Exploring Tokyo!

Well, I had a great first day in Japan! I landed at 5am, customs was a breeze, and I caught a direct bus to my part of town in Tokyo. The lovely lady at the information desk at the airport convinced me NOT to brave the rush hour crowds in the trains with my baggage, so I took her advice and shelled out a few hundred extra yen for the cozy, reserved seat on the limo-bus.

Mmmmm

Side note: 1000 yen (¥) = $12.50, therefore every 100¥ is about $1.25.

Like I said in the last post, I found my ryokan with (almost) no trouble, got a shower, and set out to beat my jet lag and do some sight seeing! I started the day off with a quest for food. I did end up braving the Metro, which was pleasantly easy to figure out: the routes are color and number coded, and the ticket machines even have an "English" setting! I aimed for the park I wanted to check out, and hopped off the subway and started looking for something to eat....which at first was a mildy overwhelming prospect due to hunger and a lot of indecipherable menus outside of yummy smelling places.

Happily, I found one with familiar looking photos, and I sat down at the bar, sheepishly pointed at the picture of the food I wanted, and hopefully waited for something edible to appear in front of me.

I was not disappointed! I had pointed to some gyoza (dumplings) and was surprised when they came out accompanied with a bowl of soup, a bowl of rice, two dipping sauces, and some spicy pickled veggies. I was sort of glad to be eating alone, because I scarfed that meal!! It was tasty and just what I needed - all all for only 600¥! I tried my best to pantomime appreciation to the chef behind the counter, and walked to the park.

Japanese kitties in the park!

Shinjuku National Garden was an imperial garden completed in 1906 - it is huge, with different themed sections: traditional Japanese, a French formal garden with sycamores lining the rose filled inner garden, and a lot of foresty areas. It was cool on the shady gravel paths, and most of the part was quiet and peaceful. I wandered in a big loop, saw lots of trees and flowers, and even more young Japanese school kids running around and enjoying the sunshine (all in matching sun hats :).


After the park, I took a longer-than-expected walk to the Tokyo Metropolitain Government Buildings. The guidebook claimed they had a free 45th floor observation deck, and I thought it would be a cool way to get the lay of the land. I strolled through a huge shopping district and finally found the double towers.

Mt Fuji is hiding behind those clouds!

The view from the top was pretty neat! On a clear day you're supposed to be able to see Mt Fuji, but I wasn't so lucky...apparently my plane landed between two typhoons, so the weather has been a bit nutty, and there were a lot of clouds in the distance. But I could see Tokyo's version of the Eiffel Tower, the park I had just visited, and tons of cool buildings around the city.

Next, I headed over to a shinto shrine in the middle of the city. It was built to honor Emperor Meiji in 1920 and has the largest gates of any shrine in Japan. It also sat in the middle of an expansive green, forested park, and was fun to stroll around.


I decided to head back to the ryokan because it was time for me to check in! I was excited to see my room, and to be honest, my feet were killing me. For some reason, after the flight they were all swollen. It wasn't too bad, and at first the walking around made them feel better....but after 6 hours of walking in the heat, through foreign grass, they were puffy and had weird red splotches, haha!


I got back, checked into my room, and had an e-mail from one of my friends who is here in Japan at a different conference and she wanted to meet up for dinner! I had a couple hours to kill, so I attempted a dip in the traditional Japanese cypress tub. I say attempted, because I put one fat foot in there and literally yelled. SO HOT!!! It's sort of like a hot tub - you shower before you get in, and they leave the water in all day - I was the first person to request it for the day, so I must have gotten the fresh piping (scalding) hot water. I even tried getting in without my feet in the water (think...butt first - thank god nobody was watching that graceful performance...) but I lasted about 3 seconds before I felt like overboiled ramen and decided to take a power nap before meeting up with Leah and Jon.

My little room :)

Leah and Jon were kind enough to meet me at my place, and we headed back to the neighborhood I had wandered near the park. There is a famed drinking district there called Golden Gai (pronounced Golden Guy). We grabbed dinner and a beer first at a Chinese place (delish!) and they filled me in on all the cool things they had seen over the last two weeks. After food, we walked to Golden Gai - its cool because there are over 300 bars in 5 blocks, but they are miniature: they only have a bar with about 6 seats each. You pay a seat charge (anywhere from nothing to 2500¥!), which is sort of like renting the chair for the evening. The bars all seemed small, intimate, and really cool! Some had themes (Halloween? Cats?), and some aren't super keen on foreigners, but we stopped into one that seemed welcoming (see picture :) and was free!

Awesome!

We all had a drink, but we were all pretty wiped out, so after one round and some people watching, we headed back to the train station at about 10:30pm.

The thing about Tokyo is that apparently there is a HUGE after work drinking scene. People go out, have a few (too many) rounds of sake, but the catch is all the trains stop running around midnight. So I got my ticket to go my short two stops home, but there wasn't a train for another 45 minutes. In the meantime, the platform started to FLOOD with people. I was about to experience late-night Tokyo rush hour!

Kampai!

I was actually kind of psyched except for the fact I was worried I wouldn't fit onto a train and I would be stranded 4 miles away from my place (cab rides are notoriously extremely exorbitant in Tokyo). But I squeezed into a full train headed to my stop - I thought the train was full until about 30 seconds before the doors closed when there was a mad dash to cram as many people as humanly possible into the car. It was nuts! I tried to take a picture, but it was impossible to lift my arms!

I made it home and curled up on my tatami mat on the floor and fell asleep pretty quickly - overall, a great day in Tokyo!!

I'm allergic to overnight flights....ew.