Today, I learned something straight out of Chinese philosophy even though I'm in Japan. I learned what it really means to experience the yin and yang in life sometimes. Just two short train stops away from each other on the Yamanote Line, Ueno and Akihabara could not be any more different from each other. One is full of peace and serenity, the other is Akihabara, a place I will have a very very difficult time describing. Ok, to keep my normal form, let's do this chronologically and in ridiculous detail.
The weather has completely changed from the day earlier when it was cold and rainy. Today it was about 65 degrees and sunny and as perfect as I could’ve asked for. Now let’s hope this continues and doesn’t change as fast as Florida weather.
Today was my second full day in Japan but since my first night on Sunday, I said I wanted to go to that New York bagel store I found. This morning, I finally did it. I gotta be honest, not bad. That might have something to do with the fact that I'm in Japan so I'm cutting them some slack but it wasn’t bad. Let me explain…
The thing that I always do whenever I go to a restaurant that has a food that I know very well, I get the completely standard basic item. If I go to a deli I get the pastrami on rye with deli mustard, if I go to an Italian restaurant, spaghetti with meatballs, pizza place, I’m just getting a cheese slice au natural. Given this rule I have, I decided to get the lox with cream cheese on a plain bagel, yes it actually was on the menu as lox, I wanted to high five them for that part alone!
The bagel was pretty delicious, very light which is good, not hard as a rock so bonus points there. It was bordering on too light though, almost didn’t even taste it with all of the other items in there. The lox was great, the cream cheese was good (meaning it wasn’t whipped), the capers are always awesome, and the onions were the best I've ever had. I don’t know if this is Japanese white onions but they had no bitterness, it was sweet with a great refreshing crunch but it didn’t make me want to gag on the after taste. The freshness and crunch of the onion was the taste I remember the most but overall it was really good. I don’t want to repeat food on this trip but if I did, I'd happily get this again.
After this I do my routine which is stopping at a vending machine and getting some liquids, this is also something I don’t want to repeat but this might have to change based on some items I got later in the day.
I get on the train and head to Akihabara (I think I misspell this every time I type it and have to go back and fix it, let’s see if this continues) but as I approach the stop, I see the sign for Ueno just two stops before it. I remember the previous day when I was with Rob and he said that Ueno Park was something I had to do and I figured why wait, i’ll get off the train and back on when I want to head to Akihabara (yup, messed up again typing it).
Man am I incredibly happy I decided to do this, Ueno Park is fantastic. This is the “yin” I spoke about earlier. The best way to show this off is through pictures and captions which I'll sum up afterwards, so enjoy… (but don’t skip all of the pictures, you’ll miss my possibly hilarious, hopefully insightful, yet always entertaining captions!)
Ok, at this point I'm getting hungry. It’s been a while since my bagel and it was so light that I never was full from it in the first place. Akiba also has all of the tiny alleyways I'm noticing Japan is famous for. Down one of these alleys was a place with the food shown in the window so I could point to order, my favorite kind of restaurant here in Japan!
I had no idea what I was ordering but from what I can tell, this is ramen, my first real ramen since I've been here and man, it was just ridiculously good! The noodles and broth were perfect and the veggies in the broth were heavenly. I even ate it correctly, I think I have Kevin to thank for teaching me how not to make a fool of myself eating soupy noodles in Japan.
Oh, and you’ll notice in my blog posts that I haven’t had sushi yet, that’s because I'm convinced Japanese people don’t eat sushi. Of all of the food places I see, 95% of them are places that serve food like the picture I showed above. They love meals eaten in broth. If you’re expecting a sushi restaurant on each corner like Starbucks in Seattle, you will be very surprised, but hopefully not disappointed.
Ah yes, this girl. I only took a picture of this one but if I took a picture of each one I saw, I’d have no room left on my camera for anything else. So these girls are there to invite men to go to what’s called a “maid cafe”. I’ll let Wikipedia explain to you what these are:
So there you go, not a prostitute or anything really bad, just something very Japanese. Worth noting is that these girls don’t even look in my direction but they do look at every Asian man that walks by. I guess I'm not their target market. Akiba had about 100 of these girls that I saw, like those porn slappers in Vegas but these girls are much much less sleazy.
I walk a bit more around the mall and see a map. It turns out I'm not that far from the Imperial Palace, this is where the emperor of Japan lives. How can I not walk over there? Even though it’s dark and I can’t see much I go over there. The entire palace has a moat around it, I love it.
Let me back up a bit. This part of Tokyo is very much like New York City. Big huge buildings for companies like Chase, Prudential, and Cisco. Walking here, I really feel like I'm down in Wall Street in Manhattan. This is upscale and not a lot of neon, very different from what I've seen all throughout my trip so far and you definitely feel the difference of being in an upscale and affluent area compared to Shinjuku, Akiba, and Ikebukuro.
People are running on bike paths, eating at restaurants that aren't in back alleys, and mostly adults. I know I've only been here for 2 full days at this point but it was really really weird being in this type of environment where I'm not completely in sensory overload mode. It is so refreshing and it only gets better.
I see the Tokyo Tower in the distance, it seems close so I decide to walk to it. Boy was I wrong! On the way to the tower (which i’ll describe below), I see a park. I love city parks and try to go to as many as I can. This one was the Hibiya Park. I walk in and see a rock with steps going to the top. It’s about 50 feet high and at the top, there are smaller rocks to sit on. I am all alone, it’s night time, about 60 degrees with a mild breeze and I have “Our Finest Year” by Better Than Ezra playing on my MP3 player. I don’t know if it’s the music, the people playing tennis, the view of the city with the cherry blossoms in between me and the buildings, being up that high, or just something I can’t put my finger one, but it was at this moment I had my first “click” moment.
I hope I talk about these “click” moments more because these moments are where my mind goes completely blank and at that moment, I have 100% clarity on life and may or may not be overwhelmed enough at that moment to get choked up because of how awe-inspiring that moment is. These are the reasons I came Japan and it happened on day 2, what more could I ask for.
I leave this park with a sense of satisfaction like I haven’t had in a very very long time. I’m so at peace and relaxed and tranquil and serene and I keep saying “Thank you Japan” over an over to myself. These moments don’t happen often in life, you have to enjoy them when they do.
I stay at this park long enough, I need to move because the trains in Tokyo don’t run after midnight so you better be at your destination by then, if not, it’s taxi all the way and with my language barrier, I didn’t wanna chance it. I keep walking towards the Tokyo Tower, it’s a huge Eiffel Tower-esque beacon of light that you just walk towards. I thought it was close, it ends up being about 2 miles away in the opposite direction of the train station. I keep walking to it and it doesn’t seem to be getting any closer.
After about an hour of aimlessly walking towards the light, I get up close and it’s beautiful. I would’ve went to the top but since it was night, I couldn’t see something like Mt. Fuji, so I just enjoyed it from the ground.
I end up walking about 4 miles in Tokyo before I get back on the train to Ikebukuro. It was a lot of ground to cover but when there is so much to do and look at, it just flies by.
Looking through all of my pictures, I realize that today is over. My back and feet are killing me from walking so much but it’s nothing a shiatsu massage won’t fix!
I’m going to go to bed and let that “click” moment from earlier continue to marinate in my mind.
Oyasuminasai.
- DAK
The weather has completely changed from the day earlier when it was cold and rainy. Today it was about 65 degrees and sunny and as perfect as I could’ve asked for. Now let’s hope this continues and doesn’t change as fast as Florida weather.
Today was my second full day in Japan but since my first night on Sunday, I said I wanted to go to that New York bagel store I found. This morning, I finally did it. I gotta be honest, not bad. That might have something to do with the fact that I'm in Japan so I'm cutting them some slack but it wasn’t bad. Let me explain…
The thing that I always do whenever I go to a restaurant that has a food that I know very well, I get the completely standard basic item. If I go to a deli I get the pastrami on rye with deli mustard, if I go to an Italian restaurant, spaghetti with meatballs, pizza place, I’m just getting a cheese slice au natural. Given this rule I have, I decided to get the lox with cream cheese on a plain bagel, yes it actually was on the menu as lox, I wanted to high five them for that part alone!
The bagel was pretty delicious, very light which is good, not hard as a rock so bonus points there. It was bordering on too light though, almost didn’t even taste it with all of the other items in there. The lox was great, the cream cheese was good (meaning it wasn’t whipped), the capers are always awesome, and the onions were the best I've ever had. I don’t know if this is Japanese white onions but they had no bitterness, it was sweet with a great refreshing crunch but it didn’t make me want to gag on the after taste. The freshness and crunch of the onion was the taste I remember the most but overall it was really good. I don’t want to repeat food on this trip but if I did, I'd happily get this again.
After this I do my routine which is stopping at a vending machine and getting some liquids, this is also something I don’t want to repeat but this might have to change based on some items I got later in the day.
This was simply green tea, a little too strong for my taste but dawgunnit, I'm in Japan, I'll be having some green tea!
I get on the train and head to Akihabara (I think I misspell this every time I type it and have to go back and fix it, let’s see if this continues) but as I approach the stop, I see the sign for Ueno just two stops before it. I remember the previous day when I was with Rob and he said that Ueno Park was something I had to do and I figured why wait, i’ll get off the train and back on when I want to head to Akihabara (yup, messed up again typing it).
Man am I incredibly happy I decided to do this, Ueno Park is fantastic. This is the “yin” I spoke about earlier. The best way to show this off is through pictures and captions which I'll sum up afterwards, so enjoy… (but don’t skip all of the pictures, you’ll miss my possibly hilarious, hopefully insightful, yet always entertaining captions!)
I first walk into Ueno Park and it’s just beautiful. I see this guy dressed in red and how can I not stop to see what’s happening? He’s doing a magic show and it’s actually amazing, huge crowd watching him. Set to music with the water fountain behind him and sun out in full force, this was a pretty great experience to start Ueno Park.
Some stuff won’t get subtitles but you can still enjoy the beauty of the picture and ask questions about it in the comments. Odds are I have the same questions!
These are wooden Shinto wishing tablets called “ema”.
Incense outside of one of the small temple seen below. This smell actually reached pretty far but out in the wide open combined with the fresh clean air, it was really nice.
You better believe that the symbol on the left and right side of this picture is a tri-force and not because Nintendo paid for this shrine, but apparently it’s a religious symbol. Ok America, you all thought my tattoo was lame and stupid, at least now it’s more than just from a videogame!
This is technically the first temple I went to on this trip so far. Once I get to Kyoto, I think everyone will be sick of seeing pictures of them, enjoy it while you can!
Ueno Park has a huge pond that was full of these 1970’s designed boats and it was pretty packed but so nice and tranquil and serene. Oh, also, the girl is paddling this boat, I just thought that was worth pointing out to show a bit of the male dominated culture out here.
The pond was full of this kind of duck and how freakin’ cool, it has a mullet!
You can find this stuff in the USA but I never had it until this trip and I was so excited to try it. I didn’t know what to expect. I opened it up and took a sip and instantly fell in love. It’s like a liquefied creamsicle! I was also very happy to say that I walked a few extra blocks to get it and found it for 30 Yen less than what I was normally seeing it for thank you very much. Being a good comparison shopper still works on vacation!
Anyone have any idea what kind of fish these were? I have no clue.
The cherry blossoms are in full effect and are really very beautiful and peaceful.
I continue walking around Ueno Park a bit longer because the streets just outside of the park are residential and I have a huge love of walking around Japanese residential areas. These parts of the towns are just amazing to see with your own eyes because it’s exactly what you think it should look like. They are quiet, not huge, very narrow streets, and architecturally beautiful in the way that they really keep their Japanese tradition and culture intact. Doesn't seem like gentrification is hitting here like it does in the states.
After a while walking around, I decide in order to capitalize on the day, I should head over to Akihabara. I realized that there is more that I want to do in Tokyo than I have time for so I need to maximize the time I have.
I get on the train, it’s two short stops away and when I get off, I follow signs for “Akihabara Electric City”, it was at this moment that I was well aware that the yin that happened earlier was about to be balance perfectly with it’s yang. Akihabara (or Akiba as the locals call it) is just insanity. Picture Canal Street but bigger and more people and more confusing, oh, and with so much neon that you need sunglasses to look at the buildings.
I was nervous about Akiba because I knew this was my mecca, that I’d go broke here very very easily. Luckily this wasn’t the case and that is primarily due to the fact that I wanted so much, I could never finally figure out what to buy.
It’s electronic and videogame stores for as far as the eye can see. Everywhere you looked was computers, videogames, arcades, pachinko, and people. This was more intense than I was even lead to believe.
If you plug this into a computer, it will actually hump your USB drive. No I didn’t buy it. Why? Because I'm a stupid, stupid man and will regret not buying it for the rest of my life.
I love seeing stores that actually have a virtual boy still set up. I could’ve taken a million pictures of all the videogame stuff I saw and fell in love with but instead I just took the one below…
The Famicom version of the original Legend of Zelda. I was so close to buying this even though I can't actually play it back home.
I had no idea what I was ordering but from what I can tell, this is ramen, my first real ramen since I've been here and man, it was just ridiculously good! The noodles and broth were perfect and the veggies in the broth were heavenly. I even ate it correctly, I think I have Kevin to thank for teaching me how not to make a fool of myself eating soupy noodles in Japan.
Oh, and you’ll notice in my blog posts that I haven’t had sushi yet, that’s because I'm convinced Japanese people don’t eat sushi. Of all of the food places I see, 95% of them are places that serve food like the picture I showed above. They love meals eaten in broth. If you’re expecting a sushi restaurant on each corner like Starbucks in Seattle, you will be very surprised, but hopefully not disappointed.
Ah yes, this girl. I only took a picture of this one but if I took a picture of each one I saw, I’d have no room left on my camera for anything else. So these girls are there to invite men to go to what’s called a “maid cafe”. I’ll let Wikipedia explain to you what these are:
Maid cafés (メイドカフェ Meido kafe) are a subcategory of cosplay restaurants found predominantly in Japan. In these cafés, waitresses dressed in maid costumes act as servants, and treat customers as masters (and mistresses) in a private home, rather than as café patrons. The first maid café, Cure Maid Café, was established in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan in March 2001,[1] but maid cafés are becoming increasingly popular. As they have done so, the increased competition has made them become crazier in order to attract customers.[2] They have also expanded overseas to countries like China, Taiwan, Mexico, Canada and the United States.[3]
So there you go, not a prostitute or anything really bad, just something very Japanese. Worth noting is that these girls don’t even look in my direction but they do look at every Asian man that walks by. I guess I'm not their target market. Akiba had about 100 of these girls that I saw, like those porn slappers in Vegas but these girls are much much less sleazy.
In a world of neon and girls dressed as maids, even Japan can be pretentious!
Tokyo LOVES multi-story buildings with stores on each floor. The arcades use this very well with each floor serving a different purpose. The first is usually those grab machines, then as it goes up it gets smokier and more arcade-y. I went to a few of these and spent too much on games and eventually went cross-eyed and delirious from the sensory stimulation!
We’re getting netbooks in America that go to about 8.9”, Japan has ones that are about 5”. They love making their laptops super tiny…
…but for some reason they decided to super-size Tetris. Ah Japan, you crack me up, speaking of…
Ok, so as far as I can tell, the point of this game is for the husband/father to flip the table in anger with so much force that it knocks his wife and kids back against the kitchen wall and lights the house on fire. Can someone please make sure Japan never changes? It’s so perfect the way it is.
There was no reason to take this picture other than the fact that the building is called the Big Apple, that’s all, moving on.
Another vending machine grab bag. I picked this one out because it had red apples on it. I thought it would be tea with apples. It was actually almost exactly like a Snapple Apple and I love Snapple Apple so this, plus the Pocari Sweat means I am hitting home runs with these vending machines lately!
This just doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. I’m actually surprised that Seattle didn't come up with this idea first.
Pa Pa Crepe, these little mobile crape guys are all over Tokyo and I knew I had to get one. I got the blueberry cheesecake and it was…
…soooooooo good! BTW, quick aside, food in Japan, assuming you’re not going into restaurants and just eating like I am, is soo cheap. It’s amazing what you can get for less than $5! Quick cafeteria style eating is the way to go. If you want fancy Japanese, you really didn't need to leave America in the first place. Go to Japan for authentic food, served in alley's and off of street vendors!
The crepe was delicious and since it’s right outside of the train station, I figured this was a great way to end Akiba for the day. It’s about 8pm and because of these late night blog sessions, I’m super tired. I think about heading home and getting sleep. So I get on the train but decide to take the long route home just to see some new things I haven’t seen yet from the train. I take the train heading towards Tokyo (yes, everything is in Tokyo that I've done and will be doing but this is the capital of the city itself, where the government and major downtown business area is). I decide to get off at this stop, it’s early, and when will I be in Japan again to do the things I don’t do on this trip. Sleeping will have to come later, much much later.
I cannot explain how happy I am that I went on a whim and decided to get off at this train stop. Not a lot of pictures because it was so dark out but I'm going to do my best to explain to you what I went through while I was here.
First stop was the super upscale mall across from the train station for a quick trip to the little boys room (with fancy toilets of course). While here, I see this display set up for Panasonic electric shavers. I love these “only in Japan kinda moments” I keep having. You stand in front of this large TV and poof, it detects your face and puts a beard on you. Stay there long enough and eventually you see shaving cream being applied to your face, and then someone shaving it off with the electric shaver. It’s actually amazing technology. Below is the series of events to show you what happened since my description probably didn’t do the experience justice.
I paid my two bits, now where’s my haircut?
I walk a bit more around the mall and see a map. It turns out I'm not that far from the Imperial Palace, this is where the emperor of Japan lives. How can I not walk over there? Even though it’s dark and I can’t see much I go over there. The entire palace has a moat around it, I love it.
The Imperial Palace at night. They don’t let you get any close then this when the main gates are closed.
Let me back up a bit. This part of Tokyo is very much like New York City. Big huge buildings for companies like Chase, Prudential, and Cisco. Walking here, I really feel like I'm down in Wall Street in Manhattan. This is upscale and not a lot of neon, very different from what I've seen all throughout my trip so far and you definitely feel the difference of being in an upscale and affluent area compared to Shinjuku, Akiba, and Ikebukuro.
People are running on bike paths, eating at restaurants that aren't in back alleys, and mostly adults. I know I've only been here for 2 full days at this point but it was really really weird being in this type of environment where I'm not completely in sensory overload mode. It is so refreshing and it only gets better.
I see the Tokyo Tower in the distance, it seems close so I decide to walk to it. Boy was I wrong! On the way to the tower (which i’ll describe below), I see a park. I love city parks and try to go to as many as I can. This one was the Hibiya Park. I walk in and see a rock with steps going to the top. It’s about 50 feet high and at the top, there are smaller rocks to sit on. I am all alone, it’s night time, about 60 degrees with a mild breeze and I have “Our Finest Year” by Better Than Ezra playing on my MP3 player. I don’t know if it’s the music, the people playing tennis, the view of the city with the cherry blossoms in between me and the buildings, being up that high, or just something I can’t put my finger one, but it was at this moment I had my first “click” moment.
I hope I talk about these “click” moments more because these moments are where my mind goes completely blank and at that moment, I have 100% clarity on life and may or may not be overwhelmed enough at that moment to get choked up because of how awe-inspiring that moment is. These are the reasons I came Japan and it happened on day 2, what more could I ask for.
I leave this park with a sense of satisfaction like I haven’t had in a very very long time. I’m so at peace and relaxed and tranquil and serene and I keep saying “Thank you Japan” over an over to myself. These moments don’t happen often in life, you have to enjoy them when they do.
I stay at this park long enough, I need to move because the trains in Tokyo don’t run after midnight so you better be at your destination by then, if not, it’s taxi all the way and with my language barrier, I didn’t wanna chance it. I keep walking towards the Tokyo Tower, it’s a huge Eiffel Tower-esque beacon of light that you just walk towards. I thought it was close, it ends up being about 2 miles away in the opposite direction of the train station. I keep walking to it and it doesn’t seem to be getting any closer.
After about an hour of aimlessly walking towards the light, I get up close and it’s beautiful. I would’ve went to the top but since it was night, I couldn’t see something like Mt. Fuji, so I just enjoyed it from the ground.
This was right outside of the Tokyo Tower entrance, seemed Japanese enough that I had to take a picture of it.
On the way back from Tokyo Tower, I see a few random things along the way and while it’s getting very difficult to take pictures at night, I managed to get a few good ones…
Kikkoman headquarters FTW!!!
This is such a cool building, the side is completely covered in sideways plants. They are all planted in dirt in the building and then planted in it as if the side of the building is the ground you’d normally plant them in.
No, I'm not a giant, this is a mini shrine in Tokyo. I know they say Japanese people are short but come on, they’re my height!
I end up walking about 4 miles in Tokyo before I get back on the train to Ikebukuro. It was a lot of ground to cover but when there is so much to do and look at, it just flies by.
Looking through all of my pictures, I realize that today is over. My back and feet are killing me from walking so much but it’s nothing a shiatsu massage won’t fix!
And on that note, I say goodnight to you my loyal visitors. I am really testing your interest in my trip since tonight's blog post is even longer than yesterdays, something I didn’t think was possible but apparently it was.
I’m going to go to bed and let that “click” moment from earlier continue to marinate in my mind.
Oyasuminasai.
- DAK
