Anyone who is going to read my blog today expecting my typical very very long and detailed blog should probably walk away, because you won’t be happy about my post today. The crazy downpours from Osaka to Tokyo stopped me from pretty much doing anything, so overall the entire day was a wash, both literally and figuratively. Walking around was a nightmare and since Tokyo isn’t like Kyoto or Osaka and doesn’t have those covered outdoor malls, Tokyo really becomes shut down when it rains this much. I have some stuff to talk about but it’s probably 10% of a normal post for me. I’ll try artificially increasing the length of it but I can’t promise anything. Here goes nothing, sorry in advance…
I wake up in Osaka and have to pack up because I know I need to catch a train back to Tokyo. I don’t know why but it has rained every single day I moved from one city to another. It makes getting to new places very difficult and annoying. I realized the day was off to an ominous note with the weather being what it was especially coming off yesterday which had the most beautiful weather I've seen since I've been in Japan. I get up and hop on Skype to talk to my mom and dad since we had planned on doing that before I left for Tokyo. I’m only on about 5 hours of sleep since the blog kept me up super late the night before and I had to do my part 1 of packing that I always do the night before I leave.
I’m on Skype and it’s a good phone/video call. I am really tired though, I keep yawning and since it’s video, I get busted each time by my mom but it’s ok, I'm on 5 hours of sleep, it would be weird if I didn’t yawn. My parents tell me they love the blog and how everyone they told about it keeps reading it (sorry about today’s blog everyone). My dad tells me that he loves reading the stories, and in an he attempts to tell me a story about what’s been happening to him recently. He tells me that he was on his deck trying to swat a bug with his glasses in his hand and accidently jams himself in the nostril with the glasses. It’s a funny story, but about 4 hours later on the train I randomly burst out laughing thinking about it. If you know my dad, you know he has some klutz tendencies. There was one incident once while we were eating dinner on the deck that you had to be there for, I almost peed my pants laughing and as I write this, I laugh out loud at the thought of it, oh man.
Anyways, sorry for the tangent. I pack up my stuff and leave my hostel and walk outside and yup, pouring rain. Not light rain, not torrential, somewhere in between. Not the kind of weather that you want to be in. It rained like this when I was in Shinjuku last time but this is more persistent and colder and heavier rain. I see that place Festival Gate across the street that I talked about yesterday, I am really considering going in there since it’s abandoned but open but the weather stopped this from happening.
I get on the train at the station near my hostel and head to the main station in Osaka to catch the JR rail to Tokyo. I am not sure if I did this right but I took a JR train from Osaka to Kyoto to then go from Kyoto to Tokyo. I’m not sure if there was a direct from Osaka to Tokyo but it’s ok, it worked out, I'm here in Tokyo. Anyways, backing up the story a bit, before getting on the train I pick up this bento box for breakfast/lunch…
Hmm, lets see…rice of course with black sesame seeds. Not sure what that thing on top was, I don’t remember it being great. Next to it was what tasted like bbq pork which was great. The purple thing above it that I thought was a fish cake wasn’t a fish cake, it was some sort of root vegetable. Next to the pork was a sweet potato, carrot, random bean (I didn’t like it so I'm assuming it’s the same bean in the steamed bun I hated from last week), string bean, and some picked items. Oh, the red cap on the bottom was a mini soy sauce. The fish there was great, I don’t know what kind of fish it was though. It had the bones still in it so it was fun standing up with chopsticks trying to get the meat from the bones. I am happy to report I did it successfully though, thank you very much.
My drink was a hot green tea. I love that hot tea comes in bottles here and the bottle itself is warm. I put it in my back pocket since I didn’t have any free hands so my buns were kept warm like on a toilet…
I eat all of this before getting on the train because i would actually eat this stuff standing up that trying to eat it on the train where space is very limited, especially in the non-reserved section that I sit in. I get on the train and much to my surprise, I get a seat with an open seat next to me for my luggage. I snapped a picture of me and the train behind me from the seat I'm talking about.
I tried this picture several times, I love that one of the times there was a guy walking down the aisle and actually looked right into the camera.
At the first station, the person sitting alone in the section next to me leaves. This is a set of two seats compared to the set of 3 seats I'm in right now. It’s 3 and 2 all the way up and down the train as far as how many seats there are. I took over his seat and sat next to the window and gave the other seat to my luggage. I would’ve moved it if someone needed it but no one ever did, thankfully, cause my luggage is mighty big!
I snap a few more pictures on the train and even a video, very similar to one from last week.
Ok, so here is the story behind this picture. A mom and her daughter were walking on the train to get some food, and while they were gone, I snapped this picture. I wanted to show how big their cell phones are. Everyone has cell phones this big. All of Japan's technology is getting smaller and smaller yet for some reason their cell phones remain huge, they look like the cell phones did in America in 1999! I look over peoples shoulders from time to time to see if the phone itself is special with some crazy futuristic technology and it doesn't appear so. I must be missing something, this is Japan, the technology capital of the world, how are their cell phones so dated? I do see some iPhones from time to time, I vomit a little each time I see them.
Ok, I get back to Tokyo and to my surprise, the train stops right at the station I need to get off. I don’t need to transfer at all, tada, I'm there! I try following the instructions that I got from hostelworld.com to find my hostel and of course the directions are horrible. It’s raining like crazy and I have my luggage and I'm getting lost and not having fun at all. This didn’t improve at all once I found my hostel. The hostel by the way was about 15 mins from the train, not convenient at all. Strike 1 of about 40 this hostel currently has, and counting.
To be fair, I’ve never stayed in a hostel. The hotel in Osaka was a hostel but it was basically a hotel with nothing at all about it resembling a hostel other than the fact that it’s on hostelworld.com. I get the hostel because I am told it’s something I needed to do. I got a private room which isn’t very hostel like of me to do but I don’t care, it’s not like being in a room with others would’ve made me enjoy this anymore.
I get to the hostel and have to take off my shoes. This part I'm ok with and actually want to start this rule in my own apartment. It’s official, anyone coming into my apartment has to take off their shoes. I will provide sandals and flip flops to anyone who comes over. I’m not going to start turning Japanese but there are some Japanese cultural traditions I plan on starting in my life like drinking tea, using chopsticks, being more dedicated to what I am doing in my life, putting eggs on noodles and rice!
Ok, back to the hostel. I get here and the guy at the lobby is out to lunch for an hour so I wait. Yes, this is strike 2. He gets back and he shows me to my room, after me paying 200 Yen for a US adapter for my computer (something the hostel in Osaka gave me for free) and 200 more Yen for a towel (something my last hostel gave me for free as well). Strike 3, yes, we are going to go well beyond 3, trust me. Here is my Japanese prison cell…I mean hostel room…
The bathroom is public, which for the record I didn’t even have when I was in college, even my dorm had private bathrooms. I’ve been holding off on peeing for the longest time because now I need to prepare to do that and make sure I am wearing pants since I have to walk around other people. I’m not looking forward to showering in the public shower. I was thinking of sneaking into a hotel pool around here and using theirs when no one is looking, I'm still thinking about it. The heater barely works. My bed and pillow are my desk seat. The one thing I do like is that it looks Japanese, and the low bed does seem very culturally accurate for what I think about when I picture a Japanese living situation. Ok, that was just me finding a silver lining in all of this.
I immediately want to leave the hostel so I put on my rain jacket and head to the train station. It’s still pouring but it’s ok, I didn’t want to see the hostel anymore. The train is annoyingly far away from the hostel so I am determined to find a shortcut. Unfortunately in my attempt to find a shortcut I hit a dead end but this is after walking for 15 mins. I am angry with myself for being stubborn and thinking that the hostel directions weren’t the best ones. I shouldn’t have done this and I walked a lot more than I should have and got soaked as my Karma payback.
After a long walk which basically puts me back to where I started, I get stuck behind a train crossing.
I FINALLY get back to the train station and get on board. I really don’t know what I plan on doing tonight, so I just head to Shinjuku assuming just walking around there will be awesome and I can’t really go wrong with it. It’s like Tokyo’s Dōtonbori but a lot more unsavory. I get there and it’s soaking wet, walking anywhere I get drenched in seconds. I duck back into the train station because I am starving and need a snack. Thinking I will be in Shinjuku longer, I just get some sweets to hold me over. I go to the food area in the train station (remember, the food courts in the train stations are amazing out here!) and I find a snack store. I get the following items…
All of this was 400 Yen, about $4.25! I love how much I get out here for so little!
I sat down to eat all of this, but that was not easy. I know I said that finding a garbage can in Japan was pretty much impossible, and it is, but finding an actual place to sit down anywhere is even more difficult. I really think that Japan wants to keep people up and active and never sit down. This is why people are always moving, they have no where to stop. I wanted to sit down so I can take pictures of all the food I got, instead I sit on the floor in the train station eating it. I did take a picture showing you that I'm sitting in a hallway eating like an animal.
I finish up these snacks and prepare myself to brave the elements for as long as I can. I decide to walk the streets of Shinjuku. Unlike Kyoto and Osaka, the streets here are never covered so it’s rain all the time. I walk around a bit, basically following the neon lights and droves of people. I snap some pictures to show you how unbelievably dismal it is out there.
You would think I'd be used to this living in Japan and I think I am but this is vacation, I don’t want to be used to rain on a vacation.
I stop to get a bite to eat because I am pretty sure I'm heading back for an early night. I know that Shinagawa has no good like all of the cities I've been in so far have had so I need to eat in Shinjuku. I want to make it quick and cheap and look at this, this entire meal was 250 Yen, about $2.65!
More beef strips on rice with onions and miso in the background. Oh, what’s weird is I went to a mall in Richmond, British Columbia and it was an Asian mall with Asian stores and Asian restaurants. All of the restaurants gave you tea instead of water. Asking for water was offensive. For some reason in Japan, it’s about 50/50 on the places that give me water and give me tea. I complained in Richmond about only getting tea but here in Japan I wish I got more of it!
Ok, as it gets darker, it’s only getting uglier out…
Ok, so I tried, I tried my best to stay out tonight but mother nature was being an absolute jerk. I decide this is enough, I had to go back to Shinagawa. I realize that Tokyo today is like a vacation to Hawaii with rain, all you can do is stay inside and play board games only me staying inside is horrible because I'm in a room where I can touch both side walls at once when I stretch out my arms.
On the way back, I try stopping at the very few things there is to do in Shinagawa. As you can see, I tried making the most of this night, I really truly did.
The Shinagawa train station. Since it is a big business area of Tokyo, the train station definitely is really really nice looking. There is the bright spot when it comes to Shinagawa.
On the way back to my hostel, I see the Prince Hotel which is a big hotel with a mall/entertainment complex attached to it. It’s indoors so you know I have to stop there just to get out of the rain and actually be able to do stuff.
That’s it for today. I guess I ranted enough to make this a decent size blog post which is impressive because I barely did anything today.
So here is tomorrows forecast…
So now I'm trying to figure out the indoor activities I can do in Tokyo tomorrow. Luckily I did everything in Tokyo I wanted to do last week, so now I can do stuff I didn’t think about, like go to an aquarium, art museum, or if I feel like heading out to Yokohama, I can see the ramen museum. That would be two food museums since I went to the takoyaki museum in Osaka. Either way, no more trying to brave the elements like I did tonight if the weather is anything like it was today. Ok, time to go to bed. I wonder if I'll get bread and water in the morning like in prison. Actually, I bet you here they’d charge for it, at least in prison it’s free!
Oyasuminasai.
- DAK
I wake up in Osaka and have to pack up because I know I need to catch a train back to Tokyo. I don’t know why but it has rained every single day I moved from one city to another. It makes getting to new places very difficult and annoying. I realized the day was off to an ominous note with the weather being what it was especially coming off yesterday which had the most beautiful weather I've seen since I've been in Japan. I get up and hop on Skype to talk to my mom and dad since we had planned on doing that before I left for Tokyo. I’m only on about 5 hours of sleep since the blog kept me up super late the night before and I had to do my part 1 of packing that I always do the night before I leave.
I’m on Skype and it’s a good phone/video call. I am really tired though, I keep yawning and since it’s video, I get busted each time by my mom but it’s ok, I'm on 5 hours of sleep, it would be weird if I didn’t yawn. My parents tell me they love the blog and how everyone they told about it keeps reading it (sorry about today’s blog everyone). My dad tells me that he loves reading the stories, and in an he attempts to tell me a story about what’s been happening to him recently. He tells me that he was on his deck trying to swat a bug with his glasses in his hand and accidently jams himself in the nostril with the glasses. It’s a funny story, but about 4 hours later on the train I randomly burst out laughing thinking about it. If you know my dad, you know he has some klutz tendencies. There was one incident once while we were eating dinner on the deck that you had to be there for, I almost peed my pants laughing and as I write this, I laugh out loud at the thought of it, oh man.
Anyways, sorry for the tangent. I pack up my stuff and leave my hostel and walk outside and yup, pouring rain. Not light rain, not torrential, somewhere in between. Not the kind of weather that you want to be in. It rained like this when I was in Shinjuku last time but this is more persistent and colder and heavier rain. I see that place Festival Gate across the street that I talked about yesterday, I am really considering going in there since it’s abandoned but open but the weather stopped this from happening.
I get on the train at the station near my hostel and head to the main station in Osaka to catch the JR rail to Tokyo. I am not sure if I did this right but I took a JR train from Osaka to Kyoto to then go from Kyoto to Tokyo. I’m not sure if there was a direct from Osaka to Tokyo but it’s ok, it worked out, I'm here in Tokyo. Anyways, backing up the story a bit, before getting on the train I pick up this bento box for breakfast/lunch…
My drink was a hot green tea. I love that hot tea comes in bottles here and the bottle itself is warm. I put it in my back pocket since I didn’t have any free hands so my buns were kept warm like on a toilet…
Say cheese! You’re now on a blog that is read by about 5 people a day!
At the first station, the person sitting alone in the section next to me leaves. This is a set of two seats compared to the set of 3 seats I'm in right now. It’s 3 and 2 all the way up and down the train as far as how many seats there are. I took over his seat and sat next to the window and gave the other seat to my luggage. I would’ve moved it if someone needed it but no one ever did, thankfully, cause my luggage is mighty big!
I snap a few more pictures on the train and even a video, very similar to one from last week.
I really love reflection pictures. The one from last week came out better but this one shows the ugly weather built up on the outside of the window.
Ok, so here is the story behind this picture. A mom and her daughter were walking on the train to get some food, and while they were gone, I snapped this picture. I wanted to show how big their cell phones are. Everyone has cell phones this big. All of Japan's technology is getting smaller and smaller yet for some reason their cell phones remain huge, they look like the cell phones did in America in 1999! I look over peoples shoulders from time to time to see if the phone itself is special with some crazy futuristic technology and it doesn't appear so. I must be missing something, this is Japan, the technology capital of the world, how are their cell phones so dated? I do see some iPhones from time to time, I vomit a little each time I see them.
I know I took a similar video of this the other day but my blog is light today so I'm filling it up. Besides, I think this video gives off a better sense of the speed of the train.
Ok, I get back to Tokyo and to my surprise, the train stops right at the station I need to get off. I don’t need to transfer at all, tada, I'm there! I try following the instructions that I got from hostelworld.com to find my hostel and of course the directions are horrible. It’s raining like crazy and I have my luggage and I'm getting lost and not having fun at all. This didn’t improve at all once I found my hostel. The hostel by the way was about 15 mins from the train, not convenient at all. Strike 1 of about 40 this hostel currently has, and counting.
To be fair, I’ve never stayed in a hostel. The hotel in Osaka was a hostel but it was basically a hotel with nothing at all about it resembling a hostel other than the fact that it’s on hostelworld.com. I get the hostel because I am told it’s something I needed to do. I got a private room which isn’t very hostel like of me to do but I don’t care, it’s not like being in a room with others would’ve made me enjoy this anymore.
I get to the hostel and have to take off my shoes. This part I'm ok with and actually want to start this rule in my own apartment. It’s official, anyone coming into my apartment has to take off their shoes. I will provide sandals and flip flops to anyone who comes over. I’m not going to start turning Japanese but there are some Japanese cultural traditions I plan on starting in my life like drinking tea, using chopsticks, being more dedicated to what I am doing in my life, putting eggs on noodles and rice!
Ok, back to the hostel. I get here and the guy at the lobby is out to lunch for an hour so I wait. Yes, this is strike 2. He gets back and he shows me to my room, after me paying 200 Yen for a US adapter for my computer (something the hostel in Osaka gave me for free) and 200 more Yen for a towel (something my last hostel gave me for free as well). Strike 3, yes, we are going to go well beyond 3, trust me. Here is my Japanese prison cell…I mean hostel room…
Yes, this is my entire room. I don't know why my voice is so high pitched, maybe it's because of the shock knowing that I am staying here and not a hotel in Ikebukuro instead. Eh, I'm in a real hostel so at least now when I say I hate hostels and they aren't for me, people will know I am saying that from experience.
Here is my full length mirror. Strike 48.
The bathroom is public, which for the record I didn’t even have when I was in college, even my dorm had private bathrooms. I’ve been holding off on peeing for the longest time because now I need to prepare to do that and make sure I am wearing pants since I have to walk around other people. I’m not looking forward to showering in the public shower. I was thinking of sneaking into a hotel pool around here and using theirs when no one is looking, I'm still thinking about it. The heater barely works. My bed and pillow are my desk seat. The one thing I do like is that it looks Japanese, and the low bed does seem very culturally accurate for what I think about when I picture a Japanese living situation. Ok, that was just me finding a silver lining in all of this.
I immediately want to leave the hostel so I put on my rain jacket and head to the train station. It’s still pouring but it’s ok, I didn’t want to see the hostel anymore. The train is annoyingly far away from the hostel so I am determined to find a shortcut. Unfortunately in my attempt to find a shortcut I hit a dead end but this is after walking for 15 mins. I am angry with myself for being stubborn and thinking that the hostel directions weren’t the best ones. I shouldn’t have done this and I walked a lot more than I should have and got soaked as my Karma payback.
After a long walk which basically puts me back to where I started, I get stuck behind a train crossing.
You gotta believe me when I say it took 15 mins for all the trains to stop crossing and the gates to finally go up. Standing in the rain while this happened was awesome!
I FINALLY get back to the train station and get on board. I really don’t know what I plan on doing tonight, so I just head to Shinjuku assuming just walking around there will be awesome and I can’t really go wrong with it. It’s like Tokyo’s Dōtonbori but a lot more unsavory. I get there and it’s soaking wet, walking anywhere I get drenched in seconds. I duck back into the train station because I am starving and need a snack. Thinking I will be in Shinjuku longer, I just get some sweets to hold me over. I go to the food area in the train station (remember, the food courts in the train stations are amazing out here!) and I find a snack store. I get the following items…
A green tea doughnut.
A Japanese scone the size of my hand!
See, it’s a scone inside.
I know, it says New York, but I don’t see what is New York about green apple and red apple tea, unless the apples were from New York which is very likely actually.
All of this was 400 Yen, about $4.25! I love how much I get out here for so little!
I sat down to eat all of this, but that was not easy. I know I said that finding a garbage can in Japan was pretty much impossible, and it is, but finding an actual place to sit down anywhere is even more difficult. I really think that Japan wants to keep people up and active and never sit down. This is why people are always moving, they have no where to stop. I wanted to sit down so I can take pictures of all the food I got, instead I sit on the floor in the train station eating it. I did take a picture showing you that I'm sitting in a hallway eating like an animal.
The chairs you see in this picture belonged to a restaurant, I couldn’t sit in them.
I finish up these snacks and prepare myself to brave the elements for as long as I can. I decide to walk the streets of Shinjuku. Unlike Kyoto and Osaka, the streets here are never covered so it’s rain all the time. I walk around a bit, basically following the neon lights and droves of people. I snap some pictures to show you how unbelievably dismal it is out there.
You would think I'd be used to this living in Japan and I think I am but this is vacation, I don’t want to be used to rain on a vacation.
I stop to get a bite to eat because I am pretty sure I'm heading back for an early night. I know that Shinagawa has no good like all of the cities I've been in so far have had so I need to eat in Shinjuku. I want to make it quick and cheap and look at this, this entire meal was 250 Yen, about $2.65!
More beef strips on rice with onions and miso in the background. Oh, what’s weird is I went to a mall in Richmond, British Columbia and it was an Asian mall with Asian stores and Asian restaurants. All of the restaurants gave you tea instead of water. Asking for water was offensive. For some reason in Japan, it’s about 50/50 on the places that give me water and give me tea. I complained in Richmond about only getting tea but here in Japan I wish I got more of it!
Ok, as it gets darker, it’s only getting uglier out…
The clouds are very low and I can’t believe this picture doesn’t have raindrops in it. I tried taking it quick so my camera wouldn’t get wet and I guess I did a good job. I was wet, luckily the camera was saved.
Umbrellas, a familiar site.
Ok, so I tried, I tried my best to stay out tonight but mother nature was being an absolute jerk. I decide this is enough, I had to go back to Shinagawa. I realize that Tokyo today is like a vacation to Hawaii with rain, all you can do is stay inside and play board games only me staying inside is horrible because I'm in a room where I can touch both side walls at once when I stretch out my arms.
On the way back, I try stopping at the very few things there is to do in Shinagawa. As you can see, I tried making the most of this night, I really truly did.
The Shinagawa train station. Since it is a big business area of Tokyo, the train station definitely is really really nice looking. There is the bright spot when it comes to Shinagawa.
On the way back to my hostel, I see the Prince Hotel which is a big hotel with a mall/entertainment complex attached to it. It’s indoors so you know I have to stop there just to get out of the rain and actually be able to do stuff.
This is one of the entrances for the Prince Hotel.
Here is the main entrance to the mall part of the Prince Hotel.
Of course there is a bowling alley in this entertainment complex. It’s so interesting, arcades and bowling alleys, two things that died a long time ago in America are still huge in Japan. I’m happy they are still big out here, they might be the only country keeping these things afloat!
This is a carousel in the Epson Aqua Stadium, a complex with a restaurant, aquarium, and a concert hall. This was inside the Prince Hotel mall, very impressive to have this inside of a mall that also has a huge movie theater and the bowling alley. All inside of a hotel, very impressive. It makes me so excited to walk back to my hostel.
This is a stain glass window in the Prince Hotel lobby.
This is my reaction to the rain, and the lack of things I was able to do today because of it, and also because I had to go back to the hostel for the night.
As the icing on the cake that was today, I was stopped again in the rain for about 15 mins by that dumb train crossing. Grr…
That’s it for today. I guess I ranted enough to make this a decent size blog post which is impressive because I barely did anything today.
So here is tomorrows forecast…
So now I'm trying to figure out the indoor activities I can do in Tokyo tomorrow. Luckily I did everything in Tokyo I wanted to do last week, so now I can do stuff I didn’t think about, like go to an aquarium, art museum, or if I feel like heading out to Yokohama, I can see the ramen museum. That would be two food museums since I went to the takoyaki museum in Osaka. Either way, no more trying to brave the elements like I did tonight if the weather is anything like it was today. Ok, time to go to bed. I wonder if I'll get bread and water in the morning like in prison. Actually, I bet you here they’d charge for it, at least in prison it’s free!
Oyasuminasai.
- DAK
