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Japan – Day 25 (Back to America…)

I woke up a bit earlier than usual and after caffeinating myself I pulled everything I’ve accumulated over these past 2 months out of my bags and spread it out on the bed. Then I started to re-wrap and pack things up for the long trip back to the good old U.S.A. I bought more than I had originally planned, but all things considered, I didn’t buy that much. Mostly smaller items. I did have to offload my old shirts and a pair of pants due to weight restrictions, but I’ve lost a little over 4-inches on my waist and the old stuff doesn’t really fit right anymore anyway so it was no big loss. After checking out of the hotel and leaving my bag, I strolled down to the Tokyo Pokémon Center and picked up a few things since I had about 3,500 yen left to get rid of, then got some lunch at the restaurant next to the hotel.

I picked up my bag and walked over to the Narita Express Bus to the airport. My flight wasn’t until 6:20pm, but my anxiety was out of control today for some reason about this flight, so I arrived around 2:30pm and sat at the gate reading my book and scrolling through the endless void that is the internet. It was kind of a sad flight because I really didn’t want to leave Japan, plus my seat wouldn’t recline at all, and my row was one of the few rows that had a middle seat occupied so I couldn’t stretch out. I still managed to nap a little bit during the 14 hour flight, but given the time difference not sleeping isn’t a bad thing. I left at 6:20pm Friday the 6th in Japan, and landed in Chicago at 3:00pm on Friday the 6th so hopefully I’ll sleep well tonight!

Being in Japan all this time really makes me notice just how dirty Chicago is. After getting through customs I went to the bathroom and half the stalls were clogged and backed up with toilet paper and piss, and even the one I picked that wasn’t clogged was still filthy with toilet paper all over. You just don’t see that out east. I went to the taxi stand, and the taxi that pulled up made me glad I got a tetanus shot earlier. His check engine light was on, there was a thick layer of dirt and grime over every surface, rusted metal was visible everywhere the plastic had been damaged, his seats were being held together with duct tape…literally, it was disgusting. In Japan and Thailand the taxi drivers all have new cars and wear suits and driver hats and get out to open the door for you and have umbrellas to keep you dry, the customer service is impeccable. So now in Chicago, I just tried my best to not touch anything…but hey, I’m back even if it’s just for a couple days!

I had left the condo basically empty, so I had to run to the store to get a shower curtain liner, plastic dishes and silverware, some basic toiletries, foods and snacks for the weekend. One good thing about being back is I’ve had my DVR recording all of my shows while I’ve been away, so I have a lot to catch up on! Plus, I’m back where hard cider is a thing so yeeeaaaahhhh! Rick and Morty Season 4 and Redds Wicked Apple!

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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!