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

From Trip to Japan

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

From Trip to Japan

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