Japan Trip 2016, Day 14: The Flight Home

I'm currently typing this on Notepad on the flight back to America. Our plane is one that doesn't have the screens on the back of the seats, so I'll have to amuse myself with my tablet's internet-less capabilities. So, notepad and Clip Studio Paint for drawing. I could watch movies on my tablet if I wanted. So, here's how they deal with movies when you're on these old-ass United planes, they have incorporated a wireless that is free, but only allows you to go to their movie portal. I guess that's nice if you have a portable device like a tablet or your cell phone. That has Android lower than 6.0 installed (so, not our phones, which are up to date), and a tablet that has a browser other than Chrome (may experience "complications" with Chrome, it says). Keep my dignity or use Microsoft Edge? Hmmmmm. I jest, it's really not that bad. Not yet anyway. We've only been in the air for a couple hours now. About 8 more to go!  I'm listening to Christmas music while writing this, hoping I'll be inspired for this year's Christmas art.

Back to Japan. We started the day out there, in our hostel, packing, throwing away useless, bulky items, cramming away the items we needed still. Nah, it wasn't that bad. We did pretty good making everything fit and pack back up, and all the souvenirs were expertly Tetris-ed into the large, souvenir suitcase. Now I can only pray I packed all the fragile items well enough to survive their trip through the rough waters of luggage transportation. So, sorry in advance Dad if you have to sip your sake out of the garbage back we packed it in, in case it broke!

We still had a couple hours until we had to leave for the station to get a train back to Narita, but we were pretty much down to our last 1000 yen. Luckily Senso-ji temple, a very popular spot in the part of Tokyo we were staying in, Asakusa, was just a few blocks away. After this whole trip we hadn't visited it! We had gone there before, so it wasn't anything new, but it was the perfect place to stroll around and not spend any money. It wasn't very crowded either, I mean, it looked busy, but compared to how packed it gets on weekends, today was light and easy-going. We sat and drank our last drinks from the awesome vending machines, watching everyone with their selfie-sticks stop at the gate to take their picture. Watched the pigeons. Watched the kids hurry to the other part of the temple to where they were to celebrate their Shichi-go-san.  Ah, I'm going to miss this.  I'm going to miss the food, most definitely, the IC cards, the ability to take the shinkansen from peaceful, religious Japan to brightly-lit, nightlife Japan in a matter of hours.

Jeff, what will you miss?

Beyond the things listed above, I will miss the quiet. At 9am on a Tuesday, in one of the largest cities in the world, it was as quiet as a Sunday in January in Cincinnati. The humm of the electric cars (as well as the smaller number of gas-powered sub-1.0 liter engines) and the faint click of peoples' heels on the flagstone sidewalks the only background noise, interspersed with the chirps of the crosswalks. Also, the corn soup. I will have to figure out how to make that myself.

Also Jeff, what would you rate me as a travel agent? What did I do right? What should we leave out next time?

Four stars. Your plans were open enough to interpretation to not feel stifling, but they were structured enough to prevent aimlessness. Maybe less time in Tokyo next time, focusing on visiting some of the less-traveled cities; like Sapporo or Sendai.

Awesome, I agree, less time in Tokyo and I want to go somewhere north. Sendai, or even Hokkaido! The IC cards and the pocket wireless were the best things ever for this trip and I don't think I would want to be without them.  Next time I will anticipate needing the pocket wireless and can find the best prices.  I will most definitely be looking for a different place to stay while in Kyoto. Khaosan Guesthouse Kyoto was bad not just once, but twice.  I figured it was a fluke the first time, and picked it again because it really is in a great location.  Last time they provided us with great little direction slips to certian places in Kyoto with the buses you had to take to get there. They didn't have those this time! I will only be packing one pair of shoes. My gym shoes were really all I needed, as the other ones just didn't hold up to a full day of walking around and just wasted space in my luggage. Oh yes, and we must remember to go to ____ to get better, but still cheap, suitcases, since the wheels immediately broke off the one we bought in Ameyoko (it couldn't possibly be because it was heavy with souvenirs)!

So with that, I suppose I'll wrap these blogs up since our trip is at an end. I hope to go back very very soon! I already miss you Japan!

Japan Trip 2016, Day 13: Tokyo

Eeeuuuuuhhhhhhhh, I don't want to leave! I don't want to go back home tomorrow! Just bring my friends, family, and pets over here! That'll totally be easier than leaving!

Ugh, I guess I have to make sure everything is packed. Oh gosh, all the souvenirs we have. SO. MANY.

Today was our last full day in Japan and the plan was to go to Ikebukuro. Shops didn't open until 10 am at the earliest, and one of them was Animate, the great big anime store in Ikebukuro. It also seems that not just Otome Road in Ikebukuro is dedicated to women, most of Ikebukuro's anime scene has what the girls want. And apparently, lately, the theme is Otome games and idols. I mean, that was already starting when we were here four years ago with Uta no Prince-sama, but good god, there are so many knock offs! I wish it was my scene, but otome games (where it's mostly a good-looking, all male cast with one girl that the female player can project her self onto), or idol anime (where it's just an animated all-boy band), are just so silly I can't get into them! I say this, but then my new favorite anime is currently about male, olympic figure skaters, which is apparently too new of an anime that there is absolutely no merchandise out for it yet, or it's all sold out! Boo. Any anime I do still enjoy is too old and its merchandise is long gone. Ah well, maybe next trip.

That still didn't stop me from buying stuff from animate, including some new comics to try, a Cardcaptor Sakura calendar, and souvenirs for others.  I also finally located Otome Road and found the K Books dedicated to doujinshi (fan-made comics), but didn't find anything that interested me. Learning the shelving system for books in Japan is crazy. In Book Off, the used books were by genre, then by author.  In regular shops, the comics are categorized by genre, then by publisher or magazine the issues come out in (Shounen Jump, for example), and then by author, and doujinshi is grouped by anime or game it's based off of and then title, or it's listed under "other" or "original" if it's not from a popular anime. My brain was soooooo burnt out after going into a few stores to see what they had. I also learned that if I ask for "Mayonaka no Tantei Nightwalker" they think I'm looking for a mystery novel or comic, and if I ask for just "Nightwalker" they search it and find the terrible hentai PC game the anime is based off of that was released in the early 90s.  So, no luck finding that ever-elusive doujinshi.

Anyway, there was one last stop in Ikebukuro, and that was the Mega Pokemon Center in Sunshine City! Yaaaaaay!!!! But you know what? For it being the mega center, it really didn't have that much. At least nothing new that the other centers didn't have. I was able to find some more souvenir requests there, and Jeff and I bought plushies of the new Pokemon Game Sun and Moon starters (I get the owl Mokuroh and Jeff gets the cat Nyabi).  For the first time in my life, I will be using plant as a starter. Wish me luck with that!

We had lunch in Sunshine city, and I got to try the kind of ramen where you dip the noodles in a more concentrated broth.  The broth was definitely a fish-based one, so it didn't satisfy like a pork broth, but it was still decent. The noodles were VERY chewy and I got a heaping helping of them!

Since one Pokemon Center wasn't enough, we decided to go and visit the other one in Tokyo, the Tokyo Sky Tree Pokemon Center. I'm so glad we went. Jeff was able to find a Team Rocket jacket he'd been wanting, finally in his (our, bwahaha) size, and I was able to satisfy two souvenir wishes of mine with a New Year's Pokemon centerpiece! They also had a better selection of socks. That visit brought us up to a grand total of four Pokemon centers this trip! Skytree, Hiroshima, and Kyoto being the good ones, Mega Center being the disappointing one.

Now that we were at the Skytree, claiming to be the tallest structure in Japan, I wanted to go up to the (near) top and take some pictures and video. I knew Jeff wouldn't even dream of coming, so I left him there on the 5th floor, while I went up to 1,150 feet! While it was crowded, I'm sure on a clear day it would have been absolutely packed. As it was, it had been a cloudy day and the sun was going to set within the hour, so I had no trouble getting to spots by the window to take video and pictures. There was also a spot where the floor was glass and you could see straight down to the 5th floor. I wasn't scared since I knew the glass was thick, and the panes weren't so huge that I had the feeling of walking on nothing.

I didn't want to leave poor Jeff alone for too long so I headed back down and we went back to our hostel.  Then we went back to the karaoke place for one last time. Now that we were armed with the DAM website for song codes, and had the remote control figured out, we were ready. And Monday evenings was the best time to go as we got two hours and all you can drink soda fountains for $12.50.  That's double the time we had yesterday for half the price!!!  I got to sing plenty of Susumu Hirasawa songs, and Jeff got to belt out his metal and punk songs. I'm sure if the Japanese people could hear us and cared, they would have been confused.

And now we're back in our room, trying to eat the remaining food we can't take home, and drinking the drinks we've accumulated, being sad about leaving.  I'll write another blog entry while on the plane, to be published when I have internet connection, but until then, I'll miss you Japan!
😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

 

Today's Pokemon Centers!

Me up in the Skytree. Wheee! So high up!

I'm sure I would be able to see even further on a clear day!

Awww, a Christmas Donki Penguin! The Donki mascot is always a penguin in that hat, he's always dressed for Christmas!

Japan Trip 2016, Day 12: Tokyo

The beginning of today was toilets. Like, actual, literal, toilets. We went to the TOTO Tokyo Showroom where the latest of toilet technology, from the leading bathroom brand in Japan, had it all on display.  Think of the showrooms in IKEA, how they have everything set up with entire rooms decked out with stuff they have on sale. Even demos of their product. Well, don't go thinking you could demo a toilet right there in the middle of the showroom, that would be awful, but they did have cutaway examples of how they work, how little water they use, and it was pretty neat! TOTO had model rooms of both kitchens (that we could never afford, they were VERY swanky) and bathrooms.  The sad part is we COULD afford the installation of a basic TOTO bathroom, but only here in Japan. The water pressure, plumbing, and electrical output needed for the Japanese appliances would not work with what we have in America. And while there is a TOTO retailer in America with items you can buy, it is too expensive and does not have the cool bells and whistles on it that makes the Japanese bathrooms so freakin' awesome. Booo. All we could do was marvel at the self-cleaning toilets that opened up when motion was detected, played sounds to cover bathroom noises, seat warmers, intuitive faucets, bidets, and so many other cool things!  I don't care how weird it sounds that we visited this on our vacation, Japan has it so much better than we do in the bathroom! XD

Once we were done marveling at toilets, we took the train from Shinjuku to Harajuku, just one stop away. It being Sunday, once upon a time, this meant there would be cosplayers and bands in the park. I guess that doesn't happen anymore because there were neither. No Rockabillies or Lolitas, or even beginner bands handing out their singles on homemade CDs while playing in Yoyogi park.  Man, now I have to marvel at all the cool trees and fall colors and nature. Bah! No, Yoyogi park is a great place full of beautiful nature right in the middle of Tokyo, kind of like Central Park in New York.  It was also a great place to go live on Facebook and share the beauty with friends and family. 

Yoyogi park is huge, and within it is the Meiji-jingu Shrine, which had streams of people heading towards it.  This was going to be a continuing trend: Sundays have massive crowds in any of the popular tourist spots. SO. MANY. PEOPLE! Everyone was off that day, and the day was clear, sunny, and finally warmer than the others had been, so all these conditions brought people to Harajuku and Yoyogi park.  The shrine was gorgeous but crowded, and the line to get its goshuin was too long that I decided to skip it.  Besides, I was getting hungry, and there was a cafe I couldn't wait to try out in Harajuku.

The Kawaii Monster Cafe!As I described on Facebook Live, imagine if Tim Burton and a unicorn had a love child, you would get the Kawaii Monster Cafe, where everything is bright, rainbow colors, spiral-y, the music is dance and techno, the main performers and waitresses are pastel goths, and even the food is colorful! Each section has a different theme and we were seated in the wonderland garden theme.  In the middle of the floor is a giant, spinning birthday cake carousel and every hour there is a performance on it, where the pastel goths do a dance.  We ordered some colorful food, including fries with 5 different colored and flavored dips, I had rainbow spaghetti, and Jeff didn't get his food until 30 minutes after mine. And by then it was cold. And he got chicken and waffles and the chicken once again had ginger in it. So, while the cafe is wonderful and colorful and a wild time, if you order food, keep it small and simple because the waiting service is a bit unorganized and/or slow.

It was definitely a day where we went from one loud crowd to the next. As we left the cafe, we had no time to rest as we were plunged into the crowd that flowed through the main street of Harajuku: Takeshita-dori.  Harajuku is known for its crepes, but too bad the current of bodies pushed us right past those. There's also a great, 4-story 100 yen shop called Daiso there, and the current split off and even there a crowd pushed you through the aisles. No time to think, do I want that item or not? Put it in your shopping basket or you'll never have the chance to go back and get it, that would be like trying to swim upstream. Cha-ching! A basketful of cheap but cute little souvenirs were bought and Whoosh! It's back out onto Takeshita-dori. Oh look! ACDC Rag! A store I like- never mind, swept past that. See any cloth face masks, Jeff? I know you were looking for one. No? Too busy being yelled at by an Indian woman who thought it was a good idea to bring an entire, bulky stroller into this crowd and is angry she rolled over your foot? Quick, let's duck into this alleyway. No cloth facemasks, but here's a larger and better ACDC Rag! Cute jacket GET!

And so it went, until the crowd stopped at the end of the street and we were able to break free and wander some back alleys to the Harajuku station.  And, coming full circle, we went back to Shinjuku, where we were this morning, to visit the store Yellow Submarine, for all your gaming needs in Japan. Jeff was excited to look at their RPG books and see if he could sell or trade any of his Magic cards. Meanwhile, I waited outside because it was a billion degrees in there and I would have literally caught fire. So I watched the UFO catchers (crane games) across the street, hoping to learn a trick or two on how to win them, but the teens I watched playing it were as bad as I was and left empty handed.

We picked up some food from a 7Eleven to take back to the hostel, and ate that while our phones charged. I needed mine charged because on it I have saved all the songs I wanted to sing for karaoke and lyrics that weren't kanji for the Japanese songs. We only had two nights left, and I was determined to sing karaoke for both of them! At the recommendation of our hostel, we went to Rainbow Karaoke, just down the street by Donki.  For an hour of karaoke it was $12/person. That was definitely better than the big name karaoke places, like Big Echo or Shidax (please!). Plus, that includes drinks! I finally got to try grape Qoo (kuu), but it wasn't as magical as I was told it was. Fanta melon is still the best! So, as usual, we didn't have the remote controls figured out until the last song, which we had to cut short due to time, but each of us got to sing about 4 songs.  Now that we know what we're doing, and Jeff found the DAM website with the song codes, we'll be ready for more karaoke tomorrow night!

So tomorrow, besides more karaoke, we get to go to the Mega Pokemon Center!! I'm super excited. I hope we have room in our souvenir suitcase.... I packed it up today and we finally got a sense for how many souvenirs we have..... It's a lot. But also tomorrow will be the giant Animate store in Ikebukuro, sooooo anime stuff (maybe I'll finally find some Yuri on Ice merch?), and also, with the help of Google Maps, perhaps we will finally find Otome Road, the street lined with anime stuff just for girls! Here's to hoping!

No honey, we can't bring it home, it won't fit in the suitcase.

Perfect timing for fall colors in Yoyogi Park!

Some priests at Meiji Jingu, ready to bless the shit out of some kids!

Kawaii Monster Cafe decor. Just noticed they're drinking from bottles!

Cake carousel that they did hourly performances on!

My delicious spaghetti with different colored, and flavored, sauces!

Japan Trip 2016, Day 11: Tokyo

We bought a loaf of sliced bread a couple days ago because here at the hostel they have butter and jam and a toaster, but the call of diner breakfast foods was too strong. This morning we finally cracked open that bread and had a nice little breakfast of toast here in the hostel. We used the time to plan the day and find out what time the shops we wanted to go to opened. We never know. Noon? 10? 10:30? 9? It's always different.

Today we went to Shibuya to check out Tokyu Hands, which is a store of many floors of.. well, everything! Maybe we'll find some souvenir ideas there. Shibuya station is one that many people are familiar with, even if they didn't know it. When viewing a television program or documentary about Japan, they will usually show the busy city life in Tokyo. They will have that shot where there are three, wide crosswalks and as soon as the lights turn red for the cars, waves and waves of people come streaming from the sidewalks into the streets, crossing to the other side and looking like schools of fish weaving around each other. That is Shibuya, known as the Shibuya Scramble.

Have you ever seen that super sad dog movie with Richard Gere where the dog waits for him at the train station every day, and one day Richard Gere doesn't come home? The movie called "Hachi"?  That dog was real and he would wait for his master to come out of the Shibuya train station every day. He became a beloved mascot of the crossing and a statue was erected outside the station, where Hachiko would sit and wait. This is considered a popular meetup place for friends, and people still have their pictures taken by Hachiko's statue.

It was while we were sitting by the Hachiko statue that we were approached by a small film crew. I had read about this before this vacation, so I knew what this was, but was surprised they would approach us. The show, called "Why Did You Come To Japan?" will interview foreign tourists about why they came to Japan. Then they pick their more interesting interviews (so definitely not us) and air them on TV Tokyo every Monday evening. Here is the website. Needless to say, we were pretty boring with their main line of questioning pointing out our PokeGo Plus and asking if we've caught any Pokemon while in Japan. We showed them their regional-only Pokemon Farfetch'd (Kamonegi for them) and said that we were excited to have caught their region-special Pokemon and that we were having a lot of fun. We totally missed our chance to mention the concert we went to! Argh!

Anyway, after our minutes of possible fame, we wanted to go live on Facebook, and I wanted a good view of the intersection to film it. The usual spot, a 3 floored Starbucks, was completely packed with everyone else filming the scramble, so we went into a cafe nearby. The view wasn't as great, but it was a nice place to go live on Facebook and their desserts were delicious! I had creme brulee and Jeff had a seasonal fruit shortcake.

We finished there and shopped the many, many floors of Tokyu Hands, definitely finding some great souvenirs! We swapped out the visit to the store Loft (since it was pretty similar to Tokyu Hands) and went to our favorite store Book Off, which is a used book store that also has used CDs and DVDs.  I found a BUCK TICK CD and, I'm pretty proud of myself and gave myself a thousand Friend Points, for finding felting and clay books on my own.  This was the request of my friend Christina and gosh darn did I set out to find them!

Our lunch plans were to check out the Persona 5 cafe where they had a special Persona-themed menu, but it turned out being one of those cafes that needed reservations. Our next stop was Tower Records and they had a restaurant/cafe on the third floor so we went to check that out.  Lucky for us they were having a 30th Anniversary for Dragon Ball there and had themed dishes! It was pretty cute. Man, I can't believe DB is as old as I am!

I just wanted one thing from Tower Records since CDs and media in general are expensive in Japan! One CD costs $30 or more! There's a new-ish Susumu Hirasawa CD I haven't been able to find online, so I was finally able to buy that. Yay! I can't wait to listen to it!

Our last stop for the day was the island of Odaiba, which is out in the Tokyo Bay and has a lot of great places to shop with two large malls and a giant Sega gameland called Joyopolis. I wanted to go to Joyopolis, but I always forget you have to pay tickets to get in. It looks like a fun place to go with a bunch of friends and play games, but a tired Jeff and I were not the target audience. No matter, we walked around Decks and Aqua City (the two malls there) and looked at the Christmas lights that were now on after dark.  I had never been to Odaiba at night, and everything is lit up very beautifully!

By then it was getting late (like, old-person late) and I had worn my boots which were not made for so much walking. I was ready to head back to the hostel.  We did stop at a popular gyudon (beef and onions on rice) place, Yoshinoya, and it was exactly what I had been craving for so long now!

So now it's almost 10:00 p.m. Letsee what's on the agenda tomorrow...Ah yes, it's Sunday, so there will hopefully be musicians in Yoyogi park, along with cosplayers on the bridge, and we'll be visiting Harajuku! And I think we'll be going to the TOTO toilet museum! Is there anyway I can buy one here and fly it home with me? I wish!! Also, kudos again to me, I successfully used the squat toilets twice now, and I even tried out the bidet option on a toilet once. It's certainly a function I would have to get used to! XD Night night! I hope this child I hear screaming down the hallway does not do this all night. He's still quieter than the snoring guy in Kyoto though!

Jeff considers this pupper.

At the Hachiko Statue!

Mmmm, desserts!

His photo levels are over 9,000!!!!!

Kamehameha?

The beautiful view of the Rainbow Bridge from Odaiba.

We met Lady Gaga!!!

No seriously! She just stood really still the whole time, but we totally met Lady Gaga!!

Christmas lights, Aqua City mall, and Fuji TV lit up in purple in the background.

Cute little photo-op spot. 

Japan Trip 2016, Day 10: Tokyo

We slept in late today since anything we wanted to do didn't open until after 10 am. Also, we woke up to the sound of rain, and I think it rained through the night since every time I woke up I could hear the water gurgling down the spouts by the window. It was also another cold day, so umbrellas and our coats were necessary. We decided to eat breakfast at the local American-style restaurant Jonathan's (pretty much Denny's 2.0).  I think my favorite part was that their breakfast meal came with a drink bar. If I drank tea or coffee my choices at the bar would have doubled, but it also included juices and sodas, so I tried the peach, fruit/veggie mix, melon soda, and Coca-Cola's version of Calpis called Ambasa.

What we were actually waiting to open was Nakano Broadway, a shopping mall that apparently was better than Akihabara for anime goodies, but none of the shops opened until noon. We stopped by the local Ueno arcade Taito Station and did purikura (think Glamour Shots for Japanese teenaged girls). See the hilarious results below!  On our itinerary for the day was also a stop in Ueno to buy a souvenir suitcase. I had found one for really cheap in Ameyoko, near the "Store of Awesome" (aka Yamashiroya) the past trip and hoped to do so again.  Seriously, we're gonna have SO many suitcases... I think we found the same store again, but in a different location than I remember, but we still got a sweet deal for a large, hard-cased suitcase! By the time we bought that and brought it back to the hostel, it was after 12 and we could make our way to Nakano Broadway.

First thing was first. we were hungry, so we hunted down the ice cream shop often featured as a crucial part of Nakano Broadway. This ice cream shop has 9 different flavors and you can have a scoop of each flavor piled on top of each other, on top of a cone. I can barely finish one scoop, and Jeff and I know our limits, so I had ramune (soda) flavor and he had strawberry.  Again, his ice cream flavor won as mine tasted like... ramune soda, I guess? Bubblegum? Kid's Sparkle Crest toothpaste? Something extremely kid-like, so I wasn't too keen on my flavor ice cream. I finished my scoop anyway because I was hungry. Then it was time to see what all the fuss was about. So, Nakano Broadway does indeed have a TON of anime stuff, but after a while it seems like you're seeing the same things over and over.  I honestly couldn't think of an anime I really wanted merchandise for besides Cardcaptor Sakura (which I think had jacked up prices since it's the 20th anniversary of the comic and it's being rebooted), and Yuri on Ice (which I think is still too new for used merch).  So almost all of these stores are second hand anime items, which does make the stuff cheaper.  I think what happens is people will collect complete sets of figurines and items from UFO catchers and gatchapon machines and then rent space in a glass case in Akihabara or Nakano Broadway to put them up for sale. You come along, needing that elusive character that you couldn't get from the gatchapon machine to complete your set. It would have taken you more than 5 tries at 300 yen each, but you see that someone else is selling the figurine you need for 1200 yen, less than if you tried to win it yourself, with an added couple of yen so they make a profit. I think that's how that works. Another downside is wading through it all. My eyes were tired and my brain numb (I was turning into that song Brain Stew by Green Day) from looking at so many tiny little figurines, shop after shop.  Most were organized by having items from a certain (and popular) series clustered in one area. It's only through dumb luck that you might stumble upon a figurine or toy of a character from your favorite but obscure series. Like Jeff's keen eye as he picked out a tiny figure of Sae Sawanaguchi from Magic User's Club among a set.  I had to buy a set of totally unrelated tiny figurines from Bandai to get her, but I don't care. I had no idea they even MADE Magic User's figurines! Jeff found a couple of Log Horizon art books and I tried to search for something but had no luck. In all honesty, I don't really know much of the current anime, or if I do, it wasn't popular enough to have merch. Or if it is popular, it's so popular it's constantly sold out of merch so I'm not seeing any of it (*coughYuriOnIcecough*). Jeff bought me a tiny Cardcaptor Sakura figurine that's really cute! Jeff also got a mystery adult DVD from an 18+ gatchapon! OMG, I wonder if it works on our DVD players!

It was dinner time by the time we made our way though those four floors of visual over stimulation. Just down the street, across the street from a UNIQLO we ducked into a ramen shop that turned out to be delicious. I mean, I thought it was even better than the ramen we had in Kyoto in Ramen Alley! Mine was the pork special and it had two kinds of pork and the broth was even better. I think it was much closer to a tonkotsu ramen than the one in Ramen Alley, and I love my ramen to be super heavy and full of pork fat!

Ramen satisfied our tummies, but I wanted further relaxation. On the itinerary today we decided to skip Akihabara but I was determined to travel to an onsen on the outskirts of Tokyo.  Almost by the Ghibli museum, Yumori no Sato onsen is in Chofu, Tokyo and was recommended by a favorite Youtuber of ours, Grace and Ryosuke from the Texan in Tokyo series. It is a natural onsen with dark waters and many different kinds of baths. I really wanted to try it and it was worth the hour it took to get there. To start, the shower water wasn't effin' freezing like it was in Osaka's public bath. The onsen water in the main bath was sooooo nice and hot. There was a clear cold pool if you wanted to cool off (nope, nope, nope), a small onsen in a gazebo which, since it was now dark out, had turned on black lights and lit up stars on the ceiling of the gazebo, two large and super hot onsens with a waterfall nearby, an onsen that was in a cave that wasn't as hot but bubbled and had massage jets, a pool on an upper deck that I'm sure had a view in the daytime, and two barrels. Yup, you could climb into a barrel that was just deep enough you could sit and your little head would poke out and you were surrounded by nice, hot water. Seriously, it was all so relaxing. Once you get over the fact that no one is going to be studying you intently while you're naked, just as much as you don't want to stare at them naked, it's all well and good. An old lady asked me if I liked the onsen (very yes), if I was here alone (no I was with my husband), that my Japanese was good (no, I was no good at speaking it), and something about "koko ni" or "here" but I didn't understand the rest so I just apologized for not understanding.  At least she was nice about it! I will also definitely recommend this place. I don't know if it's a good place for beginners to onsen that are going alone, but I think with a friend to show you the ropes, or if you want natural, volcanic water that makes it an actual onsen, beautiful views and nature, then this really is an impressive place to go while in Tokyo! Oh, but make sure you don't have any large tattoos showing. I know with the Olympics coming up, a lot of places are allowing tattooed foreigners in, but this place remains traditional. If it's small, you can put a bandaid over it, but there was a sign that read NO TATTOO.

Now we were relaxed. Well, I know I was. I don't think Jeff is too keen on public nudity, but kudos to him for stepping outside his comfort level. What Jeff was keen on was stopping by a 7Eleven on the way home and getting (more) ice cream. They didn't have anything that he fancied so he picked up a package of chocolate brownie while I found the recommended seasonal chocolate "Melty Kiss", recommended by Laura Waiss. They are pretty much tiny truffle cubes that melt in your mouth (and your hand) and are delicious. And Jeff's brownie was even more delicious as it was more like a dense, fudge-y brownie that came with teeny tiny forks. ^_^

So that was our day. Filled with desserts and anime. Tomorrow I think will be a trip to Shibuya, a Persona cafe, and possibly Odaiba? Wow, it's after midnight here! I've been staying up late for these blogs but I don't feel too tired. Better get some sleep anyway. Goodnight!

Texan in Tokyo at the Yumori Onsen we went to !

Here, I Google Image Searched "Nakano Broadway" since they didn't allow photography inside most stores.

Purikura will automatically smooth and whiten your skin and enlarge your eyes. It'll even add makeup! Hence Jeff's super-pink lips! XD

I didn't think to take a picture until we were well into the ice cream. Well, here's half-eaten Strawberry and Ramune flavor!

That's all the pictures today! Not many shops let you photograph inside them. Enjoy the video and image link above.

Japan Trip 2016, Days 8 & 9: Tokyo and Kamakura

Sorry I didn't write a post for yesterday. Other than the concert we attended that night, most of it was traveling from Kyoto to Tokyo on the shinkansen.  Just to give you an idea of how wonderful shinkansen (bullet trains) are, the distance from Kyoto to Tokyo is almost exactly the distance from Cincinnati to Detroit. Our shinkansen traveled that distance in 2 hours and 40 minutes at 136 mph. And that's not even the fastest of the bullet trains! It's a smooth and quiet ride with the only downside being that when you go into a tunnel, your ears might pop since you're going so fast!

So we made good time in getting to Tokyo and then checking into our hostel at K's house Tokyo Oasis (just up a couple blocks in Asakusa from the first hostel we stayed at our first night here).  It takes a little bit more walking, but it's worth it. Our rooms have their own bathroom and shower (so nice after the past hostel with shared bathrooms that weren't even split by gender), a small tatami matted area with a table and chairs, and a nice bed with one of the comfier mattresses. I'm currently writing this blog from their community lounge area where they've set up a kotatsu (table with a heater underneath and a blanket) due to the cold weather. There was a French couple who we were just sharing KitKats with but they were pretty quiet. Ah well, more food for us!

Anyway, after checking in to our hostel it was about 3:00 pm and our concert was in Nakano at 6:00.  We decided to play it safe and just go to Nakano right away. So we walked around the area, checked out the covered market street nearby and then made our way to the Nakano Sun Plaza where the BUCK TICK concert would be held. They already had the merch booths up so I bought me a tee shirt and a face mask for Jeff and I.  Then we played the waiting game and watched the other BUCK TICK fans trickle in.  Most of them were younger than I expected, especially for a band that started in the 80's.  Most of them were girls, which is to be expected I guess since it's an all male band that were one of the pioneers of the visual kei movement in Japanese Rock. BUCK TICK sports giant mohawks and makeup and instead of being asked about their music, were more often asked about their hairstyles, kind of like the Beatles and their hairstyles ("What would you call that hairstyle you're wearing?" "Arthur.").  The waiting crowd was also dotted with those in goth outfits, but nothing too extreme.  As I mentioned before, most of the crowd consisted of girls. When we entered into the concert hall (think the size of the Taft theater) and the concert started, in between songs you would hear the girls shout out the names of their favorite band members (Yuuta seemed to be the most popular) and words of encouragement. Another thing they did in the concert is coordinated hand movements. Usually in rhythm to the song's chorus. They weren't hard to learn after a refrain or two, but the fans seemed to know which arm gesture or hand movement to use and when.  The music was loud and wonderful, the lighting was awesome with video projections incorporated into it (with some really chuckle-worthy montages of skulls and blood and an eye crying a single tear), and BUCK TICK sounded great! I'm going to have to pick up their new album while I'm here.

Did I mention how cold it was? It was freaking FREEZING when we left the concert. Also, wearing a face mask and trying not to fog up your glasses is an art it seems all bespectacled Japanese have mastered and I have not.  It was only about 9 pm, so Jeff and I stopped at Denny's (yes, the same Denny's as we have in America) for some food. The food at their Denny's is much better and has mostly Japanese food items along with some western options. Jeff got spaghetti and meatsauce and I got omurice (rice omlette). Delish.  Then it was time for bed.

The next day we had a day trip from Tokyo on the itinerary. Remember how I said it was cold? It was still cold. So we stopped at the clothing store UNIQLO (think Kohls) and I got a long-sleeved undershirt (with heat-tech, oooh) and Jeff got an extra pullover.  We needed it! The day was cloudy, windy, and chilly, but we still made our way to Kamakura. Located a little over an hour outside of Tokyo, Kamakura is by the ocean and is most famous for it's giant Buddha. He looks bigger in the photos, but he's still a sight to behold! Also nearby was the wonderful temple Hase-dera, which overlooks the coast line and has a great many things to explore. There is also a large Buddha, the Amida Buddha there too, but it's inside the temple and cannot be photographed. There was also a cave, Benten-Kutsu, where the ceiling is low, making it so you have to bend and bow slightly to get through it and see the various statues and stone reliefs of the goddess Benzaiten.

I had a couple more stops on the itinerary for Kamakura, but it was about 4:00 and starting to rain. The clouds rolling in from the sea was making it already turn dark. Jeff and I ducked into a tonkatsu restaurant that looked yummy, and we were right! Aw man, the pork cutlet was breaded and fried to perfection! And the miso, while simple, was really really good! After that big meal, and it getting colder outside, we decided we saw the main sights of Kamakura and left to go back to the hostel, where there was a warm kotatsu waiting for us.  We stopped by Donki to pick up shareable snacks, of which only a few were consumed, so there's plenty left for anyone else we try to make friends with here at the hostel.

Have a good day everyone! Tomorrow I think the plan is to hit up Ueno for the park and find a cheap suitcase for souvenirs, then nerd it up at Nakano Broadway and Akihabara. Maybe a themed restaurant? Time to check L-Tike!

All geared up for the BUCK TICK concert with face mask and tee shirt!

The main temple of Hase-dera

I thought the flowers really pretty!

Dat's us wid da Buddha.

He's not sleepy, he's just meditating!

So serene!

Japan Trip 2016, Day 7: Kyoto

As I'm writing this, it is almost 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night here. Back in America, the world is waking up and heading to the polls to vote. When I wake up tomorrow, the polls will be closing in a few hours. Jeff and I will definitely be connected to the internet and waiting with baited breath for the results!

Today was another full day in Kyoto.  I think I really liked today a lot. We went to places we had never been before, and they weren't crowded with tourists, and they were all beautiful or fun. In the morning, after another delicious breakfast of toast at the cafe near the hostel, we went to two temples. The first one being Shimogamo Shrine, one of the oldest original shrines in Kyoto. Not many people were awake yet, so it was just us and a few others checking out the shrine. While it was small, it was peaceful with a lovely ginko tree near a stream. We went live on Facebook from there, so we enjoyed walking around and showing everyone online what we were seeing.

The second temple of the day was a 15 minute train ride and a 15 minute walk away from Shimogamo. Enkoji is in a really small, quiet part of Kyoto but we noticed something about the residents and the other visitors there we had not yet experienced: they actually said "hello" to us in passing! Such a weird thing we didn't notice we were missing until someone greeted us and I was like, "Oh yeah! Konnichiwa! People are actually greeting me!"  So that made me happy.  What also made me happy was that Enkoji had the best fall colors I have seen so far. It was beautiful! It had a sand garden, a bamboo forested area, a beautiful, calm, pond, a graveyard, a walk up a hill with a view of the temple and city, a small museum, and even one of those giant bells.  And all the trees were in peak color. It was spectacular.  What I'm really loving about Kyoto and these gardens, and what I wish we had the right conditions for, is the moss. It's a whole different kind of gardening medium they use and I love it! So cute and soft looking, but so complex up close. I want to replace my grass with it! I'm sure it's hard to maintain, but I did not see a single weed. Just beautiful moss, plants and trees.

After leaving Enkoji, and catching the hoards of Pokemon there (seriously, I've never seen so many), we made our way towards Kyoto Station for lunch. The station has 11 floors, and on the 10th floor is an area called "Ramen Alley". There are about a dozen ramen shops all in this hallway, all with their menus out front, boasting their own special spin on ramen. I honestly just wanted some tonkotsu ramen, but the closest I could find was a Super Chashu (pork) ramen. It was delicious! Soooo good! We also had some of their chicken karaage, but it had to strong of a ginger taste for my liking. No matter, the bowl of ramen was more than enough and it was delicious!

Next up, and a 5 minute bus ride from the station, was the Kyoto Railway Museum! Choo choo! We learned all about the history of Japan's railways and the secrets of the shinkansen! I'm telling ya, no one is more efficient than the Japanese. Less than ten years after being bombed and obliterated by war, Japan rebuilt their ruined railways, reopened the ones they had closed, and made it better than before. We watched an adorable little presentation of a giant miniature landscape where all the different, tiny, model trains came out to cute little tunes. Super Japanese-y.  Not much was in English, but there was a lot to see anyway!

Our feet were once again starting to take a beating from all the walking so we decided to head back to the hostel. I guess we're gluttons for punishment, because not even an hour later, we were back out and walking to Kodaiji temple for nighttime illuminations. But first, dinner. We broke down and stopped at McDonalds. We wanted cheese SO BAD. I swear, our bodies are making us eat more ice cream and to seek out cheese from lack of our usual, American calcium intake! No regrets.

I've forgotten to mention that it had started raining while we were leaving Enkoji at around 11 am. It had continued to rain lightly all day, but we were smart and bought some cheap umbrellas from a convenience store.  We still carried those with us as it was still raining and about 7 pm as we walked from the hostel to McDonalds to Kodaiji.  I think the temple would have been more beautiful in the daytime (and less hazardous when not dark and wet), but the spotlights on various areas in the temple grounds illuminated buildings and trees in full, fall foliage. It really made them pop! Too bad it was really hard to get that effect on camera. The dark night, lack of flash, holding an umbrella, and crowds of students made it hard to replicate the experience on film. Even so, I did my best and just enjoyed the rest. One part of the temple had a light show with images and lights projected onto a building where their sand garden was. It was a really neat effect and a good idea! I learned that the temple's main theme was Hideyoshi and his wife Nene, and to bless married couples with a happy and unbreakable relationship like they had. It was really adorable. Just ignore the other details about Hideyoshi's life, like that time he crucified 26 Christians. Instead, the focus was more on Nene and her love and happiness.

By now our feet were two lumps of pain at the end of our legs, so it was obviously time to go buy ice cream from a convenience store and hang out in our room. Tomorrow we leave for Tokyo and we get to see BUCK TICK in concert!! I can't wait!

Yawn, I'm too sleepy to caption all these right now. Make up a story yourself about what is going on in them. Good night!

Japan Trip 2016, Day 6: Kyoto

What is the loudest snoring you've ever heard? I know in the Fromhold family, there's some really loud snoring going on. The guy in the room next to us could definitely match any Fromhold in a contest of sawing logs. That's how I came to be awake, and stay awake, at 5 a.m. this morning in our Kyoto hostel. My earplugs were able to drown out the weird plumbing noises, but definitely not this guy's snoring. Uuuughhhhh.

And a good night's sleep would have been nice for the day we had ahead of us, since climbing up the side of a mountain was on the itinerary. Last time we were in Japan we visited Fushimi Inari Shrine here in Kyoto, and it was beautiful, but we had to turn back halfway due to me wheezing.  These past four years have honestly been dedicated to making sure we were in better shape for this trip. My workout mantra has been "2016! 2016!" to motivate myself to make sure I was not THAT American. Plus I needed to get healthier anyway and Japan was my motivation. So, despite getting less sleep than usual (and I LOVE my sleep, so anything less than 8 hours is a travesty to me) WE MADE IT UP THE MOUNTAIN! Yaaaayyy! I say mountain like we climbed Mount Fuji or something. Please don't think it's anything as big as that. Mount Inari is 999 feet tall and the entire hike up and back down the mountain is 4.8 miles. But it's all stairs. All torii gates. All the time! Our little legs were working double time this morning.  I was expecting a view from the top, but that came and went about halfway up the trail.  At the top is another part of the shrine with an altar, but nothing too special. It was a little anti-climactic. BUT, it was fun seeing all the little shrines on the way back down as we took the easier, slower route down. Go us!

Our next stop on the agenda was Kiyomizu-dera, but on the way we decided to stop at a gyoza restaurant I had visited with my college the first two times I went to Japan.  They didn't have the extensive menu I remember, as I remember them being exclusively gyoza, but this time the menu was more Chinese-like foods and the gyoza was either pork or beef/pork.  They were fried up pretty well and tasty enough, but I suppose I was remembering them to be better.  The gyoza did their job fueling us for the hike up the street to Kiyomizu-dera.  We wandered about, having seen it before, and I was able to get their goshuin stamp there.  In all four times I've been there, I still have never drank from the waterfall for luck as there's always a long line I don't want to wait in.  It's okay, I was happy to see the temple again (there was renovations STILL going on), buy my little mochi-rabbit artwork, and even buy a green tea cake which I had last time and REALLY loved. We stopped for ice cream on our way back.  I got matcha and Jeff got sweet potato. His won, and I swear it had an orange-y taste, but it was still the better of the two.

And if our feet hadn't had enough walking yet, we were going to run them ragged with just a bit more as we walked down Nishiki market while the shops were still open. I bought a Yotsuba &! comic to practice my kanji with and Jeff bought an extra jacket from UNIQLO since it was getting chillier when the sun went down. Which it does around 5:30 here which is way too early! We had dinner-indecisiveness but we finally picked an okinomiyaki place. I had to usual kind, but Jeff tried an "Italian" style with cheese, sweet sauce, and corn.  It was good, but I like my traditional one better. And not to toot my own horn, or anything, I think the okonomiyaki I make at home was just as good as this place's! Still, it was delicious and a much needed dinner.

Now I sit here in the hostel common room as our laundry swishes clean in the machines in the other room.  Drying clothes takes a LONG time here with the low energy output of the dryers.  So I'm settling in here, writing this blog post, listening to the Germans plan their itinerary for their trip to Osaka and Hiroshima tomorrow, and I'm planning to enjoy some of that matcha cake. I might share....

So it begins, our torii-lined pathway up Mount Inari.

I wanted a pretty picture to make a profile pic, too! Didn't turn out as good as Jeff's. :(

Since this was a fox shrine you will see a lot of these little guys all over the place!

This was a big one, and he's spitting water! Kinda looks a bit like a rat, though...

A map of the route we took up Mount Inari.

And we ended our night with delicious okinomiyaki!

Sorry for the lack of pictures of Kiyomizu-dera. I had taken many last trip and I liked them well enough. No changes anyway.

Update: I did share the cake and now Jeff and I have made friends with 3 Germans visiting Japan for their first time. Conversation included our mess of an election, Halloween, and how fairy tales and myths from different cultures are absolutely terrifying. Behold the power of cake!