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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!

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Japan – Day 21 (Kyoto)

Well, I was a bit bummed today. I was going to go back to Hikone and see the teachers at JCMU, but I got an email from them this morning that the reason their schedules were clear this week is because it’s finals week and the students are all doing their conversation finals in the afternoon. I completely forgot about that, I think I mentally blocked that out; but as soon as I read the explanation I had like PTSD flashbacks of giving those presentations and how they were back-to-back and just uggggghhh, oh nooooo, yes I understand. Poor kids, and poor teachers. I’m frustrated at myself for not checking in at JCMU earlier, I could have gone last week, but hindsight is 20/20. I seriously thought none of them were there anymore!

With my plans for the day dashed, I started thinking of what else I could do today when I heard thunder outside so I opened the blinds and sure enough it was POURING outside. Maybe not going to Hikone wasn’t a bad thing (15 minutes walking to Kyoto Station, 1.25 hours on the train, 40 minutes walking to JCMU in pouring rain…) So I pretty much just stayed in the hotel and played video games and relaxed on my bed.

Finally around 4pm the clouds broke just in time for sunset. I was getting hungry at this point, so I got dressed and walked to Kyoto Station to pick up my train ticket to Tokyo for tomorrow then went down into the sublevels for food. I was looking for donburi of some sort, but ended up finding a taco place! I can’t recall ever seeing a taco place here, so of course I got some chicken tacos. Then I went a little further to a gyoza place where they make it all from scratch and got some of those.

After eating, I decided I didn’t really want to go back to the hotel yet, and I’ve read that Fushimi Inari is cool (and kind of creepy) at night rather than the crowded daytime hours, so I got on the train over there. I’ve been before and it wasn’t on my list for this trip because even back then it was so crowded you could barely move, but it hadn’t occurred to me before to go at night since it’s open 24/7. Sure enough, there was hardly anyone there, and it was really cool and creepy. I didn’t climb all the way up to the top of Mt. Inari, my legs were actually pretty sore from all of the climbing at Mt. Hiei yesterday, but I got halfway up to the viewpoint that overlooks Kyoto then made my way back down with a nice couple from Taiwan. At one point a shrine cat spotted us and walked in front of us for a while until we reached his exit, so we all patted him before going the rest of the way down. I got back on the train and walked to the hotel, then started packing up for the trip to Tokyo tomorrow.