Tokyo was our time to experience modern Japan. We did a few historical things, but primarily, we got to see and do some of the unique things that Japan has to offer.
Notes about Tokyo: Tokyo felt much more like Korea than any of the big cities in China felt. The buildings are built vertically, with shops and restaurants located on every floor of a tall building. It made us feel quite comfortable and at home. Even some of the Japanese words were the exact same as the Korean words! I was awe-struck to hear them saying "sam baek," which is both the Korean and Japanese word for 300. It completely took me by surprise that some of the words were the same. Koreans don't generally like Japanese because of the long history of Japanese occupation of Korea, which I understand. I actually think Japan and Korea are more similar than either country would like to admit. That being said, Japan was much cleaner than Korea is though. People don't spit on the ground nearly as much, people pick up their dog poop (and they actually have dogs of a decent size more often), and there was very little trash thrown on the streets. Although a lot of things about Japan seem more of equally technologically advanced as Korea, there are some things that aren't. The trains in Tokyo seemed rather old. You can tell because they don't have digital read outs with your location within the whole train route on them and the seats are usually plush and quite bouncy. Most trains do have a digital sign to announce the stops, and the English announcements on trains were very good.
We left for Tokyo in the afternoon on Wednesday on the bullet train. Bullet trains are the fast trains in Japan, and our trip from Kyoto took only a few hours. It was very comfortable. It was only once we got to Tokyo station that we experienced difficulty. Tokyo is MASSIVE, and Tokyo station is equally so. We got really turned around in the station, trying to find a place with a Tokyo city map for us to use during our trip. It was made a bit more difficult because Tokyo has even more private lines than Kyoto does. Many of the subway lines are JR lines, which we could take for free with our JR passes, but others were Tokyo metro lines or private lines run by individual companies, and those we would have to pay extra for. Also, most of the subway maps will exclude private lines and JR lines, so it was hard to find the stop we were trying to get to because it was on a private line. All the information booths seemed to be closed even though it was only about 7pm. Eventually, some nice ladies in a tourist information place outside the station helped us, and we got on the JR line and transferred to a private line to get to our stop. We stayed with David, an acquaintance of Gianni's dad, Mark. He was a really nice guys and, obviously, very knowledgeable about Japan because he's been living there for the past 30 years. I felt bad because we arrived at the station an hour later than I thought we would, but he was really nice about it. We dropped our bags at his place, and he took us out for a nice dinner with some hot sake. That's about all we had time for before it was time for bed.
For our first day in Tokyo, David offered to take us on a long walk through some of the more famous
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| Meiji Shrine |
areas of Tokyo, which are also only 11 stations from his house. We started by walking through a part of Yoyogi Park to get to Meiji Shrine in Shibuya. Meiji is a Shinto Shrine that was built in 1926 to commemorate Empress Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken after their deaths. It was rebuilt in the 1950's after it was destroyed during WWII. David paid the small fee for us to choose a fortune from a bunch rolled up a in box. I think it was a pretty food fortune.
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| cutest street in the world |
It was a nice walk through the park to get to the Harijuku area of Tokyo. There is a famous street in that area called Takeshita Street. It's basically just a really cute street with all kinds of shops along it. Usually, there are girls dressed in amazing costumes walking all along that area. We were there a bit too early in the morning to see them, but we did see some briefly on the train later on in the day. David dubbed that street "cute street," and it definitely was. Even the background of the GAP sign was pink, not the normal navy blue!
We walked along what is known as the Champs-Elysees of Tokyo, Omotesando Street. It's called that because it looks similar--a long street with driving lanes on either side of a green space. I had heard about this street before our visit, but I actually thought we'd missed it on our walk until Gianni corrected me. I didn't get the Champs-Elysees feeling I think because the trees and plants on either side and in the middle of the roads were all leaf-less in the winter. Oh well! We still walked on it even if I didn't know and, therefore, didn't take a picture. After taking us to Shibuya Crossing, famous for how busy it is and how many people cross the street each time the light changes, David left us to our own devices for some more sight seeing. He pointed us in the direction of another interesting shopping street, which we walked along before heading to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.
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| View of Tokyo from Metropolitan Government Building |
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is a building with two towers coming out the top of it. There is a north tower and a south tower, and you can take an elevator up to the top of either one to get a 360 degree view of the city for free! It seems incredible that a city would offer something like this for free, especially Tokyo since it already has two tall buildings: Skytree and Tokyo Tower (which looks like the Eiffel Tower). On clear days, you can even see Mt. Fuji from the observatory there. Unfortunately, there were low clouds right where Mt. Fuji was supposed to have been. Even still, it was a beautiful day with blue skies and the rest of Tokyo was beautiful to see from up there.
I had planned to go to the Imperial Palace near Tokyo Station, but we learned once we got there (and it's on the other side of the city!) that the Imperial Palace closes early. We didn't have internet to look that up before going there, so that was annoying. Still, we were able to change our plans and go see some other sights instead. Before leaving the station, Gianni used the internet there to find us somewhere good inside to eat. He found our that there is an area of Tokyo Station called "ramen street" and located the most popular ramen restaurant there. There was a small line outside to get into the very small restaurant, but it moved way more quickly than I thought it would. You have to place your order at a vending machine before being seated. The ramen is a little different because the noddles come precooked but outside of the soup. You dip them into a thicker soup/sauce. They give you a bib to prevent splatter. The ramen also comes with an egg in it, which was tasty. It was a really nice ramen restaurant. We looked around in Tokyo Station for a while, coming across the Pokemon and Tomogotchi Stores. Tomogotchis have come a long way since I had them when I was a kid!
Our last stop of the day was Akihabara, the center of all things nerdy in Tokyo. Akihabara is full of manga and anime, video games, electronics old and new, and Japanese women dressed as maids trying to get people to go into their maid cafes. We started out by going to a massive electronics store there. Think Best Buy but on serious steroids. They had the latest and greatest in technology of all kinds. We tried out mega zoom lenses, drawing tablets, and 3D TVs. There are all kinds of specialty stores for models and figurines from movies, tv, and video games. We
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| Neon signs in Akihabara |
wandered around the area for a while before stumbling on an awesome store that sells old video games and gaming consoles, like Nintendo 64 and Gameboy! It was really cool to look around in there. Akihabara is definitely an affront to your eyes. I feel like they were getting overloaded at all the bright and colorful signs to look at. It is a nerd's paradise though.
For dinner, we went back to Shinjuku, which is the transfer station to use the private line to get to David's house. It's a big area with all kind of restaurants, so we wandered around a bit and eventually found a conveyor belt sushi place. I had heard that even though it is conveyor belt, the sushi is still fresh, and it is cheaper than the non-conveyor belt options for sushi. Even though the menu was mostly in Japanese, it was easy for us to understand because the plates are color-coded by price. We tried all kinds of sushi, and it was really delicious. Though Korea doesn't have bad sushi, sometimes it does taste like the fish was recently thawed out. I was really excited to try sushi in Japan, so I'm glad we got to do so. After dinner, we sat in Starbucks, using their wifi, for a few hours before heading back to David's house. We had to head to bed pretty early since our train to Nagano the following morning was really early.
For the write up about the Snow Moneys tour in Nagano, please read the next post! Otherwise, continue reading for the rest of the info about Tokyo.
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| Tokyo Imperial Palace |
We spent a lot of time in Tokyo just experiencing different parts of the various neighborhoods around the city. I tried not to cram the days, and I think it worked out alright. To start our second full day in Tokyo, we went to the Imperial Palace. I was under the impression that, like in Kyoto, we'd actually be able to go inside the Palace. Turns out that it is more like the situation in London (you can only tour Buckingham Palace when the Queen is not in residence), and you can't tour the palace because the Emperor still lives there. In 1947, following WWII, the emperor's power was dissolved. The emperors today are just a figurehead with no real power. The current emperor is Emperor Akihito. He became the 125th emperor of Japan in 1989. He is married to Empress Michiko, the first empress who did not come from the nobility. It was kind of a bummer that we didn't get to see both Imperial Palaces, but the park surrounding the one in Tokyo was open to the public, and you could see one of the front buildings of the Palace. Many people, including myself, were also photographing the Seimon Isibashi Bridge, which leads to the main entrance of the palace. So the visit to the Imperial Palace turned out to be a lot shorter than I thought it would be.
I assumed that we would spend a good deal of the day at Ueno Park. Ueno Park is much more than
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| an early plum blossom tree in Ueno Park |
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panda at Ueno Park zoo
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just a park; it houses a zoo, temples, and numerous museums. For some reason, Gianni and I just weren't really interested in seeing museums on this trip. I guess we wanted to experience history by going to visit for sites instead. It takes a lot of time to visit museums, and our limited time meant that we had to pick and choose. Anyway, we went to the park and were actually able to catch a few trees with early plum blossoms on them! Plum blossoms are the first to come out in the late winter/early spring, right before Japan's famous cherry blossoms. We went to a small but beautiful temple with lots of gold detailing and carvings before going to the zoo. The entrance fee was not very high, but the zoo seemed much better
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| face of the destroyed Buddha statue in Ueno Park |
maintained than the one we've been to in Daegu (which we call "the sad zoo") and that we heard was the case in Beijing and Shanghai. We didn't think the zoo was very big, so we figured we'd be kind of in and out. But there was another level of the zoo that we didn't see, and it was sprawling! We spent a few hours walking around and seeing all the different animals. It was kind of sad when we saw the snow monkeys because we had just seen them in the wild the day before. I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor monkeys in cages instead of in the wild like the others. Still, I was very impressed by how many different kinds of animals they have at the Ueno Park Zoo. Before leaving, I waited in quite a long line to see some pandas. I didn't get to see them in China, and I was fairly sure I had never seen a panda before. Pandas are pretty cute, and I got to see them when they were both awake and eating. Maria, our friend in Korea, absolutely hates pandas for many understandable reasons. Her main argument: they are lazy and stupid and are doing nothing to help themselves off the endangered species list. I'm sure she is right, but I'm still glad i saw them. Our legs were killing us, so we thought it was time to leave the zoo. Before leaving the park completely, we stopped to see the Ueno Daibutsu. The Daibutsu was a giant seated Buddha statue from the Edo-period (back when Tokyo was still called "Edo" and before the capital was moved there in 1868). It was made of bronze and dates back to 1631. Through the years, the statue was damaged several times by fire and earthquakes. After the earthquake of 1923, the head of the statue fell and the majority of the statue was melted down and used in World War II. The face was preserved and is still on displace in the park in the former location of the statue. You can get pretty close to and see all the features of the Buddha's face.
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| From left: Tokyo Skytree, Asahi Brewery that looks like a beer glass, golden flame |
Next, we went to explore the sites in the Asakusa area. The Asahi Beer Brewery headquarters is located right across the river from the Asakusa subway stations. Unfortunately, it is not an actual factory, so you can't take a tour, but the building is quite interesting to see from outside. All the windows are tinted in a golden color to look like a mug of beer. There is even a white part on the top of the building that looks like the foam of the beer. On top of another of the headquarter's buildings is a 360-ton Golden Flame statue that was created in 1989 by a French designer named Phillippe Starck. Gianni thought the statue looked like a gold sperm, and, apparently, Tokyo residents called it "the golden turd." Not so great reviews on the statue then.
Asakusa is home to the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo,
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| Sensoji Temple/Asakusa Shrine |
Sensoji Temple. It was founded in 644 but had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed in World War II. There is also a Shinto shrine, Asakusa Shrine, near the temple. Clearly, the two religions are very much melded together in Japan. Leading up to the temple, there are two dates, each with a large, red hanging lantern at its center. I loved all the lanterns in Japan. They were beautiful. Between the gates, the narrow road is lined with souvenir shops. It was super crowded trying to get through to see the temple. One of the buildings at the temple is a 5-story pagoda. All around the temple are markets and shops selling souvenirs for tourists, but I didn't really mind the touristy feeling of it. There were lots of people and lots of things
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| Pagoda at Sensoji Temple |
happening, and I enjoyed our time walking around the area after visiting the temple. We browsed the shops and also stopped in a tiny, free museum, the Tokyo Traditional Crafts Museum. It is a gallery where you can see the kinds of crafts made in Japan for hundreds of years. They also have special guests who will do their craft right there for guests to see. When we visited, a man was making bowls and plates with silver. He even had charms of all the Chinese birth year animals that I would have liked to buy for my charm bracelet. But just my luck, the only one that was sold out was the horse for my year! Oh well.
Our last stop of the night is one that we shouldn't have gone to: Ryogoku Kokugikan, the sumo wrestling stadium in Tokyo. They only hold wrestling tournaments a few times a year, but they have a sumo museum there that I wanted to see. Unfortunately, I found out on the train over to it that it is closed on the weekends! Even if it had been a weekday, I think it would have been too late at night to see it. Stubborn me was really disappointed about missing the sumo museum, so she decided she at least wanted to see the stadium from the outside. I made Gianni walk all the way around it with me, even though we were both tired and hungry. I'm still sad I missed the sumo museum. It was my first of two little scheduling mistakes. I realized that I really need to check the operating hours for things before we go on vacation. Woops. Gianni and I ate dinner at the conveyor belt sushi restaurant and used the wifi at Starbucks again before heading back to David's house for our last night. We still had two more days in Tokyo, but for our last two night, I had booked us in different accommodation for convenience of travel.
In the morning, we gathered our huge suitcase and our carry on bags and took them to Shinjuku station. We didn't want to have to go back and forth from David's house because it would have taken too much time. We found a locker for the bags and hung out in the Shinjuku area for a few hours. We got breakfast, and Gianni used the internet at Starbucks again while I browsed a store called Tokyu Hands. I had heard about the store while researching places to go in Tokyo, so I figured, since we had some time, I would go check it out. It's a giant crafts store that sells anything you could ever possibly need for any kind of craft. There were levels with beads, yarn, DIY tools, stationary, toys, etc. It was a really fun store, and I got a few little things, including some awesome Japanese stickers and a keychain of a cat in a sushi roll that is pretty cute.
Our real first stop of the day was something Gianni and I were SUPER excited for: the Studio Ghibli Museum. Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio founded by artist, Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli works in association with Disney, at least in the US. They have made very famous animated movies, like
My Neighbor Tutoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away, and
Howl's Moving Castle. They are all iconic films and worth watching. Another great thing about Miyazaki is that his movies always feature a strong, female protagonist, usually one who is quite young. They send a very positive message
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| Inside the Studio Ghibli Museum |
to young girls as well as being beautiful films. The Ghibli Museum building matches the tone of the films completely: very whimsical. It has windows of all different shapes and sizes, ivy growing all over it, a caged spiral staircase leading up to the roof top patio, a robot statue from one of the films on the roof, and stained glass windows featuring all the different characters from the films. The interior matches the exterior with spiral staircase, dark-stained wood accents, and balconies looking out at the floors below. There is a wooden bridge on an upper floor that just crosses from one side of the hallway to the other. The first thing we did was stop to watch the short film at the museum's theater. The theater has all kinds of cute paintings on the walls inside of it, and the windows have automatic panels that go up and down to cover them or not. The kids in the theater seemed completely in awe. We watched a movie, in Japanese, about a little dog who gets out through the house's gate. It was a really adorable story with not much talking; you didn't really need to speak Japanese to understand what was happening. Spoilers: the girl is reunited with her dog in the end, and it is all very cute and happy. The tickets to get into the
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| the whimsical Studio Ghibli Museum |
theater were actually really awesome too. They were 3-segment film strips from different Ghibli movies! Obviously, we kept them. The exhibits in the museum were beautiful. They were primarily in Japanese, but I didn't have any trouble understanding the point of each area. Mostly, it was just looking at dioramas and stills from the movies. There was a mesmerizing display of characters from
My Neighbor Tutoro that demonstrated how he movement is created in an animation. The characters were all on metal rods, and a motor at the center would rotate them all. Each character was slightly different than the one before it. When the motor rotated and a strobe light began blinking, the characters looks like they were moving. I couldn't stop watching it. They also had several displays of the layering technique used in animation that showed how the worlds in the movies really get built. For example, in an ocean world, there may be ocean sand placed in the background with different colored seaweeds and various fish building to the foreground. There was a really cool area about the process of making the animations. It is set up to look like Miyazaki's home where you could see pictures from all of his famous films on the walls. There was also a part detailing how the films are colorized using very specific colors, and how all the artists have to learn to draw each character in the exact same way. I also really enjoyed the small room, which looked like an old living room, where you could see copies of the storyboards for each of the films, condensed into these fat books. The Museum was great for kids because of all the interactive, fun things to play with and look at. There was even a stuffed cat bus that young children could go inside of and climb on. Our last stop was the gift shop, which was SUPER crowded. I bought a few presents for people and for myself, including more film strips from my favorite movie,
Howl's Moving Castle. It was an amazing museum and well worth the $30. If anyone is thinking about going there though, be sure to buy advanced tickets. Only foreigners are allowed to visit the Ghibli Museum and only through advanced purchase. Use the museum's website to find out how to buy tickets in your country. I could have bought them in English through a US travel agent, but then I would have had to wait for the vouchers to come to Korea. Instead, I asked one of my coteachers to help me buy them from a Korean travel agent.
We spent a few hours at the museum before heading back to Shinjuku to pick up our bags. It was
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| our capsules |
already the late afternoon and check in for our night's accommodation was open. We took the metro to Tokyo Kiba Hotel, a capsule hotel! Capsule hotels are something I have only ever heard of in Japan. The trend to stay at them in on the decline, apparently, but it is something I absolutely had to do. A capsule hotel is a hotel where the "rooms" are just these little cabinets with beds and a TV. The bathrooms are shared, and there were lockers at our hotel to keep our things. They even gave us PJs to wear during our stay. The bed in our capsule was actually more comfortable than you would think, and there were plenty of
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| capsule rooms look like a morgue |
outlets to charge our phones. When you're walking around on the floor where the capsules are located, looking at all of them from the outside, it looks like a more spacious morgue...kind of creepy really. Some people would get claustrophobic in them, I'm sure, but we were pretty comfortable. There was a shade you could close for privacy. We got all checked in to our capsule and left our bags, but we had one more stop before we could rest for the night.
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| DIY candy-making kits |
Our final stop in our rather relaxing day was Ginza. My intent was to visit the fresh fish market where people auction off and haggle all kinds of fish and the very old and famous Kabuki theatre that are both in that area. Research online the previous night showed that there was also a massive toy store in Ginza where I could find Japanese DIY candy-making kits. Japan has a few brands of candy companies that make these kits where you have to mix things together in some way or mold the candy to look like other foods. They sell them in Korea, but they are really expensive, so I figured I could get them straight from the source for cheaper, and I was right. We found the Hakukinkan Toy Park, and I bought about 10 different DIY candy kits, some as gifts but most for me. I really want to make them all. Aside from having the kits I wanted, this toy store is my new favorite place on earth. It is a child's dream. They had nearly every kind of toy you could ever imagine for kids of all ages. Every floor is just crammed with stuff. There's even a small arcade and a car racing track inside the store!
By the time we left the store, Gianni's feet were getting really sore from all the walking we were doing on both of our vacations. We decided to forgo the visit to the Kabuki theatre and walk, instead, to the fish market and, hopefully, get dinner there. This was the second case where I made a scheduling mistake and should have checked operating hours beforehand. The fish market in Ginza is not open on weekend either. I was a bit less disappointed in missing this than the sumo museum but still...I hate it when I mess things up on vacation. It will be quite some time before we go back to Japan, and it stinks when things aren't perfect. Anyway, we were both finished at that point. We headed back to the capsule hotel and ate dinner in that area.
I really enjoyed our night at the capsule hotel. We got some good reading done (I finally finished all of the
Game of Thrones books that are out right now) and relaxed. The bathroom and shower areas were very clean. The reason we chose the Kiba Hotel is because of its proximity to our final stop on our Japanese vacation: Tokyo Disney Sea!
We got up very early on our last day in Japan to get to Disney Sea when it opened at 9am. I wanted to
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| Disney Sea Mediterranean Harbor with Aladdin's palace (gold dome) |
make sure I had the entire day there to have fun since I love Disney. I was really excited to bring Gianni to his first Disney park too. We had to bring our bags from the capsule hotel and find a locker at Disney, and that was easier said than done. I forgot to factor in rush hour and people trying to get to work. The trains in Tokyo are absolutely packed in the morning and at night. We missed most of that so far on our trip, but we definitely ran into it that morning. There are people in Tokyo whose job it is to stuff more people into a train car. There are even cars designated only for women because, in the close quarters, some guys will decide to touch a girl, and she won't be able to tell who did it. It was pretty stressful trying to navigate
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| Fake light house at Disney Sea. Looks just like Cape Cod, right? |
all this with our big bags. Eventually, we got to the station to transfer to the Disney monorail line. You have to pay for the monorail for some absurd reason! Couldn't they just make it free. I mean how much are they really losing to give people a free train ride that costs $2 when the tickets to the park are like $60 each? Anyway, it was a little stressful trying to find a locker at the park entrance since a lot were already taken. Luckily, they did have the large size that we were looking for, and we got it straightened out. We got into the park but we hadn't yet eaten breakfast. A lot of the restaurants and food carts only open at 10am, which was unfortunately. We settled on a big sausage dumplings. Because the park is called Disney
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| Tower of Terror ride |
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| toy story area of Disney Sea |
Sea, each area of the park is set up to look like parts of famous water-based Disney movies or even just famous water-based places in the world. The entrance to the park is "Mediterranean Harbor," and it looks like Venice. There were also areas with "coast" and "port" in the same, adding to the theme. Disney is really good at sticking to themes. Even waiting in line for rides you are kind of a part of the ride because they set up themed areas and things to look at. I like that about Disney. We went on a cute
10,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride that is made to feel like you are actually under the water. Disney has a great system of fast passes. You can get a fast pass, and it tells you what time to come back to get in the express line for a ride. Usually, you get one fast pass and then wait in line for another ride before going back to the first one. We got the pass for one ride and then went to wait in line for Indiana Jones. Honestly, in all my Disney adventures, I never remember the lines being quite this bad. We waited in line for probably over 2 hours for Indiana Jones. I can't remember them being so bad when I went with Dad to Disneyworld a few years ago. Maybe it's just because there are so many people in Asia or because a very popular ride, Journey to the Center of the Earth, was closed so people were less dispersed between the rides...I don't know. I
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| entrance to the Raging Spirits ride |
will say though that at least Disney rides are normally longer than other amusement parks, so you aren't waiting for a 30-second long ride. Indiana Jones was fun, and the animatronics were really on-point. In waiting in line for that ride though, we missed our fast pass time for the other one. We had to go back to get a new fast pass for Raging Spirits, a roller coaster with 360 degree loop, before lunch and come back to it after. We then went on Stormrider, a ride that simulates flying into the center of a storm, because the line was pretty short. While Gianni waited in line, I quickly bought us some popcorn to eat for a snack. Tokyo Disney is well-known for having all different kinds of popcorn. Each booth has a different flavor, and they are all marked on the guide map. I decided I wanted to try strawberry popcorn, which was right near the entrance of the ride. Gianni hated it but managed to keep eating it. He doesn't really like flavored popcorn. I thought it was pretty good. The flavor of the strawberry wasn't that strong, but it did taste sweet, and it was dyed a light pink color. We also passed booths selling mandarin orange and milk tea flavored popcorn. After the ride, we walked through different areas of the park, including the "American" area. It actually says that it is made to look like New England, and it comes
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| Toy Story Mania ride at Disney with old toys |
complete with seafood chowder restaurants and a fake lighthouse. Goes well with the sea theme I suppose. Unfortunately, the American part of the park is filled with stores selling Duffy and Shellie-mae products, which doesn't make sense because I think those things are only sold in the Japanese park. We came to realize that, in Japan, Duffy is another one of Mickey's friends and Minnie actually makes Shellie-Mae herself. People go to Disney wearing all kinds of mouse ears (little costume accessories like that seemed hugely popular--hats, mouse ears of all kinds, sunglasses, etc.), but you will see equally as many bear ears or bear paws. How care the Japanese market defile the Disney name by adding its own stupid characters!? Who cares about stupid Duffy! No one does. By the time we got to the next ride, all the fast passes were sold out. I also don't remember them selling out quite so fast at Disneyworld. It seemed like they sold out at around 5pm there, but at Disney Sea they were sold out by 3pm. Because of this, we had to wait in line for Tower of Terror, a ride where you sit inside an elevator which drops you a few stories. We waited for so freaking long! Gianni got really grumpy every time we had to wait in line. He had a good time once we got on the rides, but in lines and when we got hungry, he was the grumpiest person in the world. I was really trying to make it fun for him because I wanted him to like Disney as much as I do...not sure if it worked or not, but I hope it did. Tower of Terror was not as scary as I remember it being at Disneyworld. I think they drop you farther at Disney. Still, it was fun. Near that ride is the Toy Story area where I wanted to ride Toy Story Mania. I have actually ridden on it at every Disney park I have ever been to. It is my absolute favorite ride, and I knew Gianni would love it. It is a 3D ride where you play carnival games with your partner. You get a gun that you can pull a string on, and it shoots rings or balls or whatever at the screen. The ride even keeps the points on a small screen in your car so that you can see which of you wins at the end. There were no fast passes available for that ride either though, so we had to wait in line, and the wait time was 3 hours! Gianni said no way, so we went and got dinner. We were in the old-timey NYC area of the park, so we got some tasty sandwiches (I really miss a good sandwich). After dinner, we did a bit of souvenir shopping. I wanted to find Dad a t-shirt that said Tokyo Disney on it, but I guess t-shirts aren't popular in Asia. People don't really wear shirts with names of places on them anyway. I noticed this before when we went to an amusement park in Korea: no shirts with the name of the park on it. To me, that is very strange, and I think I need to start printing them and corner the
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| Fantasmic show: Mickey battling Malificent in dragon form |
market. Anyway, I had to settle on a mug for Dad and one for myself too. Gianni wanted to leave, but I couldn't give up on going on the
Toy Story ride, so I made him go back and check. The wait time was down to around 2 hours, and he agreed to wait. I don't know that it actually took that long or not. The problem is that the people who have a fast pass go through an express line and are let on first before the regular line. That means that sometimes the line moves quickly, but if a lot of fast pass people come then the regular line slows down. Anyway, in the line, you are made to feel like one of Andy's toys. The ride building is made
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| Fantasmic show |
to look like Andy's bedroom with giant versions of all kinds of old toys strewn around. It's really cool. In the end, I beat Gianni at the videogame ride! Woot! I had an unfair advantage, having played in twice before that, and I don't think he noticed the higher point things until after the first game. Still, small victories for me! Before leaving the park, we caught a part of the show, Fantasmic. Again, this is something that most Disney parks have. It's a water and light show about Mickey's dreams. First, he is dreaming about happy things and then the Disney Villains invade his dreams and turn it into a nightmare. There isn't a whole lot of talking, but the parts that were were in Japanese! It was really funny to listen to Ursula speaking Japanese...she sounds like a dude. I think Gianni was pretty impressed by the show, as was I. There was fire, lights, water, and fireworks. It was pretty fun, but we skipped out early to grab our bags and miss the crowds. We headed back to the station to make our journey to our accommodation for our last night in Japan.
Narita Airport is out to the north eat of downtown Tokyo. Disney is in the south east. Suffice it to say that we had quite a long way to go to get to Narita Station to find the airBNB room that we were staying at there. We had an early morning flight, so I wanted to make sure that we stayed close to the airport on our last night. Despite getting perfectly clear directions from one of the men who worked at the train station about how to use the JR lines to get to Narita Station, I made a mistake, and we got on the first train when we should have gotten on the second. I thought it would be fine, and we could follow other directions that I had, but that was traveling on different lines, and we had bought just JR line tickets. We got off at one station and were told to get back on the train for one more stop. The entire journey was already going to take 2 transfers, but then we also made the extra stop for directions. Ugh! And we were carrying our big heavy bags. Eventually, after much frustration, we got to Narita Station. The directions to the airBNB place were a little bit unclear since there are several staircases at the station. We, apparently, started at the wrong exit because we ended up in some dark residential area. I definitely knocked on some random apartment doors. We gave up, and I used the phone to call our airBNB host who came and got us. His apartment was very spacious and comfortable, and he even gave us some free snacks. I rearranged everything to make sure we were all ready for the airport in the morning, and we got some shut eye.
Our flight left Narita at 8am, so we planned on being there by 6am. After checking the train schedule though, the first train direct from Narita Station to the airport left at 6:15am, so we'd only be at the airport at 6:30am. I thought that would be ok, so that was the plan. We woke up at 5am, got ready quickly, grabbed some convenience store breakfast, and got on the train. There was a long line at check-in for Vanilla Air, the budget airline we took. We got through the line and checked in our bag then we to the equally long security line. Things seemed a little chaotic at Narita Airport security. I think there were several lines converging into one. I was getting worried because the woman at the check-in desk told us that the flight left at 8am, and 7:30am was "closing time." Or at least that's what I heard. The ticket said "boarding time" not "closing time," but still, I was worried that we wouldn't be able to board if we got there past 7:30. We got through security without a problem. There was no line at departure immigration, so that was a breeze. We made it just in time to get on the first bus to our plane that was out on the tarmac somewhere. I think there was a bus afterwards, so there was really no need to worry. Gianni and I had a little bit of money left over, so we bought some snacks when they became available. We got some crab miso soup, which I proceeded to spill all over me and partially on the girl sitting next to me. The flight attendants were really helpful in giving me things to clean up with. The flight from Japan to Korea is really fast. We got a bus really easily (not like when we got back from China) from Seoul to Daegu, and we even had time to eat a few snacks at the airport before leaving. We slept almost the entire ride to Daegu and grabbed a taxi from the bus station to our house. By that time is was the late afternoon, and traffic was getting bad because people were leaving work. The taxi was going to get on the ramp to go on the highway, so he was going to turn left. Some stupid ass decided that he would turn into the left lane and almost hit us because he wanted to cut us off and get on the ramp before us. The driver avoided him and got around, and he stayed behind us on the ramp. The stupid ass then proceeded to beep and beep and beep while we were sitting in traffic on the ramp. No idea what the rush was because it isn't like anyone was going anywhere. I was so fed up with everything that I turned around and flipped him off. Now, I'm not sure what would happen in your hometown if you got flipped off, but I'm definitely had someone do that to me before, and it's not usually a big deal. You say "yeah, fuck you too" to yourself and keep driving. Well apparently this man was very offended by my gesture. He actually parked his car on the ramp, got out of his car, and knocked on my window. He was telling the taxi driver what happened and trying to look in the windows and get me to come out of the car. I don't think he realized I was a girl at first, but even when he did, he wanted me to come out. I wonder what he thought he was going to do. Not like I did anything illegal. When he saw I was foreign he started going "get out" in English. We were all just shouting "go away," and the taxi driver was trying to put up the window and get around him. Eventually, the guy decided to give it up and went back to his car, flipping me off along the way (like I care). The taxi driver thought it was hilarious though. He kept laughing and calling the guy crazy the entire rest of the trip back home. Whatever. Stupid ass guy thought he was hot shit because he had, what in Korea would be considered, a nice car. Anyway, I still smelled like crab miso, so I immediately went to the dry cleaners to get my coat cleaned. The rest of the day we did laundry and watched shows. I definitely need some relaxing time before going on anymore big vacations. I do not regret going at all, but two vacations in two months was hugely tiring.
The first stop on the tour was Zenkoji Temple. The temple was built in the 7th century, and it houses the oldest Buddha statue in Japan. Neither the monks nor the public are able to view the statue. Instead, there is a replica of it that is still very old. Even the replica is only viewable every 6 years in the Spring. It has and remains a pilgrimage site. In the old days, people used to travel to the temple and leave a pair of straw shoes in hopes of an easy journey back to their homes. The temple was very beautiful, and the tour guide pointed out a few interesting things in the temple and told us some stories of the temple's history. On the side of the temple are 6 Buddha statues. The buddhas are the six guards of the six heavenly realms in Buddhism. Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and a Buddhist is supposed to do good works to reincarnate as either an equivalent form or something above that. For example, a human would not want to reincarnate as an animal because that would be a step back. Each of the guards is responsible for taking care of those within its realm. I had a bit of trouble understanding why this is, but the last statue on the right is the only statue with one foot out.
Our last stop of the day was a hotel public bath. The public baths at this hotel were filled with the natural hot spring water, similar to what the monkeys in the park had been bathing in. I'm sure it isn't as natural as they say. They probably treat the water, and it was wicked hot! Like all public baths in Asia, you go in and take all your clothes off and sit in the hot tub for a while. Before leaving, you shower off and get all nice and clean. After all the walking we had been doing in Japan and being in the cold mountains all day, it was really nice to relax in the hot tub for a while, even if it did mean getting real friendly with the other ladies on the tour really quick. It felt good to be clean afterwards for the trip back to Tokyo.