Posted on

Iceland – Day 1 (SNOWMAGEDDON!!!)

Mom and I left O’hare at 7:30pm and landed the next day in Iceland at 7:00am. As soon as we got off the plane we were greeted with red screens warning of an incoming hurricane force blizzard and told to get our rental car and head to our hotel ASAP before all the roads shut down. So instead of our plans for the day, we did exactly that, and opted for the additional $300 extra car upgrade and insurance as well. We got the rental car, and checked in early at the hotel (we were supposed to be in a cabin on a private peninsula but the weather forecast was so bad they moved us to their mainland hotel.) We made a quick stop at the bank to exchange money, then went to the grocery store to get food, then went back to the hotel just as it started snowing and watched TV and slept for 24 hours. The wind was indeed crazy, but instead of the rumored 6 feet of snow we only got like 3 inches. Looks like they exaggerate here just like in the states! What a fun Day 1! To be honest though, I REALLY needed that 20 hour nap. 🤣

Posted on

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 CafĂ© 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!