Big in Japan (Part 3)

On day 4 I'm pretty sure I walked over more of Japan than there is Japan to walk on.

I visited the Meiji shrine in the morning. At least that was the plan, except I went to the wrong place. There happens to be an area called Yoyogi Park which is right next to it, and if you walk through the wrong entrance because you aren't paying attention like an idiot you'll end up wandering around there for a couple hours. Which is what I did, but I'm not complaining. Yoyogi park is awesome. There's a bird sanctuary as well as a really nice grove of trees from a couple dozen nations all over the world. I realized I was in the wrong place by the time I got to the furthest end, but that's when I saw a sign advertising bike rentals for two dollars an hour.

So then I spent the next hour biking around Yoyogi Park. This alone would be worth going back to Japan for in the spring. The park was already beautiful when only half the trees were in bloom and the trail system wound through a few groves and along a small creek. I kind of forgot why I had ventured out in the first place; the thrill of being on a bike for the first time in years was starting to go to my head.

I left shortly after returning the bike and started to head back out to Meiji shrine. The shrine itself is huge, somewhere between 70 and 80 acres and I'm pretty sure I covered most of it by foot. Even though there were tons of people visiting at the time, once I got far enough in I didn't see a soul. The shrine itself was built to honour the late Emperor Meiji who presided over a large cultural expansion in the early 1900s. I toured around the inner garden for a while before making the trek to the actual shrine part of the shrine. I had intended to visit the treasure museum as well but for reasons beyond my understanding it was closed. It's ok though because it was only a hundred miles out of my way by foot.

I made it to Shinjuku in the late afternoon, which was good because it gave me time to stretch my legs and finally get a little walking done for a change. Getting out at the wrong station, I decided to walk uptown a few blocks and visit the Park Hyatt hotel, where Lost in Translation was filmed. The original plan was to have a glass of Suntory in the New York Bar at the top of the building, but a few things got in the way. The first being that I was not dressed for how extremely nice that building is, and the second being I was broke-ass. Including the cover charge, my first drink would have cost me about $40. So I decided looking at it was probably good enough.

After this was another trip up the Metro building to see Tokyo at night (if you're in the area, DO THIS, especially if you can get into the North Tower), and somewhere in there I think I sat down once, and then day four came to an end.

On the last full day we visited the Tokyo National Art Museum to catch a travelling Terracotta Warriors exhibit as well as explore some traditional Japanese artwork. There were some truly stunning relics dating back several thousands of years, as well as some artwork that completely failed to translate into cellphone-camera phone. You'll just have to go there and check it out.

That evening we had some drinks, hit up some arcades and watched a chain-smoking guy dominate at Street Fighter IV for a half an hour. And that about does it for my time in Japan! It's a pretty cool place overall. Which I guess is self-evident based on the massive walls of text I've been pumping out for the past week. It was a lot of fun and I'm hoping to go back during my time in Korea. Until then, I once again leave you with the eccentric words of Tom Waits.


Today's title:

Big in Japan (Part 2)

Day two is when things got weird.

First we took a tour of the Imperial Palace. Not of the palace itself, mind you, just the grounds that surround it. It was pretty gorgeous. I should point out that most of the things we saw which involved nature in any way come with the caveat that it would have looked nicer in the spring. The things I saw were undeniably beautiful and the weather was great, but it was still early February. Lots of the trees were bare and some of the flowers hadn't quite started to bud yet. That being said though, the Imperial Palace had some pretty fantastic grounds and architecture. There were a few old structures still remaining which used to house the samurai who guarded the emperor that looked really cool. 

Afterwards we went to the Shibuyah Crossing, which is rumoured to be the busiest intersection in the world. I wouldn't be surprised at all of this was true. There were so many people that for a moment I couldn't even see myself through the crowd. There was some great shopping to be had in this area, including a massive Tower Records with music from all over the world. We spent some time here before moving on to Shinjuku, which is where the real craziness was: the Robot Restaurant.

To save you some googling, the Robot Restaurant is basically a two-hour long show where people dress in crazy costumes and do awesome stuff. There was a girl in a silver-white wig just rocking the fuck out on some drums, a dude playing a bass guitar wearing a horse-head mask, a synchronized Michael Jackson dance including the famous lean during Smooth Criminal and of course the show itself. The "plot," if it can so be called, was basically this: there once was a peaceful forest planet, and then the evil robot empire invaded, and then they fought. There were people riding giant mecha-tanks, lizards, sharks, a giant monkey flying on a giant moth that breathed fire. It blew my mind to pieces and then blew up the individual pieces. 

Before going to the Restaurant we actually met up with our friends Sara and Olivia who were headed there at the same time. I believe before the show they told me, "We can't stay out and drink too late because we have to be on an early bus tomorrow." About thirty minutes later the first intermission was called and something to the effect of, "Eh, fuck that," was said, so we drank a lot. When the show was over we went to the Golden Gai district and found the world's tiniest pub and drank entirely too much beer and sake for three people. 

I woke up...somewhere, on day 3 and proceeded to get incredibly lost on the Tokyo subway system for about an hour. It turns out if you get on a train heading in the wrong direction on the Tokyo subway, you can't just get out and cross the platform and get on the other train. Because sometimes that train will be on a completely different line and you'll wind up in, like, Alaska or something. But day three is also when I got to have Japanese sushi for the first time and go to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, which has an excellent observation area for free views of the city. Day three was a pretty chill day of shopping, drinking and ramen, which was nice because I was nursing the sort of hangover that could end a career.

I slept well that night, which was good because day 4 would bring just an unreasonable amount of walking.

Today's title:

Big in Japan (Part 1)

I'm back from Japan, and what an adventure it was! I fought the robot hordes, I conquered the Imperial Palace, I soared above Mt. Fuji and I drank the island dry. I'm going to roll these posts out over the next few days, mostly because I have a lot to say but also because I want Facebook to shut up about me not posting to my page enough. You happy now, Zuckerberg? You see what you've reduced me to?

Ahem. I may not have slept much. 

Friday evening after work, I caught a late train up to Seoul. The plan was to head up early so I could get to the airport in time for the 9am flight on what was guaranteed to be an excessively busy travel day. Plus I wanted to stay in a jimjilbang for the first time and figured this would be a good opportunity. For the uninitiated, a jimjilbang is basically a public spa and bath house in Korea which also provides basic sleeping accommodation. It is also where the concept of awkwardness goes to lift weights. Nudity abounds, so if you're uncomfortable with that you'll probably miss out. However once you get over that it's actually pretty neat. I was staying at a place called the Silloam Fire Pot Sauna near Seoul Station, which has a really great semi-private sleeping area and some awesome therapeutic fomentation rooms and hot tubs.

I only had about five hours there, most of which I intended on spending asleep, or I would have explored the facilities more extensively. Unfortunately for the way my stupid brain works, 1am is basically when I get a second wind of energy so I spent all but about 15 minutes wide awake. After essentially laying there awake until 4:45am I decided to get up, take an awkward shower / soak in a hot tub and head to the airport.

The flight was uneventful and short, which I think is the nicest possible way to fly. I managed to navigate to the hotel with more than a little help from Trevor, another teacher at my school with whom I was travelling. Were were staying in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, which is basically a city within the city that was built entirely for nerds and geeks of all kinds. So basically paradise. We spent the better part of that day wandering around Akihabara and visiting various hobby shops and video game stores.

I honestly can't even describe how much cooler stuff in Japan is. There are rows and rows of games that never make it over to North America in every shop I visited. The shops themselves are mostly for retail but also include displays of the owner's collection of rare not-for-sale stuff. One vintage game store had an Atari 2600 with the E.T. game cartridge inside that I insisted on at least trying to steal. There were models of characters from various anime and Nintendo games that I was familiar with and it was a struggle against the "still a child" part of my brain not to buy basically everything.

Afterwards we went to Tokyo Station to explore around and visited Ramen Street - which is exactly what it sounds like - for dinner. The food was incredible and our server was gorgeous so...I mean yeah, 10/10. All in all a fantastic first day. Must remember to be more succinct next time or reading about my time in Japan will take longer than I actually spent travelling there.


Today's title: