Tokyo Trip - Day One

KODAK 2005 12 26 13 21 32
Originally uploaded by Yasashisa.

Hello, everyone. As I promised, here is the first part of my report on our trip to Tokyo last week. Charity and I had a great time. We saw a lot of really cool places and things, including Tokyo Tower, Ueno Zoo, the Imperial Gardens, and Mount Fuji itself. It's was a whirlwind trip and I have a lot to say about it. Let me start at the beginning.

On Christmas night, we boarded a night bus for Tokyo. We were quite excited, but a little afraid of facing Tokyo by ourselves (in the end there was nothing to fear; Tokyo is not as daunting as it may seem). The night bus experience was a not so good. It was very difficult to sleep on the bus. Our seats were near the restroom, which proved to me quite inconvenient. Smoking was not allowed on the bus so a few... individuals... decided it would be okay if they smoked in the restroom. No one would notice, right? Well, we noticed and it made our trip to Tokyo rather irritating.

We arrived in Tokyo's Shinjuku ward at about 6:30 am, just before the morning rush hour. I read somewhere than more than two million people pass through Shinjuku station in a day. It wasn't long before the area became a flurry of activity as salarymen and women scurried off to work. It was great, but we were already quite tired. We explored the Shinjuku area for a while and went to the 43rd floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. They have a free observation deck where you can get a breathtaking view of the entire city. It was amazing. The city just stretched out before us to the horizon. It was enormous. And in the distance stood Mount Fuji. This was a big deal for me. I remember being in grade four and doing a report on Japan for a school project. I learned all sorts of interesting facts about Japan, a few of which I still remember. I think I even drew Mount Fuji on the cover. The symmetrical shape of this long-dormant volcano is an amazing sight to behold. After visiting the observation deck, we checked out the Meiji shrine in the Harajuku ward. This is where the famous (or is that infamous) teenagers in the strange outfits are known to hang out. They have bizarre costumes and hairdos. I guess it's their way of rebelling. If you want to know what I'm talking about, just search Flickr for "Harajuku girls" and see for yourself. There were a few teenagers there when we were there, just hanging out and looking strange. After this, we checked into our hotel and headed out toward Akihabara.

Akihabara is the world-famous electronics district of Tokyo. You can get the coolest electronics there and usually, there are gadgets and gizmos you can't get anywhere else, at least for the prices they ask. It was interesting for me, bit I think Charity was a little underwhelmed. She was gracious, though, and indulged my inner techno-geek. It was cool, but Osaka has a similar district that sells the same things at very similar prices so I didn't feel compelled to buy anything. After our first eventful day in Tokyo, we were completely exhausted. Our feet were throbbing from a long day of heavy walking. I knew I would feel it the next day, but nothing prepared me for how much I would feel it.
-Joe

P.S. My appologies to Internet Explorer users. I haven't been able to figure out why this site looks so strange. I may have to rewrite it from the ground up, which may be a bit of work. I blame Bill Gates. I usually is his fault anyway. Later.