Day 7 - 10 - Our Somewhat Successful Trip to Tokyo Part 1

I woke up Thursday morning and was surprisingly not hung over from the previous evening. I went to the lab that morning, put my stuff down, and went to ask Matsumoto-san a bit more about the Tokyo Gaming Show. I had decided that we simply couldn't make it to the press day that Friday, so instead we would aim for Saturday morning. Joey was out somewhere so I walk over to our desk and begin to plan our trip. All of a sudden I catch a wiff of something gross and I have no clue where it's coming from. I'd just taken a shower that morning so it couldn't have been me. After looking around the room and breathing through my mouth for a few minutes, Joey waltzes over, gives me his usual "Oh hey Dane," and sits down. A few seconds later he begins telling me about his experience the previous night.

"...yeah, when we were leaving the bar they asked if anyone wanted to the squid jerky so I took it. I left it in my bag overnight and woke up this morning and realized it smelled, my room's probably gonna smell for a bit."

I put 2 and 2 together and determined where the foul stench was originating...

Fucking squid jerky.

Much of that day was spent not doing what I was supposed to and planning the trip to Tokyo. At about 5PM Chris, Tim, Clare and I decided to head over to Ishibashi and get some dinner. After our first walk through the only place we could see that we were comfortable ordering was McDonalds. It was getting late so we walked through again and settled on a pizza place. After all, what can go wrong with pizza?

Oh how naive Dane-san, how naive.

We get into the restaurant and naturally they don't speak English, so finally they show us to a table and hand us a menu. We start looking at the menu and aside from the headings (pizza, pasta, drinks) everything is in Japanese. That wasn't so bad since we figured we could pick anything on the pizza menu and we'd probably order a pizza of delicious, unconventional, and certainly questionable conent (really after delicious it's best you don't inquire about the unconventional and questionable). We make this decision, look at the prices, and realize we're about to drop a lot of money on some pizza, so we decide to get 2 pizzas instead of 4 and split them.

This was our first mistake of the evening. Firstly the pizzas were scarcely of medium size. Secondly, I have decided that if something's 3-4 times the price of a big mac, and is of unconventional and questionable content, you'd probably be better off with the big mac. Being very frustrated we decided to go ahead with the 30 dollars of pizza. We decided the cheapest thing on the menu would probably be cheese so we make the safe bet. We then randomly pointed at another pizza and made the adventurous one. The lady takes our order and walks off, only to come back about 5 minutes later.

After some poor Japanese, poor English, and failed hand gestures she calls over the manager. After more poor Japanese, poor English, and failed hand gestures we finally decide that they're trying to tell us we're 4 people and thus we need to order 4 things.

Second mistake of the evening. We order 4 things. We decide whatever, we're already here lets just get another pizza and some ice cream. At this point we probably should have just walked out rather than blowing some more money on food we new would not be worth the price. One by one the tiny pizzas come by and we devour them. The first two were just cheese (the second one might have had basil on it as well, it's difficult to tell) and the final one was cheese with some greens and proscuitto on the side. Finally the ice cream came out, which was actually very good and of a decent portion, but not worth the 7 bucks we paid for it. We devoured that as well and went and got the check. The grand total was about 60 bucks, which is a decent price for a set of neverending pasta bowls, but highway robbery for 3 quicklyending pizza pies and a cup of ice cream. As we left the place Tim told the waitress he was going to fire bomb the place to which she smiled and replied "Bye, Thank you!" We were all a bit ticked off after dinner so we went back to the dorm and decided to kill our bottle of smirnoff and go to sleep. In retrospect it wasn't that bad, especially since there are always zen barbers to make my evenings filled with happiness:



Friday - The Trip Begins...ish

Much of Friday morning was spent making sure everything was organized for the trip and that we knew where to go. 5PM rolls around, the time we usually leave the lab, and we decide to head out. Clothes? Check. Wallets? Check. Passports? Che...

Chris: "I was pretty sure I put it in my bag..."
Us: "Sigh..."

The original plan was to go to the major train station via one of the trains right next to the Chemical Engineering building on campus. Unfortunately to get to our dorm, and Chris's passport, we had to go to the train station on the other side of campus, and thus take a slightly longer route, as well as wait for Chris. We get to the station and see him off, after which we decide to get something to eat. After the previous night's debacle, Tim and I decide to head over to McDonalds (It would be my first since arriving in Japan. The second would come shortly thereafter). One of the great things about fast food in foreign countries is that the menus always have pictures, they sometimes have english, and that a "BigMacu" tastes the same no matter where you go (though I swear this one was more delicious than usual). Tim and I devoured these perfectly formed architectural masterpieces while the nearby a table of Japanese schoolgirls stared and giggled.

Incredibly satisfied, we left the golden arches to go find Clare and Joey, who happened to walk by at that very moment. We went over to the train where Chris would arrive. 6:30ish rolls around and Chris finally shows up, Joey wanders off to buy some pastries (it happens quite frequently), and the train rolls by. We all run to the train and start yelling for Joey so as not to waste any more time than we already have. He runs on over armed with 5 cups of some mushy coffee jelly that he gives to us.

At this point we're all in pretty bad moods because we were leaving 90 minutes later than planned, and it didn't help that the source of my next annoyance, Joey almost missing the train, was caused because he wanted buy us coffee jelly. I mean it's a nice gesture and all, except for the fact that I hate coffee.

So we get on the train, get to Umeda, and transfer to our final destination in Osaka where we all slide our tickets through the machines. All of us except for Joey. We turn around and all we can see is Joey walking back and forth around the train station, as if he's looking for something. He goes to the trash and is about to throw away his desert box, but then pauses to check inside of it. He then tosses it away and starts pacing again before checking his pockets again. After witnessing this for about 10 minutes we finally ask him what the hell he's doing.

Joey: "Uh...I think I lost my train ticket"
Dane: "So go to the freaking service counter! The sign's right on top of you, it's even in
English!"

30 seconds later Joey's reunited with our jolly, but at present time slightly more irrate, band of engineers. After this we walk on over to buy the shinkansen tickets and as usual have no clue what we're doing. We finally manage to ask an attendant in broken Japanese where we buy the tickets, after which he points to the ticket machine. Then after looking hopelessly for a minute more he walks by and presses the English button. Oh. We buy our tickets and make our way to the train where we all finally got a bit of peace, quiet, and separation from each other. The shinkansen is the Japanese bullet train. It's actually really nice. The seats are both comfy and incredibly spacious, and the ride is very smooth. I watched that evening's episode of Grey's Anatomy and read Frommers for most of the trip.

About 3 and a half hours later we got to Tokyo where we almost got off at the wrong station. The shinkansen stops in 2 places in Tokyo: one stop is in the southwest, and one is in the center. Not sure where we were, Tim used his best Japanese skills to ask a Japanese man sitting next to him if the next stop was Tokyo station, to which the man responded:

"Yes. The next station is Tokyo Station"

Awesome, we'd been in Tokyo barely 5 minutes and we already knew more natives that speak English than we do in all of Osaka. We asked him if he could tell us where to go to get to the Hostel and he said he'd come with us to the metro because his line connected to the one we had to get on. It was about 10PM at this point, and we immediately noticed how much busier Tokyo was than Osaka. The trains were more packed than I'd ever seen them, and so we squeezed into the train that would take us to our transfer spot. It was only 1 stop, and so we said goodbye to our guide and parted ways.

We made our way over to the next train that would take us to Asakusa where the hostel was, and prepared for the fun ahead: finding the place. I had printed out directions but we were a bit disoriented and they weren't completely clear. Leave the train station and head to some street (I forgot the name) and you'll see a huge red gate. We started walking towards what we thought was a gate but turned out not to be, so we decided to ask some people which direction the street was. It turned out to be the other direction so we started walking, and just when we thought this couldn't be right we saw it:


I guess it was pretty hard to miss. The next step in our scavenger hunt said to walk through the gate and we'd see a long walkway and to go through said walkway until you reach another gate.



After walking for quite a while we thought we'd done something wrong and so we asked a guy about the gate, which had a name, as well as the temple we were supposed to see. We decided to walk a bit longer at which point we knew we had to be in the right place:


that shot was taken in the day because my night shot was pretty crappy. The next step was to go around the temple and then go around a nearby amusement park. This part was a bit fuzzy, so we asked someone where to go and they pointed us in the direction of the hostel. After walking around some fence and through a dark alley we finally saw the hostel. We went in and it was actually really nice. We had an 8 person room to ourselves, and so after settling in I spent some time planning the trip to the Tokyo Game Show after which I passed out.