Kyoto was a great first Japanese destination. It's a fabulous city! So fabulous, that we spent most of Sunday (9/11) exploring further into its culture and sights. However, because we spent most of Sunday in Kyoto and had another 2+ hour train ride ahead of us, we were going to have to explore Toyko at speeds similar to the Shinkansen due to our limited time in Japan. Not too much of a bother! We had a plan!
Shannon planned out the sights and stops in Kyoto, and I was responsible for Tokyo. Noooo problem that it's the biggest city in the world. I can handle that, nooooo sweat. :-l
I used a few minutes of the train ride to map out a general idea of how to attack the city. The first order of business had us dropping off our luggage, grabbing a quick shower or whatever we needed to clean up at the hotel - yes, that's right, I said HOTEL! with huge, glorious beds, room service, and a private bathroom equipped with shower and tub. All the perks!! It even had the extra charm of requiring us to pass through a secruity check point everytime we wanted to enter the building. That's what you get when you stay at a fancy military hotel! - Then it was back out on the streets and rails making our way into Shibuya for some dinner and a walk around Shibuya Crossing.
My plan was to get there, have a look around the intersection, lit up so bright you'd have to squint, watch girls (and boys) walk by dressed-up in all their flair and glamour, and find a sushi-go-round restaurant for dinner.
The plan was a half-fail.
The intersection was not lit up. In fact it was so unlit that it was nearly dark. I'd guess this had to do with all the recent disasters Japan had suffered. Throughout the country various techniques were being employeed to conserver engery and save money (I'm not sure you would see that in America. I don't think that the land of capitalism would allow billboards to NYC to go dark so that the country could save. Not if it meant they'd lose Xmillion/billion in potential ad-driven revenue. That's something to be appauled Japan), but we were able to have a stroll through the area nonetheless and even got to ask a group of punk, pierced, androgenous girls where we could find a sushi place.
They directed us just up the road a bit to a diner that left the imagination questioning, but the stomach so, sooo happy. I LOVE sushi, but haven't had any in nearly 7 months. It was absolutely amazing to have it again. And the real stuff. So fantastic!!
After dinner we went for another little walk around the area, but decided to make it an early night since the following morning Shannon and I were planning to get up at 5am to head over to Ryogoku to try and see Sumo wrestlers or (even better) get tickets to see the tournament!
This plan was another half-fail.
I did get up at 5am, but instead of going anywhere I just called the front desk to ask them what they knew about getting Sumo tickets. However, they were unhelpful, merely instructed me to call back at 7am, when the tourism agent would be at her desk. 7!! Two hours later!! We could miss seeing fat men bumping into each other by waiting another two hours!!!! But I was tired. Shannon wasn't even up. Getting up then meant taking the metro out to Ryogoku to maybe/maybe not get tickets and then being out all day... so... we stayed in bed. We'd risk it. Plus sleeping is so incredibly nice to do, why miss some of it for fat me?!
Luckily we didn't have to miss either. We were able to sleep in a little more and still manage to secure seats to the Sumo tournament that day. Which, Japan, I do have to fault you here. Ticket sales had closed the week before, and nowhere was I finding an alturnative means to purchase some. I was getting a bit scared. All I wanted out of Japan was to see fat men wrestle! And all the research I did led me to believe that the only chance I'd have to see fat men was if I got up with the sun and went peering through windows like the neighborhood peeping Tom! When in fact!! You didn't have to be Tom at all. No need to stress that ticket weren't available online, because all the tickets you could want were still on sale at the ticket office! Brilliant! I'll take one! Charge some yen to my credit card and I was in! See you at 4 fat men!
Tickets successfully obtained we left Ryogoku and headed to Asakusa to see Senso-ji Temple and Asakusa-Jinja Shrine. Again, Asia posts no information about what you're seeing or why you should be seeing it. But the Temple and Shrine were gorgeous. People were packed in there making offerings, sending out prayers, waving incense over their body and generally just being spiritual. Shannon and I had a go with the fortune sticks, which was an interest experience. You were suppose to "politely" shake the box contain the sticks while praying for your wish (my wish - to find direction in life), a stick with a number would fall out and you would use that stick to locate the drawer containing your fortune. So I did as instructed, shook politely while wishing for direction and stick #74 fell out.
No. 74 BAD FORTUNE
You should know that there may be some bad people like a snake or tiger (coincidentally a tiger is my favorite animal, IDK what that means for Shinto prophecies and me lining up, but...) that hurt you. The chinese letter, two tails for one bull means to loose everything. When the people get pleasure, there happened to be some interference by others, which is obstacle for peace union of the people. The upper and the lower do not meet so well, means a family being out of joint.
*Your request will not be granted. *The sick patient is hopeless. *The lost article will not be found. *The person you wait for will not come. *Building a new house and removal are both bad. *Marriage of any kind, to start a trip and new employment are all bad.
Alright! Awesome. Good news. Great stuff. WTFFFFFF?!?!!!
I tried it again. The second time two sticks fell out. What's this!? Another bad fortune and a good fortune. FML. I choose to keep my original bad fortune though, and tied the other two to the stand for the monks to collect later. Things can only get better from bad, right? There's no below bad, at least not with these fortune papers! So here's to some bad stuff coming, and then the good! Thanks Senso-ji!
From there we metroed over to Otemachi to have a walk past the Imperial Palace. I say walk past because it was closed. We got to snap some photos outside, have a little lunch and then carried on to the Meiji Shrine. Unfortunately, we didn't know what we were seeing at Meiji, so we didn't actually get to see the the majority of it. We saw the torii gates, 40 ft high made from 1,700-yr-old Taiwanese cypress trees, but we didn't reach the Shrine. I'm going to blame this on half lack of signs and half lack of knowledge. Rats!
But it was ok, because it was SUMO time!! Back on the metro and we were handing our tickets over and finding our seats to enjoy fat men wrestling!! It was awesome!! AND!!! for once!!! we were giving LOADS of information!! Scorecards, etiquette guides, background information. We had it all!! We were finally seeing something that we could understand - for the most part. It was cool to see, I don't really get the appeal of sumo as a sport, but definitely still cool! For a few hours, in 4 minute intervals, we watched these huge men squat, touch the ground, stand up, smack their bellies, throw salt, squat, touch, stand up... Then FIGHT! Highlight of my trip!
With just a few hours left in Tokyo, we headed back to the hotel to meet up with Dave and head over to Roppongi for dinner and then move on to Shinkuju for drinks and people watching. We never made it to Shinkuju though. Dinner was a night ender.
We had done really well on this trip and had only eaten Japanese, so for our last meal for went for Japanese again! Shannon had mentioned that she'd like to go to a nice restaurant and have a "dining experience". So I had a look through my guidebook and found Inakaya - "The style here is robatayaki, a dining experience that segues into pure theater" (Fodor's). The price markers indicated that it'd be a little pricey, but it was our last meal and exactly what we were looking for.
And it was incredible! Everything I ate was beyond delicious! Asparagus - amazing. Acorns - amazing. Shrimp the size of fish - amazing. Ugly red fish with bug eyes - amazing. By far, by leaps and bounds and worlds and oceans, the best meal I've EVER had!! And to top things off, at the end of the meal they handed us a photo album containing pictures of all sorts of celebrities who had eaten there: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Keri Russell, Ejiah Wood, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, AND!!! SARAH JESSICA PARKER!! Amazing!!! Such an amazing restaurant.
Then they handed us the bill. Not amazing. It was like they took back the meal and my stomach. 55,400 yen. That's $720.00! Seven HUNDRED and twenty dollars! For a meal!!! For. A. Meal?! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!
Forget drinks. That ended the night! I couldn't even speak for a few minutes! $720!!! Never in my life!! To recover from the shock we had a little walk towards Tokyo Tower and then stopped at an Irish pub for have a drink. $720!!!!! That's just so nuts!! We didn't go to Shinkuju, instead we went to Family Mart, got a few cheap drinks and headed back to the hotel to unwind and wrap up the trip.
It was such a great trip!! I had to do some wiki reading and guidebook referencing to learn about what I saw, but it was great trip. Good to get away (again).
Great post!!! I loved very part of it... You really should consider writing a book when you are have some free time from all your adventures! I will however, avoid that restaurant when I travel to Japan! You made me laugh and smile this morning, so thank youx!
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