Now, let me start from the beginning. We got up on Saturday morning and I waited while my friends checked out of their rooms at JCMU because they were in a different program and were done here at JCMU. We then pretty much ran over next door to the hotel to catch their shuttle to Maibara Station where we would board the Shinkansen to Tokyo. We bought our tickets and waited for our train. The shinkansen platform was like any other except at random point you would here an alarm and then all of the sudden there was a train rocketing past you. Those trains go SO fast! 11:29 hit and, like clockwork, our train arrived. We all got on but our group was semi separated. We were all on the same car but 3 of us were in the front of the car and 3 in the back. I ended up in the front in the row behind Holly and Val so we were able to swing the seats around and make a nice little area for us all to sit together. Before we knew it the train was speeding off towards Tokyo. A trip that would take a normal train about 8 hours was done in about 2 and a half. We even got to see Mt. Fuji from the train. Even though our glimpse was brief, it was an amazing site to see. The beautiful mountain seemed to just rise up over the fog over the cities and towns around it. It was breath taking!
We got off the Shinkansen at the Shinagawa Station and took the Tokyo Metro to the Shinjuku Station because it was supposed to be a 60 second walk to our hotel from there. Unfortunately we had read the instructions wrong and we were supposed to get off at Nishi-shinjuku. Luckily, two Tokyo natives not only helped us find where we were supposed to be, but personally walked us there, which was amazingly kind of them. One of the reasons I love Tokyo and just Japan in general, almost everybody you meet is very polite and kind. We checked into our hotel and grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald's, which in case anyone was curious has things like the Big Mac but also things like a shrimp burger and McPork. After lunch it was time to hit the town. Holly, Val and I wandered around Shinjuku for a bit before returning to the hotel and meeting up with the rest of the group plus Tsubasa, one of Robyn's friends who lives in Tokyo. He showed us around a bit more and then we went to an Izakaya with delicious food for dinner. After that we just wandered at bit more and hung out a the hotel for a bit before going to bed.
The next day we woke up, grabbed a quick meal and decided to head over to Akihabara. I was really excited because Akihabara was supposed to be an otaku (nerd) mecca with tons of electronics, video games, anime, manga and more. We went to the closest station and routed our way there. I'm not sure how other cities are, but in Tokyo there is almost as much underground as there is above ground. We went in this entrance in somewhere in Shinjuku and walked at least half a mile in an underground shopping area. It was weird to think that this was probably built after the above ground part. No space in Tokyo is wasted.
We arrived to Akihabara no problem. That was another thing that surprised me. Despite none of us there at the time didn't speak a whole lot of Japanese yet the underground was very organized and efficient that us gaijin (Japanese word for foreigner) were able to find our way around Tokyo with really no issues. I really loved going to Akihabara. We went to a few shops, my favorite being the Book Off. Book Off is a chain store in Japan that sells a lot of secondhand books, mangas, anime, CDs and video games, which was great for me because it was nice to be able to get some mangas and video games so I can kind of practice and keep learning Japanese without having to pay full price. I ended up walking out of there with 6 mangas (5 Fullmetal Alchemist and 1 Death Note) and a video game and a CD. After about 2 hours the girls in the group were getting a little tired of nerd shopping and wanted to go real shopping so we decided to hit up Ginza, one of the most upscale shopping districts in the world. After about 2 more hours of shopping we decided to head back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We went to another one of Tsubasa's recommendations for dinner and it was great. We wandered around for a bit more after dinner and then headed back to the hotel. I woke up early the next morning to catch the shinkansen back to Maibara.
Tokyo has been the best part of the trip so far! It was so amazing to be one of the biggest cities in the world and explore. I definitely hope that I can go back someday to get to see more of it!
No comments:
Post a Comment