I opened my eyes around six in the morning and made the mistake of going to the toilet and fetching something to drink which meant I was fully awake rather than just bleary eyed and partially comatose. After getting showered and dressed, I tried to drill some Japanese into my brain (mostly to do with ordering food and asking for a table) then wandered down to the hotel restaurant around seven. Even at such an uncivilised hour the place was packed, including a group of noisy, middle-aged women sitting opposite me. Using a breakfast voucher obtained from the front desk, I munched on some sort of fish (potentially salmon though it could have been anything), broth and a pair of very neatly fried eggs. After eating and helping myself to some odd tasting fruit juice, I sauntered back up to my room – unsure as to the etiquette of leaving when I didn’t have to pay. The hotel lobby sported a couple of Dell Vostro 1000 laptops which let me post an update to Facebook and also bash out a blog post; part of the way through writing the post I managed to switch the keyboard into Japanese mode which took and embarrassing amount of jiggery pokery to switch off. Handy hint: aim for the key that has purely Japanese writing on it and is in a position you don’t recognise. Read full post »
My train to Narita airport leaves in just over three quarters of an hour and I’ve just filled myself with an assortment of breakfast foods (and some not breakfast foods, seriously – hamburgers?) so some random bits and bobs as they come to me:
- Shinjuku station on a Saturday – bleh
- Shinjuku station on a Saturday night while squiffy and trying to get from east to west – bleh
- My bag is the densest thing in the universe, its gravitational field has already claimed my sanity
- Akihabara – noisy
- DVDs – expensive
- CDs – my addiction
Now for 1.5 hours on a train, 12 hours on a plane, 2 hours in an airport, 1.5 hours on a plane and 40 minutes on a train (and 15 minutes in a taxi most likely). Homeward bound.
Hit Akihabara yesterday but got there early (before 9am) which meant that everything was closed but it meant I could explored the strip without the crowd. Went into a coffee shop for a spell before going to a couple of arcades once they were open. Also couldn’t help going into shops like AsoBitCity and Sofmap as it seemed a waste not to…
After that went to Harajuku for food then wandering the back streets where I got thoroughly trapped in a people jam. Headed back to the hotel with blisters playing up then went to Hie-jinja for a bed of sedate cherry blossom watching, a big difference from the crowds of Ueno.
Met up with the rest of the group in the evening and had some excellent food and drinks. Evidently still had jet lag as I was up at half two in the morning! Cest la vie. First day of the full tour now. Tsukiji was earlier (much earlier) for some awesome sushi.
N.B. This was written shortly after I returned and will be rewritten as and when I get time.
Heading back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen took about 3 hours which meant we had the entire afternoon to do any shopping and so forth. So I took another stab at heading to Akihabara, this time using the overland trains. This was a wise move as the shops are all around the overland station rather than the subway station I got before.
Before long I’d found Gamers (let me tell you, searching for that on the tinterweb is not easy) as well as another similar store called AsoBitCity. I could have spent twice as long and three times as much in those places, however my luggage was stuffed when I came to Japan so space was an issue, suffice to say I picked up some nice swag.
The hotel we were staying it was smack bang in the middle of Shinjuku, Shinjuku station is the busiest in the world and sees around 2 million people pass through it every day so of course I went and got lost in it. Interesting station, lots to look at, but at rush hour and a bag full of purchases, I really just wanted to get back.
No sooner than I had did we head out for our last meal which was on the most unhealthy for the entire trip. Basically, you go to a counter and get a lot of stuff on wooden skewers (meat, veg, dumplings etc.). Then, at your counter-top table, you have a bowl of breadcrumbs, a bowl of batter, and a friar. Fried stuff on sticks!
After that our tour leader took a few of us to karaoke where I proceeded to slaughter some songs, after which we all wandered around Shinjuku, skirting the red light district. Let me tell you, no one does prostitutes like Japan, you have a board in front of a seedy little place, and you basically go in, point to the board at the girl you want, then go do your thing. Only Japan could organise prostitution like that.
After drinking at an “English” pub for a while, we all stumbled back to the hotel at about 2am, for which I had to be up at 6am to catch my train to Narita for my flight back.
Cherry blossoms at Hie-jinja
Sakura in Hei-jinja
Hei-jinja
Hie-jinja against a skyscraper
Miko at Hei-jinja
Cranes around Hei-jinja
Torii corridor at Hie-jinja
Torii tunnel at Hei-jinja
Torii
Torii gate at Hei-jinja
Sacred BMW
Sake barrels outside Hie-jinja
Entrance to Hei-jinja
