of course, I couldn't get anything (I am not a Japanese size in the least, and besides lolita clothing is quite expensive) but it was fun just to look around. One store was even showing the movie 'Kamikaze Girls', which I found funny; I got to watch the end and Momoko going crazy, which is a great scene. Basically we squealed over adorable clothes for most of the day, then went to a Book-off (used book store) and a place called the Oriental Bazaar for souvenirs and presents and so on. At five we were done shopping so I suggested we go back to the room and then go out to Roppongi (the 'club area' of Tokyo) so that's what we did, stopping on our way out to eat delicious though unidentified yakitori (meat on a stick, basically). Roppongi was fun but expensive; we bar hopped for a bit and ended up in a place called Gaspanic, which was actually a lot of fun. Eventually, though, we were a bit bored and went back to our room.
Saturday/Sunday: Woke, quickly packed, breakfast buffet and then we headed out for our last morning in Tokyo. We went to the gardens in the Imperial Palace, which was actually very near our hotel. It was a great end to our trip because the weather was cloudy but still nice and the park was lovely and a little bit melancholy. We managed to avoid several tour groups and rambled around a bit, then headed back to the hotel to check out. Another long ride on the subway to Narita, which was also fun because it's really aboveground for most of the trip an we could look out at the countryside, etc. At the airport K and I had to separate from B almost immediately, so we said our goodbyes and headed to the ticket counters. Narita airport security is a lot less strict that U.S. security, so we had plenty of time while waiting for the plane to grab a bit of lunch at a coffee place. The plane ride was again, quite long, but I watched two movies and read quite a bit. Somehow on the plane I lost my copy of Kamikaze Girls (the book), which saddened me, but what can you do. After going through customs and so on, I actually had to wait for a LONG time at Dulles because there were storms delaying all of the flights. My plane was originally scheduled to leave Dulles about 9:30 PM, and we ended up leaving around 1:20 AM....anyway, got back and drove home, which was an adventure in itself as it was snowing and I couldn't even see the lines on the road. Arrived at the townhouse a little after 5 AM and gave up and just went to bed.
I really had such an amazing time; by far the best spring break EVER. Tomorrow it's back to school *sigh* but every time I look at my new cell phone strap (I have the pinkest, girliest cell phone strap ever now), I'll remember the awesomeness that was Tokyo.
I'm going to watch HYD2 episode 10 (finally!) and then get to bed. Later, all!
A fairly brief (all things considered) but still somewhat lengthy account of my trip:
Saturday/Sunday: really long plane ride from D.C. to Narita airport outside Tokyo. K and I managed to sleep quite a bit, which made it seem much shorter. At Narita we changed money, found B, and bought subway tickets into Tokyo. Narita is actually a LONG way outside of Tokyo, so we were on the subway for over two hours (and at one point had to buy another ticket because we were switching lines, which led to confusion). It was fine though, as it was quite literally a talkathon. Everyone got caught up with everything, which was great. Got to the hotel, which was absolutely gorgeous, and immediately ran out to a convenience store for a late dinner. Mine was really salty but I loved the flavored onigiri. We crashed and went to bed really early.
Monday: K and I woke up VERY early (like, 5 AM) and slowly got ready for the day. Once B was up, we went down to the breakfast buffet, which had 'American food' (really runny eggs and french fries, along with pastries) and Japanese food (miso, dried fish, kimchee). After breakfast we headed out towards Tokyo Tower, stopping along the way a couple of times at post offices to find the limited edition Eva stamps. We finally found a place that wasn't sold out, yay! Got some great pictures of Tokyo Tower with the sun behind it, then headed up. We basically took pictures of the views from the tower like crazy, then wandered through the stores and 'attractions' in the bottom floors. K had a place in a different district where she wanted to eat lunch so we got going, but had to stop at a store titled 'Samurai Arts'. It was so neat, like a museum because it was full of antique swords, except everything was for sale. Headed towards the Hama Rikyu gardens (a park), getting slightly lost on the way and also making a stop at a crazy store called DON.K: Discount Entertainment. It was just a store that sold everything, but it was excellent. Finally found the park and wandered around; it was beautiful and seeing high rises behind the trees was interesting. By that point it was 2 PM so we decided to find this sushi place for lunch. After getting slightly lost AGAIN, this being a continuing theme in our trip, we found the place and ate lightly, it being 3 PM and us planning a big dinner. Still, the sushi was DELICIOUS. After resting a bit we started looking for our restaurant for the night; we had an address but no directions, meaning searching would be necessary. We found the general area but were distracted by a really cute toy store that had all sorts of cute and random stuff. We tore ourselves away from that and actually found the restaurant, which was Alice in Wonderland themed. There were drapes everywhere making it a bit maze-like, all of the plates and drapes and so on had prints from Alice in Wonderland on them, the menu referenced it as well, and the waitresses were all dressed as Alices. It was adorable. The food was expensive but delicious and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. After dinner we wandered around the neighborhood (Ginza) for a bit and headed home.
Tuesday: Woke up with the alarm, got dressed etc. and headed down to the buffet. Croissants and kimchee, yum...this was a more 'educational' day. First we went to Ueno Park, which had various shrines and also housed the National Museum. The park was lovely, another of those 'green surrounded by skyscrapers', and it even had some blooming sakura trees! We meandered, going to several smaller shrines before hitting the one we had gone to see. There were statues and Buddhas and lines of stone lanterns and all sorts of interesting things. After a brief stop at what appeared to be a small carnival in order to get crepes, we went into the Ueno Zoo. We divided our time between looking at cute animals and plotting to kidnap the adorable small children who were visiting the zoo. We also encountered the EMO PENGUIN, which became a running joke throughout our trip. After doing a circuit of the zoo we went to the National Museum which was a history/cultural museum. Their exhibits were very minimalist (the room on 'calligraphy' might have four or five scrolls, beautifully displayed) but interesting, although my feet were killing me by this point. Strolling back towards the subway station, we realized it was already 3 PM and decided to skip lunch altogether since we had a place picked out for dinner. Wandered through Ueno's shopping district a bit and then headed to Asakusa to another temple. Along the way we accidentally gave another foreigner incorrect directions....whoops. We got fortunes at the temple; mine was 'Fortune but Finally' which basically meant good things would happen eventually. K got a bad fortune so she tied it to a rack in the temple to keep it from coming true. We had a bit of a hard time finding the place we wanted for dinner, but eventually we were successful....it was a make your own okonomiyaki place (okonomiyaki is a sort of pancake with cabbage and various other things in it depending on what kind you make). Each table had a sort of stove/skillet thing on which you made your pancakes and noodles and so on. It was really delicious and also a lot of fun. A bit more wandering, in which we stopped at an arcade and K won some odd flat plushies, then back to the hotel.
Wednesday: Akihabara day! Akihabara is a sort of geeky mecca with tons of electronics stores and anime/manga stores galore. We got there early...and nothing was open. It's really strange but a lot of Japanese stores don't open until 11 AM, sometimes later....anyway, we wandered around and and went to stores as they opened. It was very intense. Honestly, this day was a bit of a blur for me and I'm afraid I wasn't as cheerful as I ought to have been because a) my feet really hurt b) there were so many stores selling the same things. I don't know if it's a cultural difference or what, but you don't realize from the American anime market how extremely popular models (small and large) are in Japan. Character model kits, mecha model kits, nude-girl model kits....they just went on and on, and I....got a little tired of them. Still, it was pretty amazing. I especially loved one store that had 'character goods' i.e. random stuff from all kinds of series. I bought a Beauty Pop pencil board (because I like the series and I'll probably never see merchandise from it again) and was VERY tempted to buy all sorts of other things (like L's teacup and saucer from Death Note) but resisted. We actually ate lunch at a normal time on Wednesday, at a great little ramen place. It was delicious and very filling. After a lot of hard core shopping, we headed back and ate dinner at a place called Freshness Burger near the hotel. Spice Girls playing=much amusement on our part.
Thursday: We headed to Nakano Broadway, a 'department store' aka mall which had some amazing anime stores. Unfortunately, they also opened quite late, so we wandered around aimlessly a lot. It was fun, though, and we did eventually get to see every store at which we wanted to look. We took the subway again to find lunch at Jackson Hole, a cowboy-themed restaurant which is semi-famous among otaku now as it is often featured in Nana. The food was delicious, the atmosphere was great, and we were refreshed. Then we wanted to go to Shinjuku's Marui Department Store to Marui One, which has a lot of lolita stores. Haha....our karma from giving someone else wrong directions caught up with us. We got REALLY lost, stemming from taking the wrong exit from the subway, and wandered around for two hours before getting correct directions from a very nice guy with an adorable little daughter named Momoko (Momo-chan). No joke, by the time we met him we were almost a mile south of where we wanted to go. Nevertheless we did eventually find the store, and it was worth it--so many cute lolita clothes! There was even a small Baby the Stars Shine Bright boutique! At a different store K got the most adorable purple and black dress. Dinner was a 'sushi conveyer belt' place, where sushi is made by the chef and put on a conveyer belt on plates, and you choose whatever plates look good. Then they tally up your bill by counting how many plates you have. Delicious and VERY filling. We were kind of wiped out by then from all of the walking so we just went back to the hotel.
Friday: Harajuku! So many lolita stores, it was crazy. We learned our lesson this time and didn't show up until about 10:30, so things were starting to open. We saw so many amazing outfits....of course, I couldn't get anything (I am not a Japanese size in the least, and besides lolita clothing is quite expensive) but it was fun just to look around. One store was even showing the movie 'Kamikaze Girls', which I found funny; I got to watch the end and Momoko going crazy, which is a great scene. Basically we squealed over adorable clothes for most of the day, then went to a Book-off (used book store) and a place called the Oriental Bazaar for souvenirs and presents and so on. At five we were done shopping so I suggested we go back to the room and then go out to Roppongi (the 'club area' of Tokyo) so that's what we did, stopping on our way out to eat delicious though unidentified yakitori (meat on a stick, basically). Roppongi was fun but expensive; we bar hopped for a bit and ended up in a place called Gaspanic, which was actually a lot of fun. Eventually, though, we were a bit bored and went back to our room.
Saturday/Sunday: Woke, quickly packed, breakfast buffet and then we headed out for our last morning in Tokyo. We went to the gardens in the Imperial Palace, which was actually very near our hotel. It was a great end to our trip because the weather was cloudy but still nice and the park was lovely and a little bit melancholy. We managed to avoid several tour groups and rambled around a bit, then headed back to the hotel to check out. Another long ride on the subway to Narita, which was also fun because it's really aboveground for most of the trip an we could look out at the countryside, etc. At the airport K and I had to separate from B almost immediately, so we said our goodbyes and headed to the ticket counters. Narita airport security is a lot less strict that U.S. security, so we had plenty of time while waiting for the plane to grab a bit of lunch at a coffee place. The plane ride was again, quite long, but I watched two movies and read quite a bit. Somehow on the plane I lost my copy of Kamikaze Girls (the book), which saddened me, but what can you do. After going through customs and so on, I actually had to wait for a LONG time at Dulles because there were storms delaying all of the flights. My plane was originally scheduled to leave Dulles about 9:30 PM, and we ended up leaving around 1:20 AM....anyway, got back and drove home, which was an adventure in itself as it was snowing and I couldn't even see the lines on the road. Arrived at the townhouse a little after 5 AM and gave up and just went to bed.
I really had such an amazing time; by far the best spring break EVER. Tomorrow it's back to school *sigh* but every time I look at my new cell phone strap (I have the pinkest, girliest cell phone strap ever now), I'll remember the awesomeness that was Tokyo.
I'm going to watch HYD2 episode 10 (finally!) and then get to bed. Later, all!
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Date: 2007-03-19 08:13 pm (UTC)Actually, pretty much all of Tokyo rules. At least, everywhere in it I've been to does. But being a big dork, Akihabara holds a special place in my heart.
Near Tokyo, the Narita temple is really great, if you get to go there again.