After about 24 hours of traveling, I have finally made it to Japan!
My trip began with a 5:45 car ride to the airport, a three hour flight to Dallas, then a 13.5 hour flight to Tokyo. Must say, that was the longest 13.5 hours of my life. Since I had stayed up the night before, falling asleep on the plane was easy. However, finding a comfortable position was difficult. The worst was when while sleeping, my glasses fell on the floor. And since I wasn't wearing my glasses, I couldn't see where they had fallen. So, I was blind. So when I woke up to eat my meal, I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't even see my food! The Japanese man sitting next to me was very confused. Oh well. Overall, the trip over wasn't too bad. The only downer was that my mom's luggage was sent to LA instead of Tokyo. But, since it was my mom and not me, I didn't think too much of it (I'm a horrible daughter, right?). Either way, my mom's luggage arrived a day later so it was fine.
We arrived at hour hotel around 8 PM Saturday (which is around 6AM Saturday, eastern time). My brother had just arrived from Kagoshima. Our hotel is nice, but small. My favorite part of the hotel room is the bathroom window. Why the window? Because the window faces the beds. That's right, there is a window between the sleeping area and the bathroom. So, people who are sleeping or on the bed can watch you pee. I was a bit worried about this at first, but then I discovered the curtain, so I wasn't worried anymore. The toilet in the bathroom also has 4 buttons. A STOP button, a SHOWER button, a BIDET button, and the flush. When you sit on it, a little light turns on informing you that it is "preparing" for you (reminds me of the Simpsons episode, when the toilet says: "Welcome. I am honored to receive your waste"). There is also a square area on the mirror that does not fog up, which I think is pretty cool.
In order to combat our jetlag, we decided to have dinner and walk around for a while. Our hotel is in an area called Shinjuku. There a giant terrace where they have lots of lights and penguins! (Well, not real penguins, just penguin statues. The penguin is the subway/train mascot!) We were a bit lost walking around for a while, but luckily my brother Andrew was around to translate everything. For example, for dinner we had ramen with rice and dumplings. However, we didn't know this until my brother told us what we were ordering. Either way, I'm really glad Andrew is around. I feel really out of place and helpless here since I don't understand everything, but I feel less helpless with Andrew around.
The next day (Sunday) was a busy day. We started off with getting breakfast at the local convinience store ("conbini" store as the japanese call it). I had a beancurd thing. Delicious. We then made our way to Akihabara, aka nerd city. Akihabara is full of electronics, anime nerds, and maid cafes. Saw lots of creepers lurking in hentai shops, girls in maid outfits handing out flyers, tons of cellphones and computers, and giant groups of teenage boys trading pictures of models. Strange? I think so. That's why I took lots of pictures :)
Afterwards we made our way to Harajuku. Its an interesting area, because there is one narrow street full of strange shops. Lots of teenagers of all walks of life were there buying things galore. Saw lots of girls dressed as "Gothic Lolitas", ninjas of sorts, cats (?) and other strange things. Some dragged suitcases around with them. The shops surrounding this street had lots of interesting stores. Some were regular clothing stores, others costumes shops, some goth shops and some other things I'm not even sure what they were. Intersting enough, this famous street full of unique teenagers is the street that inspire Gwen Stefani's line called "Harajuku Girl". After this, we stumbled upon the Meiji Shrine. It was beautiful shrine surrounded by lots of green trees and gardens. While there, we saw three different weddings going on, and all of them were of the traditional sort (men and women in the traditional garbs, kimonos and all).
Later, we headed to Shibuya, where we crossed the busiest intersection in the world! It was a bit crazy, but pretty cool. We went to a Starbuck literally in front of this intersection and took pictures from the second floor. Its crazy to see the amount of people crossing that street at one time! Afterwards we headed to Ebisu to eat dinner at the top of this 37 floor building, where you can see all of Tokyo from. It was a crazy sight, yet beautiful.
Random thoughts:
The food here is awesome. Love the food. Everything there has a cute factor to it. Its like they need to make everything seem adorable. The girls here are cute! The way they dress is cool. The guys, not so much. I love Asian babies. They are adorable. Shirts in English are hilarious. They never made any sense. My hotel room only has power if you put the room key into this little slot. If you take it out, all power goes out. The outlets won't even work.
This is going to be a strange yet awesome Christmas/New Years.
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