Planet Tokyo

I had intended to wake up at 5 A.M. to see us pull into the Yokohama Port but Mike and I stayed up late watching Boogie Nights. I finally woke up around 7:30 A.M. and looked out the window to see fog, rain, and the port. Mike and I ran up to get breakfast and then packed for our 3 days in Tokyo. We then sat around until lunch bored out of our minds. At lunch we looked out the window of the ship and saw Sean and his wife Yusan waiting in the passenger terminal for us. We went out to the back deck to wave and attempt to signal to them that we might be a while. A Japanese customs official was on board reviewing and stamping the passports of all 700+ people on the ship. We had been told the night before that at best we would not be able to disembark until 11 A.M. At this point it was now 12:30, and Sean and Yusan had been waiting for an hour and a half.

Unfortunately there was nothing we could do. Time crawled and finally around 2:30 P.M. they announced that we could disembark. Michael and I grabbed our bags and went to find our friend Hua who would be accompanying us to Tokyo. We met up with Sean and Yusan in the port terminal, exchanged gifts, and then found a currency exchange counter. Sean and Yusan recommended that we walk around Chinatown in Yokohama and go to a restaurant. Having your first meal in Japan at a Chinese restaurant might sound strange but it was delicious. I struggled with the chopsticks and no one could show me how to hold them properly since I am left-handed. Finally Yusan asked for a fork for me and I feasted.

Following lunch we made our way to Yokohama station where Hua had to pick up a Railpass so he could save money when traveling to Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Kobe, which he was going to do after our stay in Tokyo. The station was confusing and very crowded. Any hopes I had about getting to our hotel on our own quickly vanished. Sean and Yusan were very helpful however. They rode with us to the next station where we would have to change trains, and then helped us figure out what trains we needed to take to get to the hotel. After saying our goodbyes we set out on our own, nervous but a little less so thanks to Sean and Yusan.

We finally made it to the hotel around 6 P.M., settled in, and planned how to best spend the remainder of our night. We decided to head to the nearby Mori tower where there was an art museum on the 52^nd floor. The elevator ride to the 52^nd floor was so smooth that you could barely tell you were moving, and it rose so quickly that I could feel the pressure building in my ears. They had an exhibit of the works of the French artist and architect Jean Le Corbusier, whom I had never heard of. He painted strange abstract modern art, designed furniture in the 1920s that looks contemporary to us today, and designed houses and large buildings that have been built all over the world. In one room there was a reproduction of an entire house he designed that we could walk through. After the museum we went to another section of the building where we could see all of Tokyo, from 52 stories up. The city lights and tall buildings stretched into the horizon in every direction. It’s hard to imagine the immensity of Tokyo; Philadelphia is like a small town in comparison.

We had no other plans after that so we wandered around Mori tower and found a cool Japanese garden with a pond. After walking around a bit more we decided to head towards the bars and restaurants to find a sushi place. The first thing Mike, Hua, and I all noticed about Roppongi was that there were black people. The next thing we noticed very quickly was that none of them were tourists. We quickly found out that most of them are from Africa and they work for the various clubs and bars in the Roppongi Hills district. They stand on every corner and accost any and every foreigner they see, trying to convince them to come to their club. It got annoying very quickly. All we wanted was some sushi!

We wandered around looking for a sushi restaurant that was recommended in the Tokyo guidebook, it had a conveyor belt. After getting sick of walking around and being bothered by the Africans we decided to stop into a conveyor-less sushi place that we had seen earlier. Mike and I let Hua order for us since he had eaten sushi plenty of times before. Everything was going smoothly; we were enjoying our beers and the quiet of the sushi establishment when all of a sudden we heard very loud voices speaking English. We all turned to see a group of at least six college-aged kids walk into the restaurant. They were from Semester At Sea, and they were annoyingly loud; so much for the tranquility. I never realized how loud Americans are until I went to Japan. Actually that probably goes for most people. The Japanese have mastered the art of talking quietly and saying the most with the fewest words. That is something that I have come to appreciate immensely in the short time I was in Japan. After a day of traveling and walking around Roppongi Hills we were tired so we went back to the hotel and watched the weird Japanese TV shows and then went to sleep, looking forward to the day ahead.

The next morning we set out to do some shopping. First we needed to find food. We stopped into a little ramen noodle restaurant where we learned about yet another thing that makes Japan unique. We sat down on the stools at the counter and waited for someone to come over to us. A man finally did come over, and he motioned towards the wall near the door. We sat there baffled, we just wanted menus. He gestured towards the wall some more and finally we saw them: vending machines. We figured out very quickly how the process worked. You picked which bowl of ramen noodles you wanted based on the little pictures provided on each button, inserted the appropriate amount of money, and the machine spits a ticket out which you then give to the person working behind the counter. Less than 5 minutes went by and we were presented with the biggest bowls of ramen noodles I had ever seen. The chicken ramen bowl I ordered ended up being one of the best meals I had in Japan, and for 650 yen ($5.65) it was bargain.

After the amazing lunch we set out to find the famous electronics district in Akihabara. Michael wanted to buy a camera there since he could get it much cheaper than in Canada (which taxes imported electronics). We spent almost an hour walking around in frustration, unable to figure out the street maps (which were written in kanji and katakana, the logographic writing system and syllabary which are both used for writing Japanese). We finally found a store that sold a camera Michael wanted and he ended up saving a good amount. We then took the train to Harajuku, a street made famous as a place where some teenage Japanese dress up in elaborate costumes and pose for people (known as cosplay, short for costume play). We were supposed to meet Hua’s cousin and Aunt for dinner at 6 and we had no idea where the meeting place was. Given how long it took us to find the huge electronics district we thought it might be a good idea to look for the Snoopy which was the designated meeting place. Once we found the meeting place we headed back to the hotel to freshen up, though more importantly, to get the box of chocolates that Hua had intended to give to his Aunt and cousin but forgot to bring with him.

Dinner with Hua’s cousin and Aunt was interesting. His cousin Mumi was in her last year of high school in Japan and had spent a month or so in Wisconsin as part of an exchange program. She was actually half Japanese and half Columbian; it was interesting to meet someone who was trilingual. Her mother was very kind and insisted on paying for our dinner, which was extremely nice of her. She spoke almost entirely in Spanish which was okay because I remembered enough Spanish to understand almost everything she said. I found it really comforting to know someone in a foreign country, even if it was someone who I had just met an hour ago. We walked around Harajuku a bit after dinner looking for some stores that sold T-shirts and then said our goodbyes. We were planning on seeing a rock concert but after taking too long to find a specific bar we decided we were too tired (and it was too late) so we went back to the hotel.

The following morning Michael and I parted ways with Hua who was meeting up with our friend Katie, they were going to visit Hiroshima and then Kyoto. Michael and I had enough time to head over to Shinjuku, another famous shopping district in Tokyo, before catching the shinkansen (or bullet train) to Kobe. We took some pictures of the huge buildings and bright signs and then had another nice lunch at a random restaurant. The key to eating in Tokyo is to find a place that has pictures of all of the food along with prices in our familiar numeral system and luckily most places do. After lunch we made our way to the always-crowded Tokyo Station to buy tickets for the shinkansen (bullet train). The train ride to Kobe took about 2 hours. The vast cityscape of Tokyo gave way to farmland, lush green valleys, and fog-capped mountains. It was stunningly beautiful. We arrived in Kobe in the evening and then spent more time wandering around unable to find the hostel we had reserved a room in. We finally did find it, checked in, and then went out to find some food. We ate at a Japanese café that had food straight out of a seedy American café, though we had chopsticks and rice too. We then walked down to the harbor area of Kobe which was desolate, especially in comparison to the madness of Tokyo. We went back to the hostel early and after another long day of traveling we went to sleep alternatively looking forward to our Nara/Kyoto trip and dreading having to go back on the ship, if only for a little while.

My dad always talks about how New York is the “center of the universe”, and if so, then Tokyo is surely a planet all its own. Even though Tokyo is extremely crowded everything was very orderly. I noticed that in Tokyo everyone stayed to the left when ascending and descending stairs and escalators, but in Kobe people stayed to the right, though only on escalators. While there was a lot of traffic there were a lot of people on bikes. The one thing that really impressed me was that Tokyo is extremely clean. Another thing was that I felt very safe at all times, which is amazing since I often don’t feel safe in parts of Philadelphia. All in all I was very impressed with my stay in Tokyo, I had a lot of fun, and I would love to go back. We only have two short days in between Japan and China, so you will have to wait until I get back from my trip to Beijing and Xi’an to hear about my trip to Kyoto and Nara (along with pictures).