Archive for Tokyo

Day 21/Tokyo//Clubbing with Honey

{ August 18, 2007 @ 4:16 am } · { Clubbing, Tokyo }
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•    Morning
o    My last long trip is over… after two shinkansens and one train… I’m in Tokyo… and it’s not really morning, it’s afternoon.  I had to argue a bit with the woman at the hotel desk to convince her that indeed my reservation was till the 18th… otherwise I would have no place to stay for my last night and that would be bloody inconvenient.  Luckily, that was easily fixed.
•    Wasting the afternoon
o    I walked to sunshine city and sat down at a café , went online for a bit to talk to friends, and to update the blog.  I was rather tired, but not that hungry so I didn’t order anything.  I explored the shops for another hour after the café and then headed back to my hotel to get changed and take a shower.
•    Roppongi
o    I met Honey and a friend of hers in Roppongi at 9:00 ish.  We decided to first head to a small bar called Gas Panic… the checked IDs, but they didn’t do anything about how old we were… ahaha, I love japan.  We all got two drinks… one Smirnoff and one banana fuck for me… what an interesting name for a drink..aye.  We then headed to a karaoke place for about an hour and a half where we sang songs, dranks some more (many pitchers of beer), and by the time we were through, we were atleast a little tipsy.  We then met up with another friend of Honey’s an headed to a hookah bar to relax for half an hour or so.  This was rather funny, because Honey’s friend knew the people at the bar, so it was rather cheaper than it should have been.  We then headed back to Gas Panic to get another drink and for Honey to have some fun dancing.  *note… I only had a snack for dinner, so by the second time at gas panic… I was def drunk.  We finally headed to a club called Lex to spend the rest of the night.  We just sat around, danced with random girls and guys in the case of Honey, and drank a bit more… water in this case… mostly.  At around 5:30 we headed out of the club which was still completely packed and off to mcdonalds to have a nice little breakfast.  The egg mc muffin tasted amazing… well, I’m not surprised, I still wasn’t sober.  Granted, I will never go to mcdonalds again… because I won’t be in japan for a while, but after being at bars and clubs for 7+ hours, any place to sit down feels wonderful.  I got back to my hotel at around 8:00 and slept till the afternoon.

Day 16/Random random/Uneo

{ August 6, 2007 @ 11:55 am } · { Tokyo, shopping }
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•    Morning
o    I woke up planning to go to yoyogi park by harajuku and just relax and people watch and eat breakfast but things didn’t go exactly as planned.  I went to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast, but it wasn’t open when I arrived, so I just caught the train and ended up at Shinjuku.
•    Shinjuku
o    I’ve never been to Shinjuku before… and it’s huge.  To get an idea of how large Shinjuku is, you have to realize that the station is so large that you can get lost it in.  There are at least 5 exits and they go to random places in Shinjuku.  I wandered around Shinjuku station and found a place to get breakfast… or rather, get some food which I would eat later.  I bought this small bread which had raisins and other fruits in it, some vegetables with something in them, and a drink.  It was such a French breakfast, but it looked delicious, so I was happy.
o    I then attempted to find a park to eat in and people watch, but this proved harder than I thought it would be.  After 20 minutes I found a shaded area off the beaten path a bit and sat down and ate breakfast.  It was amazing.  Bread in japan is better than the US… 7 times better, give or take.  Following breakfast I decided to head back to Harajuku to browse and just hang out.
•    Harajuku
o    I spend a few hours in Harajuku just looking at stores, looking at people, and walking around a small park.  Harajuku is the perfect place to just walk around aimlessly with no plans.  It’s not too large and not too small and new places that you didn’t see emerge before your eyes every time you come.
•    Shibuya
o    After enough time in Harajuku I headed to Shibuya to buy a pair of jeans.  I arrived in Shibuya station and walked out… and then I got asked to model.  Not kidding here.  I just walked out of the station and some guy from an emerging Japanese clothing brand asked me to do a 2 to 3 hour photo shoot for about $80.  I decided to accept the offer since I was going to be back in Tokyo when the photo shoot was happening… we’ll see what happens haha.  Who knows.  But first, hunger called.  I went to a small Japanese restaurant on the 7th floor of a building and ordered salad udon… or atleast that’s what it turned out to be… I just saw udon and risked it all.  I’ve been ordering most of the time by if the name sounds good or if the picture looks good… and I’ve never gone wrong haha.  Life is good.  After lunch I browsed shibuya 109 (2) to make sure that I didn’t want to buy any other pair of jeans instead, I went to jackrose and bought my planned jeans.  I browsed Shibuya 109 (2) some more and then headed back to the hotel to relax a bit.
•    Ueno
o    Even though the light was fading as I arrived at my hotel I decided to head to Uneo to get a brief glance at the park.  This was a great idea.  Ueno park is beautiful, serene, and all in all a great place to go.  I walked around, looked at the shrines, temples, and the sun setting in the distance.  I walked around the pond and just relaxed.  For dinner, I ended up going into a small restaurant by the side of ueno park.  I was drawn to this restaurant because of the sounds of a shimisen emanating from inside.  I asked how much it was to come in and it turned out to just be ten dollars which included a drink and a meal… wonderful.  I ordered a beer and sat down as a box was placed in front of me… what it contained I don’t know, but it tasted good.  What was better though, was the shimisen player.  She was probably in her 50s, but she had a great voice and played her instrument very well.  She was also rather funny.  After my dinner I explored Ueno a bit and ended up buying a present.  Then… back to the hotel to take a shower and relax… off to Hiroshima tomorrow.

Day 15/Harajuku/Shibuya

{ August 5, 2007 @ 2:01 pm } · { Tokyo }
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•    Morning
o    I woke up at 10:00 this morning and just relaxed for an hour or two after taking a nice long shower.  I caught up with some friends online and watched a show.   I had an amazing breakfast of two rice balls, some kimchi, and a fruity yogurt… all for under $5… typical.  I love the food here, it’s so cheap, healthy, and delicious.
•    Afternoon in Harajuku
o    I decided to explore Harajuku further today and attempt not to buy anything, which I succeeded in doing… yes!  I explored all the shops today… and might just buy something tomorrow, but I did put it off one day… more than I usually do.  I explored Takeshita dori (which is the famous street of fashionable and rather reasonable shops), harajuku street… and I even looked at Ometesando… which is ridiculously expensive shops, but fun to browse.  I ate another crepe in harajuku which was almost as good as last time.  I walked around a little park near Harajuku after looking through shops for a while and found a small, but pristine garden, so I relaxed in the shade for a bit.
o    I decided to head to Shibuya to get a bit of dinner, just because I’d been in Harajuku for about 4 hours or more.  I took the train one stop over and got out at the famous intersection in Shibuya where there are always hundreds of people.  I walked for about half an hour until driven by hunger I walked into the nearest restaurant… turned out this was great timing because dinner was delicious.. whatever it may have been.  Facts: I know it was ramen, and there was beef in it, and it was spicy.  All else, I have no idea.
•    Evening
o    I decided to go to the famous 109 (2) building to look at more clothes after dinner, since looking at temples in the dark would have been rather pointless.  After a while the shops looked mostly all the same, but still the jeans all looked really stylish.  I’m stealing myself to buy an $80 pair of jeans tomorrow, but rationalization has kicked in… for I know they were originally $200, so I’m considering how much money I’m saving and the fact that this is japan… and suddenly $80 doesn’t seem bad.  We’ll see what happens.  After a bit more looking at expensive and stylish Japanese clothing I headed back to the hotel to relax.

Day 14/Shibuya

{ August 5, 2007 @ 1:44 pm } · { Food, Tokyo, shopping }
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• Morning/Afternoon
o Nate and I woke up at around 12… We both managed to make ourselves look slightly awake and then we headed out to meet Iori for lunch. On the way, we ran into her mother, and so we all headed together to meet Iori. We had a nice simple lunch of lots of random Japanese foods (umm… udon, miso soup, the usual suspects,) Iori had to go back to driving school, so Nate and I headed out to Shibuya to look at clothes and just relax.
• Afternoon
o Shibuya is amazing. Nate and I arrived at Shibuya station… at the famous intersection that you often see in photos of japan. This is the intersection where hundreds of people cross it ever few minutes. There are so many people that you can’t see the ground at times. I really don’t miss the ground that much. Another fact of shibuya is that the girls are def more attractive than Osaka… granted, Osaka isn’t bad in that respect at all, but Tokyo in general wins. Osaka sure as hell beats the US, but this isn’t tough ahaha, I’m such a horrible person. I’m going to come back to the US, and look at the percentage of people that are overweight and just close my eyes and hope things will change. Ok, enough about how the US fails. Nate and I walked around Shibuya and I managed to buy a shirt that wasn’t $100… to my relief. Shibuya is rather expensive, more so than Harajuku. Nate managed to buy a $100 pair of jeans and a $100 hoody… but I’d be more lenient with my money if my parents gave me unlimited funds too haha… but enough about that, since he usually pays for my lunch when we hang out I’m in no position to complain. We went to a Korean barbecue place to get a drink after shopping for a while. The weather was so hot, so we were just looking to have a beer and sit and talk for a while. Yet, as we sat down and I ordered two beers in Japanese… hell yeah… the waiter put down the coals in the barbecue so we were rather obliged to order something. We ordered a plate of meat that neither nate nor I really knew what was in it. Luckily, we asked about one suspicious looking piece of meat and it turned out to be stomach… close call, we didn’t end up eating it. The rest of the meal was delicious, but decidedly more Japanese looking than Korean looking. We headed back to Roppongi to meat Iori for dinner.
• Evening
o Iori was exhausted, so we took a quick trip just one metro stop away for dinner. We had Korean barbecue again haha… didn’t plan it. It was better this time and decidedly more Korean. I just had a simple dish and we all shared a bit of meat on the barbecue and a few dishes. Afterwards, I took the long trip back to my hotel and by the time I got there it was almost midnight. Sleep was easy.

Day 13/Harajuku/Roppongi

{ August 5, 2007 @ 1:12 pm } · { Food, Tokyo, shopping }
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• Morning
o The trip to Tokyo was mostly uneventfull… I took a few trains and a shinkansen and had a tasty bento box along the way. I wish I’d seen mt fuji out the window, but I fell asleep for part of the trip, so didn’t notice.
• Arrival
o I got into Tokyo a bit after two… and realized I had to walk ten minutes to my hotel… grrr… that’s going to suck when I have to take my suitcase back to the train station to go to Hiroshima. Shortly after arriving I headed to Harajuku to meet up with Satomi. We browsed Harajuku for clothes, talked, and just hung out. We bought some famous harajuku crepes… which were amazing. These crepes consist of crepes that are wrapped up in the shape of an icecream cone and stuffed with fruit, icecream, whipped cream, and mine had cheesecake… it so delicious, probably the least healthy thing I’ve eaten in japan so far. Granted, beer isn’t especially healthy, but it sure has less calories. We followed the crepes up by shopping some more and I bought a pair of black leather shoes (or atleast black… leather… maybe). Harajuku has amazing clothes and accessories at reasonable prices… and everyone looks as though they have watched too much anime and wanted to dress as their favorite characters; I love it. Satomi and I hung out for a few hours and then she had to get back to school, so I headed back to my hotel to take a shower. I arrived at my hotel and phone rung… it was Nate… we decided to meet in Roppongi.
• Night Time
o It took about an hour for me to get to Roppongi with the help of two trains and a bus. I arrived at Nate’s apartment (or rather… the apartment of his ex girlfriend where he’s staying.) We just talked for a bit and then decided to grab some dinner; it was about 9 oclock, so we were both game for a bit to eat. Iori (nate’s ex) arrived as we got to the apartment, and we headed out. We went to a bar/restaurant… in that there were drinks, smokes, and small dishes… but somehow we made it into a dinner. Iori stuck with one drink, while nate and I ended having two… no matter how non intoxicating rum and coke may be. Yet…. As with most things, it tastes better in japan. I don’t remember all the dishes we got, but one was raw horsemeat which was delicious. It was just like sashimi. After dinner Iori was a bit tired so she headed back to the apartment while Nate and I headed out to a bar. We headed to the wallstreet bar where the bouncer asked me “how old are you?”… “20” I answered and yep “forgot my id”…ahahaha. He looked at me and gave me this ‘I don’t believe you’ look, but still let me in. Nate and I started with a carona each and we just sat at the bar and smoked a cigarette. Nate ran into a salaryman that he’d met before and we all talked for half an hour or so as the night went on… the guy was so happy to meet me and see Nate again that he bought us all a shot of whiskey (shots go for ten dollars)… but I wasn’t stopping him. We had another carona… and just hung out at the bar… which was basically a club by this point, everyone was dancing (or… in their inebriated state… I’m sure they thought they were dancing.) I decided to be adventurous and ordered a b52 since I still wasn’t feeling much… this turned into a great idea. While ten dollars for a shot is indeed insane, this was just beautiful. The b52 is a mix of kahlua, ameretto, and one other liquor which I forget… it is then lit on fire… and drunk straight down with a straw…. Smooth… intoxicating, and delicious. The only way to go. At 2 am, we both were a bit tired, so decided to get a snack at first kitchen. We both got these tiny pizzas and then headed back to Iori’s apparment to crash.

Oddities/amazing things about Tokyo

{ July 24, 2007 @ 4:15 am } · { Tokyo }
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*previously written in my “oh so cute mini pigs” notebook:

Being:

-business men dress in suits and clearly don’t sweat because they bike to work
-EVERYONE looks attractive… really not complaining
-guys shop more than girls (they always have shopping bags)
-(almost) every girl has a small LV handbag
-Beer/cig vending machines… ahahaha
-Cell phones can do anything and they are everywhere
people often have multiple cell phones (girl on the flight next to me had 3)
-plastic food to show what’s being served… brilliant
-soooooo clean, unusually so
-umbrellas are officially accessories… used when it’s not raining… everyone has a clear umbrella
-everyone wears the same light shade of pink.. if they aren’t wearing black
-people passing out free tissues everywhere w/ ads on them
-even salarymen have cell phone charms… ahahah

Day 1/The flight

{ July 23, 2007 @ 5:53 am } · { Tokyo }
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  • Flight 1
    • I can’t believe that I got seated next to this Christian kid who tried to convert me to Christianity…ahh, so funny. He was really nice in the beginning when we were talking about Harry Potter and flying alone and such and then…he just started talking about religion a bit too much for me. Religion shouldn’t be all that matters, it should just be a facet of your life, preferably one that is private.
  • Flight 2
    • I originally had an aisle seat, but then a woman and her daughter would have been separated from each other, so I switched seats with her to end up in the middle of another row. Luckily I ended up next to this Japanese woman named Hiromi who wanted a middle seat so I shifted over and got a window seat for the next 13 hours. 13 hours is way too long for a flight…it just shouldn’t happen. Fortunately, Hiromi and I managed to find things to discuss after I finished the Harry Potter book, which took from the beginning of the first flight to about 7/8 hours into the second fli ght. We joked about the airplane food and generally hit it off because when you have 7/8 hours to do nothing you can get to know someone. I have a feeling if I hadn’t met her, getting to my hotel would have been considerably more complicated. On another note…. The plane food was not half bad… I thought it would be much worse. There was even fresh fruit for breakfast before arriving in Tokyo.
  • Arrival
    • Wow!!!!!! Tokyo is amazing. It’s exactly how I imagined it. I think Nate summed it up when he said that in 1 square meter in Ginza there are at least 10 hot girls… he might have been underestimating it…. The correct description would be… everyone is attractive….Everyone can dress as well… everyone dresses well for that matter. So, The plane arrives in the airport and I get off with no idea where to go, so I follow the queues of people to customs. As I get out of customs and grab my bag from the baggage return I run into Hiromi while I’m looking for the train… luckily, we’re both going to Ikebukuro. I somehow manage to get a ticket (which is trickier than I thought it would be)… and find my way to the train (which is not as easy as it sounds without help) and finally we’re heading to Nippori (where you transfer to get to Ikebukuro). Japan is beautiful; around, the airport, it’s scenic and there are rice fields everywhere. As you move closer to Tokyo, the buildings get larger and the girls get more attractive and you feel poorer and poorer ahaha, but it doesn’t matter. Once we arrive in Ikebukuro trying to find the west exit is a pain (it takes us five minutes), but after that it’s just another few minutes to get to the hotel. My room is spare, just a futon and a chair, but it’s wonderful. After checking in, Hiromi and decided to just look around Ikebukuro, so we just browse all the streets, and look around at the shops. Every single shop is on sale!!!!!! I don’t mean one or two, but every single shop… it’s perfect. I walk into a shop called Comme Ca Ism and buy a shirt for 1000 yen which is the equivalent of less than $8. I have to resist buying many more things, but I manage. Hiromi and I grab some dinner at around 8 ish which consists of gyoza (dumplings) and some rice because neither of us are that hungry… the weather is too hot to make anyone hungry, just exhausted. We part after dinner and I head back to the hotel to take an amazing bath in the cypress bath at the hotel. Then, after a brief attempt to get internet and use a Japanese keyboard which is a pain, I head back to my room and fall asleep at about 10:00 japanese time
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