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Japan – Day 24 (Tokyo)

Everything I planned to do today didn’t open until 10am, so I slept in and got my coffee and eventually got out the door towards Ginza station. I stopped right outside to see a Godzilla statue, which was actually tiny and he totally skipped arm day. Then I hopped on the train to Akihabara. The first stop was the Gundam Café, where I got a super delicious strawberry chocolate latte, it tasted like strawberry yoo-hoo heated up and with caffeine. The inside was pretty neat too, with larger Gundam figures and a menu dedicated to all the various characters from the different series. On my way out I got a lemon raspberry concoction in a Duo cup because Duo is my favorite.

From there I headed into Electric Town, and I was only supposed to be looking but I ended up shopping and spending more money than I intended buying stuff that I probably don’t need but man it’s so cool! I was planning on catching the sunset again, but decided to shop more and lose money on those cheating (but fun!) claw machines instead, and then gradually made my way over to Shinjuku. I wandered around the Shinjuku night time chaos for a while then tracked down their Christmas light walking path which was kinda substandard in my opinion. After a couple quick pics I got back on the train to Shibuya and walked to their blue light walking path which was AWESOME. They had those neon electric bright blue lights leading from the train station all the way to the Yoyogi Park entrance which lit up the entire area in an eerie blue color. Then they put a shiny path on the ground to reflect the light up more. It was all really cool looking. At the end of the path were a set of 100 year old bells, and there were four ropes which you were allowed to choose and pull one of them. The ropes would at random, from what I could tell, ring one or more of the three bells. Whichever one(s) ended up ringing meant you had good fortune in those areas. So if you rang all of them you were the luckiest person, in theory. I pulled a rope and one of the smaller bells rang so I asked the guy what exactly that meant, and he said the bell that rang was one for good fortune in school and studying, so I should be looking forward to education and learning in the future. I was satisfied with that, guess I should actually claim and start on that TEFL class I bought on Groupon back in September!

After walking through the lights I headed back to the hotel to drop off my bags. There were only a couple things left on my to-do list while I’m here, both food related: eat shabu-shabu and actually try some matcha ice cream for once. I hunted around for an ice cream store, but even though it felt like there was one on every corner before, I couldn’t for the life of me find one now. So I gave up on that and went to a shabu-shabu restaurant and ordered a meal combo…and oh hey matcha ice cream was an option for dessert! So I crossed both of those items off, the shabu-shabu was delicious but I don’t think I’m a fan of the ice cream. I mean, I still ate it all but I don’t think I’d order it again. After all the walking around my feet were hurting so I went to my room and soaked in the tub for a while.

Today was my last full day in Japan, tomorrow I’ll have the morning to take care of some errands and do a final pack of my bags then it’s back to the U.S.A. I don’t wanna…

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Japan – Day 23 (Tokyo)

For some reason I woke up early all by myself before my alarm even went off today. That’s fine, because I wanted to get out early to Tsukiji Market. That place was a BLAST back in the day, super fun, but you have to get there early. Except when I got there only the outer market was open, the inner fun part was shut down and I found a sign that said it had relocated to a brand new building in another area. After looking it up, turns out the old market shut down last year…I can’t say I blame them, that place was madness and chaos and fun and health code violations and an accident or fire waiting to happen, but that’s why I liked it so much! I guess the new place is super modern and all of the 100 year old charm is gone, so I didn’t bother heading across town to see it. Instead I picked up a couple things from the outer market then went back to the hotel to shower.

Once I was clean, I headed to Kabuki-za Theater to see a Kabuki show, something I had wanted to do when I was younger but didn’t have the money for. The full show can take around 4 hours and I didn’t want to dedicate that much time, so I opted for one of the longer opening segments in the morning. It’s not the flashiest segment, but you do get into the story and it was an opportunity to see if I could figure out what was going on with my limited Japanese refresher. I was able to figure out the gist of it, the rest I asked one of my English speaking neighbors who paid for a translator box.

After the show I hopped on a train to Gotokuji Temple, a temple with hundreds of beckoning cats (maneki-neko) and cat themes carved into the old historic structures. It was pretty adorable, so SO many cats! Sunset was approaching by then and since it was a clear day I wanted to get up high to watch the sun set behind Mt. Fuji. I went to the Shibuya Scramble building, but there was a huge line for it, so I jumped on a bus to Roppongi Hills instead and ran up to their observation deck. I hung out up top until after the sun set, and watched Tokyo light up. Once it was dark, I went back down and walked around the Roppongi illuminated streets and garden, then stopped at Hard Rock Café for my pin and to get a salad because for some reason I was craving a salad and no Japanese restaurants have them. At least not like the ones in America. Japanese salads tend to be made of mostly cabbage and snotty runny dressing. While eating, there was a bit of an earthquake, but although the Japanese folks didn’t seem to notice my foreign friends and I certainly did and eyed each other while it was going on, then laughed about it after. I was debating on whether or not I wanted to check out more Christmas lights or maybe go to Akihabara, but it was almost 8pm by that point and I had been up since 6am so I decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. I have one more full day tomorrow, and most of the day on Friday to wrap things up!

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Japan – Day 22 (return to Tokyo!)

Oh, Kansai…it’s been so much fun being here again, but it’s time to move on! I got up and finished packing then headed to the train station to catch the bullet train back to Tokyo. It was a little sad having to leave, but I had to smile when a rainbow appeared over by the mountains in the distance. I love you too, Kansai!

The trip to Tokyo was uneventful, and getting through Tokyo Station wasn’t bad. I got to my hotel early, but fortunately my room was already cleaned so I got to check in early. After checking the room, settling in, and taking a quick shower I got on the subway to TeamLab Planets.

I had such a great time at TeamLab Borderless a few weeks ago I decided I needed to visit their sister site. Planets is much smaller than Borderless, and there are actually directions to walk in. The first room was a bit of an exercise because it was basically a room of gigantic bean bag chair type things that you have to crawl and roll over. Then you have to roll up your pant legs because the next exhibit is a knee-high pond and they project flowers and koi all over the surface. The koi actually move depending on how the guests move and what we’re doing using motion sensors and detecting where the light breaks off, so it was really neat. There was also a replica of my favorite room at Borderless, the LED strand room, as well as the most vertigo inducing ceiling and wall projection room where you have to lay down to look up. Planets is much smaller than Borderless, it only took about an hour to go through, but it was still cool! If you had to only pick one though then definitely go to Borderless. Afterwards, I stopped at a curry place to get some dinner, then went back to the hotel to plot out my last few days here in Japan. Tomorrow I’m (hopefully) getting up EARLY to hit the fish market, but we’ll see!