October 28th (Tokyo)

Today, we were pretty sick of shopping so we decided to go to a museum. The Edo-Tokyo Museum to be exact. It's a museum dedicated to history of the city (Tokyo was named Edo before the Meiji restoration).

All metros and most main streets have things on the ground to help guide the blind

From Trip to Japan

We started walking the museum realizing that there wasn't that many English signs so we went back to the entrance to get audio-guides. When we came back we realized that the audio-guides were just reading the English signs and didn't give any extra info... So I decided to read the signs instead :P And as we went deeper into the exhibition, there were more English signs so we learnt quite a view things. I think we spent around 2 hours in there, maybe 3.

When we came out, the sun had started to set so we took the metro to go to Roppongi Hills, a sky scraper with a 360 degree view of Tokyo on the 52nd floor.

Roppongi Hills

From Trip to Japan

We arrived just in time for the sunset. We could even see a hazy silhouette of Fuji-San (honorific name for Mount Fuji). We took a lot of pictures of the sunset, the city at night and Tokyo Tower which a broadcast tower that looks like an orange-smaller-version of the Eifel Tower. It was also a bit romantic :P

From Trip to Japan

Fuji-san

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This bench was white until you sat on it and the more weight there was, the brighter the color was (I want one!)

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

There was a store at the bottom of the building selling art things because there also an art museum in it. They had a couple of Murakami merchandise that was hard to resist (but I managed to) and some merchandise from an artist that I didn't know but was glad to discover.

Seems like there's a statue of "Maman" in Tokyo too

From Trip to Japan

We were starting to get hungry and Nath had spotted an organic vegetarian restaurant in her book about Japanese food. Ironically the restaurant was in Harajuku so we went there for the 3rd time.

After a small stop at Kiddyland we found the said restaurant named "Mominoki House". I took a Japanese "quille" (a 633ml bottle of beer) an Nath some sake. The food was good but not amazing except for the bowl of brown rice. The services were also served a bit too fast and I felt like I didn't have time to take the time to have a nice supper with my chick.

We took the long road to go to the metro station to see Takeshita street at night, came back to the hotel and went to bed.

October 27th (Tokyo)

Today we were a bit hung over. We got up around 7am to eat breakfast and then went back to bed :P hey, we're on vacation !

We decided to finally go shop in Akihabara. We ate some McDonald's on our way there (I didn't eat that much for breakfast). I would say that the best meat is in europe. The burger tasted a bit like in Canada but the bread tasted fresher. The fries were a bit too salty and tasted the same. I really wanted to eat some to taste the difference.

Akihabara is crazy. You have a lot of shops and all of them have like 8 stories. Being able to read the signs or knowing where is what must be amazing. I felt kind of down because I was there. Surrounded by games, electronics, mangas and anime but my Japanese is so basic... It's like having all the best food in front of you and only having one taste bud...

We did a couple of figurine shops and one store that's like a huge Futureshop. The prices seem pretty much the same (even more expensive today because of the shitty exchange rate) as what we have in Canada. I expected the stores to have special gadgets that we don't have at home but we seem to be pretty up to date. So overall, Akihabara was not as fun as I thought it would be but I'm still happy to have experienced it.

After that, we went to a "Depato" (department store) so I could try to buy some tabi socks. I didn't find any but we found some souvenirs to buy. When we finished shopping, it was raining pretty heavily outside and we didn't feel like eating yet so we took a cab to our internet cafe to geek out.

From Trip to Japan

We ate supper in a small restaurant. A bowl of rice and vegetables (Nathalie was happy) with broth in it. We finished the evening in our room (playing the DS and drinking sake).

October 26th (Tokyo)

Today we decided to sleep through our breakfast and just get up when we were awake. We went back to Harajuku because on Sundays, at a specific location, there's a bunch of kids (mostly girls if not all) that dress up extravagantly and just chill at that spot. A lot of tourists go there to take pictures of them (guilty :P), all dressed up as anime or manga characters, punk clothes or goth-loli clothes (gothic-lolita).

Proof that some wagons are reserved for women because of pervert problems (ass-pinching, up-skirt pictures, etc)

From Trip to Japan

Harajuku girls

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This one is mine :)

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From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

We went back on one the main streets to a 6 story toy store called "Kiddyland". I think we spent 2 hours in the store. We even helped a little girl find her mother (well, we managed to tell an employee that we thought the girl had lost her mother).

After that we meandered on Cat Street which a street that has store mostly for men. It's a "hip" and a bit expensive kind of street. I'd like to have that street in Montreal.

We had pretty much seen what we wanted in Harajuku and Shibuya and I was starting to want to visit Akihabara which is 10 minutes from our hotel and the district I wanted to see the most. It's the "electronic district" and it's supposed to be the biggest in the world. It's also to place to find new and used video games and a lot of thing related to anime or manga.

Akihabara is also known for it's "maid-cafes" which are cafe where the waitress is dressed up as a maid. We decided to go try one because we were in need of coffee and a break. We chose the only one we had seen. We waited 5 minutes (there was a small line up) to get into an elevator. We decided to exit at the 5th floor. There seemed to be different cafes at different floors from the 4th to 7th or 8th floor. When we got out, we realized that there was a longer line up in the stairs to get in... It was all confusing, we didn't know how long we would have to wait, where the line started or ended and I didn't want to wait in line just to drink coffee. It's not like I needed a maid fix...

We decided to take the stairs to get back down but they were blocked halfway... Then we tried to take the elevator but it was always full... We decided toi go to the top floor and take the elevator there to get down. It took us like 20 minutes to get out. I was kind of pissed to have lost my time for nothing. We went to our usual internet cafe so Nath could check if Daniel had written to us about supper. We also took the opportunity to drink coffee and soft drinks. At a lot of internet cafes, all the drinks are free (read included in the price while you use internet). There's even an ice cream machine :D

Daniel hadn't written to us so we called him. He was with Mikayo and we left Akihabara (shopping would have to wait) to go back to Harajuku (yes again) to meet them.

It's really nice to be able to go out with locals when you're in a different city! Mikayo took us to a Izakaya which is like a Japanese pub. We ordered a couple of different dishes that we all shared and we drank some beer and other drinks.

Nath and Daniel had to squeeze their own grapefruit to put it in their drink

From Trip to Japan

Daniel and Mikayo

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

We left to go to a nearby Thai restaurant to meet one of Mikayo's friends. We drank some more (myself a bit too much of sake), ate some more, talked and laughed. We had a lot of fun with our new friends ;)

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

Mikayo answered some of my questions, her English was very good. I learnt that you can drink anywhere, at any hour in Japan :D That would explain the beer vending machines almost anywhere.

We left around 11pm to go home. The metro closes at midnight in Tokyo.

Cat in a bush !

From Trip to Japan

October 25th (Tokyo)

After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we headed straight for Shibuya, a district known for following and setting the latest trends. To get there, we used the vast and complex-looking subway and train system. It's scary when you look at the rail map but when you use it once, you realize how organized and easy to use it is. Stations not only have names but numbers and the lines are colored. So it's easy to know if you're on the right track and if you're heading in the right direction.

We bought a magnetic card (like what we have in Montreal now) that contains money and you only have to pass it over a small area at the entrance and exit gates. It's convenient because we can use it on all lines (even if they're run by different companies) and we don't have to worry about checking to buy the right ticket all the time. We just use it and the right amount needed for the trip is subtracted from the card (the price of going somewhere depends on the distance you travel. It's not a flat rate for the city).

We finally started our shopping trip in Harajuku, which is next to Shibuya, on Takeshita street were the clothes were more "underground" and "Rock 'n' Roll". We didn't find any clothes there but we found, inside of 10 minutes, the only 2 unrelated Montrealers we knew were in Tokyo. One is named Daniel and we met him briefly at Shiho's birthday party the weekend before we left. The other is Guillaume with whom I worked with on my Shaun White game.

Shiho has a friend in Tokyo named Mikayo and Daniel had made contact with her. He suggested that we all eat together on Sunday night which we agreed to.

We continued our shopping by ourselves, gradually making our way to more main stream streets ans shops. We stopped for lunch at a "kaiten-zushi" which is a sushi shop that has a conveyor-belt surrounding a kitchen in the middle of the restaurant. Many small plates with different sushi pass before your eyes. You just take what you want and at the end, they calculate the price of your meal by counting the number of plates you ate. The plates are also color coded so different dishes cost different prices.

Cute mascot!

From Trip to Japan

Lunch

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Nice building

From Trip to Japan

Some kind or purolator with a cute logo (maybe it's called purr-o-later?)

From Trip to Japan

We also stopped later on at a cafe named "Excelsior cafe" which made me think of Stan Lee (creator of Spider-Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-men) because he would always sign that word in his answers to fan mail.

From Trip to Japan

We finally arrived in the commercial center of Shibuya. It was really cool to go there because ever since I left for Japan, I started playing a game called "The world ends with you" and the storyline is in present day Tokyo in the Shibuya district. So I kind of knew what was around because of the game. Like the statue of a dog called Hachi-ko which is a popular meeting place. The story is that there was a teacher in the 1920ies that took the metro everyday to go to work. His dog would accompany him and the dog would come back to greet him at the metro at the end of the day. One day, the man died of a stroke but the dog kept coming to wait for his master until he also died...10 years later. A statue was built in it's honor.

Shibuya crossing

From Trip to Japan

Hachi-ko

From Trip to Japan

I finally found some running shoes I liked and then we entered the 109 shopping center. OMG. It's really crazy in there. It's only girls stores, all open faced with loud music on 7 stories full of teenage and some older girls shopping. And I think it probably gets twice as busy sometimes. Nath finally found some shirts she wanted to try but it seems that you're not allowed to try them on unless you put a mask on your face so your makeup doesn't stain the clothes (Mikayo later explained to me)... Since our Japanese was too basic, I guess the sales person didn't bother and only said that Nath couldn't try them on.

We were pretty beat from our day of shopping so we went back to the hotel to take a nap before supper. I think I forgot to mention that our hotel is also a ryokan which means that our rooms are Japanese style (futon mattresses on tatami floors). We take off our shoes when we enter the room, there's a pair of slippers just for the toilet. Our rooms are spacious and look more like small apartments with the beds being in one section, the living in another and the toilet, shower and sink all have their own section too (they're all separated which is practical).

From Trip to Japan

Yatsuhashi

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My new shoes :D

From Trip to Japan

After resting a bit, we went out to eat Japanese steak which is said to be one of the best you can have in the world. The restaurant that the hotel suggested us was pretty fancy and the cuisine style was "teppanyaki" (the chef cooks your meal in front of you). Nath chose seafood and I beef but we shared everything in the end. Everything was delicious and the beef actually melted in our mouth! The beefs are said to be massaged and given sake and beer to drink (and are eventually killed to be eaten). Even so, I'm not sure it was worth the high price which I will omit to write :P

October 24th (in Tokyo !!!)

This morning, we decided to visit 2 temples before leaving Kyoto. That's mostly what Kyoto is famed for. Unlike churches, the cool thing about temples is that the surrounding gardens and settings are often different and interesting (the temple itself is still "more of the same").

On the bus to the shrines, I saw a drugstore franchise that I had also seen on the shinkansen. I was happy to be able to take a picture. It just seems so wrong, hehe.

From Trip to Japan

The first temple we saw was Ryoanji. It's known for it's zen rock garden. I had seen it many times in picture and that place was, for me, very representative of Japan. I was super happy to be able to see it live and I let myself get absorbed in the sight a bit but it was hard because there was a lot of tourists and students. I think I took good pictures.

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

The rock garden

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From Trip to Japan

Tsukubai is a stone-wash basin for the tea room. The inscription says "I learn only to be contented".

From Trip to Japan

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The other temple we saw is called Kankaku-ji and that temple is famed for being covered in gold on the 2 top stories of the 3 story temple. With the reflection on the water, it was a beautiful sight.

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From Trip to Japan

We went back to the hotel to grab our bags, ate at a local restaurant and went to Kyoto-eki to finally go to the city I was really looking forward to: Tokyo :D

Before we entered the train station though, Nath and I realized that we hadn't seen any beggars or street performers ever since we've been in Japan. Maybe it's against the law or something.

We took the train, found our way through the Tokyo train lines to get to our hotel without too much difficulty.

Our room is really big, japanese style. The funny thing is that I couldn't find a hotel that was free for the full week we're here so we're staying at the same hotel but we're changing rooms 4 times :P At least we have 4 nights in the same room and we don't have to worry about transferring our bags from one room to the other.

Our first room

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

Because we're staying there more than 5 nights, we had a complimentary supper that we ate tonight. Nothing to blow our minds (or taste buds) but it was free so hey !

Now we're in an internet cafe in Akihabara, the biggest electronics district in the world and also the spot for anything related to games and anime/manga. Geek city if you prefer. I think that's what we'll visit tomorrow. I intend to do some serious shopping :P

Japanese phone booth

From Trip to Japan

Triforce elevator

From Trip to Japan

Hot meal distributor in the internet cafe

From Trip to Japan

And my blog is up to date !!! :D