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Big Hero 6 hurts my heart in a good way--San Fransokyo makes me so nostalgic for Japan! ><

Return to Tokyo

In Tokyo, I was happy to be reunited with my winter parka that I'd left there on the first day! I had to leave it with the rest of my luggage in the lobby, though, since our rooms wouldn't be ready for another two hours. Luckily, in Japan people are a lot more trustworthy and respectful, so even though I had a lock on everything and the keys with me, I didn't really need to worry about anyone stealing anything. It would reflect badly on the hotel if any of the staff stole from a guest, after all!

Later that day we met up with two of Professor Hoffert's former students named Nicole and Rachel who had been living in Japan for about six years now. We headed for Takeshita Street, the busiest place we'd been to in Japan! There are so many people that you constantly have to weave through the crowds and there are no cars or bikes. Here is one of Professor Hoffert's photos, to give you an idea:

It was so packed, I didn't even want to risk getting out my camera since my elbows had to stay pinned to my sides to get through! Lunch was crepes--there were three different shops all next to one another (I hope they realize that's bad for business!), and I didn't even know which one I was in line for--I just looked at the options in the window and ordered the strawberry cheesecake crepe when I got to the counter!

As promised, it was delicious! Afterwards, Rachel was very nice and took me around different stores so I could try to find a nice heavy and warm sweater. I realized it could have come in handy a lot earlier on the trip, but at least now I'd have something warm and cozy to bring back to America for our brutal winters! If you've ever tried shopping as a girl in America for winter clothes, it's almost impossible. All the clothes are insufficient because they're too darn thin!! I eventually bought a lovely mint green sweater, and although the style in Japan right now is long sleeves but a short waist, it turned out to be perfect on me the next day!

Next we headed to Shibuya. It was quite hilarious what happened as we were walking down the street--Noel, Diego, and Drew all saw a poster for Burger King advertising the famous (I kid you not) black burger, ran over to the window squealing, "we found it!!" and then formed a circle and started hopping up and down in joy. It was a sight to behold!

Of course, they had to go inside and try it! I explained to them that it's black because it's made with squid ink, considered a delicacy in Japan even though it sounds weird to us. Then again, do we really eat squids themselves that often in America? Don't judge! xD

We also went into a multi-floor game arcade (the struggle is real), and had our picture taken in a photo booth with options to beautify yourself like giving everyone shiny eyes, smooth skin,or cat whiskers.

Originally we had also tried to go to the Pokemon Center, but it was closed before we arrived and we'd have to try again tomorrow. I was a little worried crossing the street.......it is the busiest crossing in the world, and it's an intimidating sight just seeing all the people lined up to cross on the other side! It looks like racehorses!

Instead, Professor Hoffert took us to @home Maid Café in Akihabara! We were in Japan for the last night out on the town, so why not? We had to wait quite a while, and it was pricey enough that we could only order drinks, but it was worth the experience! With the entrance fee of $20 we could order any drink we wanted, get a commemorative photo with whichever maid we wanted, and of course, get waited on by a maid. There were strict rules, though; obvious things like don't physically touch the maids in any way, no photos inside of the maids or the decor, etc.

I sat at a booth with Jasmine, Alyssa, Riley, Diego (who was kind enough to carry my backpack that was too heavy for me at that point), and Professor Hoffert. Drew and Noel were at a separate long table not too far away.

It was adorable when the maids brought our drinks! She would doodle whatever we wanted on the foam, so I asked for a panda on top of my iced mocha, then she had us chant with her, "moe moe kyun!" The maids called us up by name (guys were "masters" and girls were "princesses") to take a photo with us. We could even choose props and what pose we wanted!

At the very end of the night, we stopped for a real dinner at a ramen shop outside the station. It was a wonderful return to Tokyo, and we'd definitely had as much fun as we could handle that last night!

#tokyo #Dterm Japan

Day 1: Arrival in Tokyo

It was an exciting experience to wake up in Japan—it’s on the other side of the world when everyone at home is probably asleep with the time difference. It wasn’t hard since I still had a bit of jet lag, so I opened my eyes about half an hour before the alarm went off feeling well rested. I couldn’t fall asleep on the plane completely since I wasn’t used to it—I’ve only been on an airplane once before when I was nine going to Seattle. The inside of the hotel room was very nice and clean, but it was a lot smaller than in America. It was cramped and upon arrival it took a bit of maneuvering to get my biggest suitcase inside, and the beds were tiny and very low to the ground. Still, the room was very comfortable and cozy once I got settled in! When I got out of bed I found an electronic hot pot already filled with water for boiling water, and I thankfully turned it on for two cups of green tea while my roommate and I got ready.

Downstairs, the hotel staff were ready to welcome hotel guests at the entrance of the breakfast room with a friendly, “Ohaiyo gozaimasu!” We turned in the breakfast coupons we’d found on the little table inside our rooms and the lady who’d greeted us explained where everything was. After I picked up a tray, the first wall was lined with western style options, so I grabbed some bread and marmalade, an omelet, and sausage. Around the corner was a coffee station and more Japanese options like tamago (sweet egg rolls), nori (seaweed), natto(fermented soybeans that I unfortunately mistook for pudding—it wasn’t), and other things I’d never seen before. On the other side of the room was a big pot of cooked rice with a paddle to scoop it into the small bowls stacked beside it.

After breakfast we were on our way to the city. We couldn’t have asked for a better day—it was sunny without a cloud in the sky, and in the fifties or sixties of degrees! I hardly even needed my hooded jacket until a bit later.

We were so excited to ride on the train!! It might have been a minor thing, but it was all so new and so different from the American metra trains! I had already been amazed walking around the city as we left the hotel—I was thrilled to be looking around a Japanese city (in the daytime when I could actually see it!) and it finally felt like we were in a different country! The night before we’d been on a regular train and had to be packed so tight we almost needed a pusher—yes, it’s someone’s job to push people into the train so that everyone will fit. This morning there was a lot more room and we could enjoy the ride instead of trying to sit on our suitcases to take up less space. Our eyes were glued to the window and we were taking pictures left and right, to the point that the conductor drew the little curtain to block him from our view. Oops!

On our way out of the train station, there was a wall with a big tribute to sumo wrestlers. There were several rows of handprints of famous wrestlers, and measurements of famous wrestlers to compare your own height. It felt good to be a tourist in a big group—we got to be excited together as we took photos and acted silly, and we don’t have to feel particularly bothered about how others think of us since we’re not alone.

Our first destination of the day was the Edo-Tokyo Museum. It showed how Tokyo had first begun as the military government was established in Edo, the original name for Tokyo. The Shogun, the military leaders who ruled with a dictatorship under the Emperor, lived in the Castle there while a giant city emerged around it for the samurai and other townsfolk. It was made mostly of wood, and the first Japanese firefighting squads developed to keep the damage to a minimum. After Edo had been established, it had a peaceful period during which it perfected Japanese art forms like watercolor or wood blocking prints. As time went on, however, westerners finally were accepted into Japan in an attempt to make Japan more “modern.” At the time, Japan was considered more “primitive” and they were convinced that they needed to be educated about the west to catch up with the modern movement. While many Japanese opposed western influence, as they struggled to survive the rapidly changing world around them and gradually became fascinated as they studied what the other part of the world had to offer. They received all new forms of technology, fashion, food, and social structure began to change as well as women became more active in society. Japan faced somewhat of an identity crisis in this time—they wanted to keep an essence of heart of what it means to be “Japanese,” but they also wanted to perfect the new culture being shown to them and adapt it to make it their own.

Afterwards we headed to Akihabara, a city famous for its big appeal to otaku culture, so it proved to be a very interesting ordeal!

In Akihabara we only had an hour to find lunch, and it was tempting to just wait until the next location since there was so much to see! Billboards, posters, and other ads were plastered over the streets, and everywhere I looked shops eagerly waited for people to come inside.

On our search for lunch, we had the misfortune of an uncomfortable encounter. As we were waiting to cross the street at one of the intersections, the guy in our group had gotten ahead of us, so we were approached by an older man. He was very brazen and tried to chat us up in addition to unwanted physical contact such as touching shoulders or foreheads, to which I tried to smack his hand away from the other girls as I tried to explain to him that we were exchange students from abroad and didn’t speak Japanese fluently. It got very awkward very fast since he seemed to start talking in more complex sentences and insulting us at the same time that he was making a pass at us. The guy in our group finally came back to get us and the man withdrew a bit, but he didn’t go away. I soon gave up trying to understand him, and I didn’t want to listen to him insult us anymore, so I tried to hastily excuse ourselves. I kept telling him that we didn’t understand, goodbye, as he persisted. I eventually just pulled one of the girls in our group by the arm and told everyone to start walking away briskly. I told them in Japanese to come on, let’s go find some lunch.

I was upset that such a disrespectful man had approached us. I was upset that we didn’t know enough Japanese to properly understand him or tell him off, and that he’d apparently been taking advantage of this fact to insult us as Americans who shouldn’t be in Japan if we couldn’t speak the language (that was the gist of what I understood from what he was saying). At least he didn’t follow us and we didn’t run into any more trouble.

I’d heard that despite the Japanese in general being very polite and respectful as a nation, there is still quite a problem with perverts and molesters. Particularly on the trains, it isn’t uncommon to be groped by such individuals. More disturbing than this is the fact that rape is not illegal in Japan. For whatever reason, it is just accepted as something that happens, and there are no legal consequences. However, there are female-only cars in the train system to prevent instances like these from happening. And if American tourists happen to be there, you can bet we’ll do something if we see something happening right in front of us.

For lunch, we decided on a Christmas cosplay restaurant that let guests into an assigned room. We could have a private space to sing karaoke (which we were excited about and would have tried if we had more time), which we decided to try once we had everyone together closer to the end of the trip. The waitresses were very accommodating to us—they let us take our time deciding what we wanted, and knew enough English to help us if we didn’t know what something was. We were surprised how quick the service was! Within two or three minutes, our food was brought out, even the complex dishes! Everything tasted amazing, and we were sad that we were already short on time and had to leave with the food half finished. I would have loved to stay and eat all of it.

Afterwards, we visited a very famous and one of the biggest shrines in all of Japan, the Yasukuni Shrine, commemorating anyone who died to protect the empire of Japan or those who died in war. It is said to hold their souls inside the shrine, and everyone is considered equal to appreciate them in the same way as when they were alive. The gates are enormous and were very picturesque when I looked down the road. It was like we’d stepped back into fall, and all the trees had their leaves again. As our first official shrine, we had to learn the etiquette. Almost every shrine has a running fountain station with ladles to “purify” yourself. You scoop water using the ladle to rinse first your left hand, then right, finally taking a sip to rinse your mouth before spitting it out into the trough. There are always collection boxes in front of the alter and 100 yen sticks of incense to burn if you want to pray to the dieties. Out of respect, we always bowed before the alter and most people in our group always make donations of about 5 or ten yen—whatever they can afford. There are small stands that sell charms for many various uses like traffic safety, academic success, a good love life, or just well-being in general.

Connected to the shrine was the Tokyo war memorial museum. During most of the Meiji era, Japan tried to form an alliance with the other Asian countries to stand strong against the west, and even though the alliance didn’t fall through, it was another step to unifying Japan as a nation all its own. Everyone is made equal in death, and everyone is treated with mutual respect. The emperor of the era upon his visit wrote, "I assure those of you who fought and died for your country that your names will live forever at this shrine in Musashino."

Our last destination of the day was the national Diet, where a parallel voting system decides laws and chooses the next Prime Minister. The entire building was made of the finest materials and Japanese architecture of the time, except for the mail chute that is made of what I believe was German-crafted glass. During our tour we got to see the room where elections are held, the main hall where everyone would be filing in during the upcoming election on December 11th, and the emperor’s private room. The entire building was spectacular, and it made the American official buildings I’d seen before seem a bit plain in comparison.

That night I was exhausted and went right back to the hotel after eating, but our first night in Japan, almost all of us went exploring downtown to find dinner. We walked down the street looking for a restaurant big enough for all of us, and it didn’t take long to find a place. There was a woman advocating for her restaurant and encouraging people to come inside, so we gratefully decided to eat there. I found that I was one of the only people who spoke Japanese in our entire group, so I helped to translate for our group by reading the menus and ordering food. We were a little self-conscious because we were such a big group and very loud compared to the few Japanese customers, but the staff was still very accommodating and stood around the kitchen chatting with each other until we needed something. With our chicken teriyaki we ordered saki, a Japanese alcohol made from rice. It surprised us that it was served hot in little jugs and we had to wait for it to cool down! It tasted very smooth and didn’t burn going down the throat, but it still had a very “pungent” flavor, as we decided to describe it. It became an instant favorite with some people in our group! We weren’t even carded since in Japan the legal drinking age is 18. The food was delicious, and even the rice tasted like we’d never eaten it before—the quality was on such a different level than American food!

On the way back to the hotel, we encountered a shrine of all things in between all the modern buildings and shops! We had never seen one in person before, so we all went up the steps and took a closer look. There was a rack to tie fortunes, a sign in Japanese describing what the shrine was for (which none of us could read since it was in kanji), and a platform to pray at. Out of respect, I clappped twice, bowed, and then clapped a final time. It was a good way to end the first night in Japan!

(Here's dinner after going to the Diet)