Wayfaring-Writer

It's Torrie! I like to go places, take pictures, then write short stories based on my experinces. I'm still young and there are plenty of places I need to go but here's an accound of everywhere I've been so far!

[wayfaring-writer]

Laundry - 04JUN2016

Finally got to sleep in! We had breakfast at a really cute doughnut and coffee shop in the subway station beneath our hotel this morning. After breakfast, we headed to do our laundry. Once that was finished we grabbed some pizza for lunch then met our guide in the lobby for our next tour. We jumped on the subway to Omotesando and walked through the sea of people to Harajuku in Takeshita-Dori where I got a few gits and was able to find crazy good potato chips. They were hand cut and fried at the store and a drizzle of chocolate over top  of them    

We walked over to the Meiji-Jingu after we finished shopping and got a glimpse of the Yoyogi stadium before going into the Shinto grounds. There we saw some ancient bonsai trees and got a good number of photos.

We jumped on the JR line at Harajuku and went to Akihabara where we were taken to the little technology side streets, and we went into a maid cafe. It was an exciting experience, something very different from our current culture.

Once we finished up here our guide headed out, and my Aunt and I were left to our own devices. We wandered into a few shops and a Carl's JR which my Aunt thought was a Japanese fast food place lol. Whoopsie. A good thing to point out is that in a handful of these buildings they have arcades and while that is really really nifty, smoking is allowed on certain floors so you can play DDR, but you’re going to do it in a cloud of smoke.

We stayed in Akihabara until dusk so I could get a few pictures of the area lit up, then we walked down the street a bit more. My nerdy self wound up finding a shop that was selling all manner of old Nintendo devices I had to talk myself out of many purchases. Mainly because the systems wouldn’t have been localized and how was I supposed to get 3 Gamecubes and 16 Gameboy color games to fit into my already over-packed carry-on?

[wayfaring-writer]

Out of Data - 03JUN2018

Got up early today to Skype with my family. I found out that the A.C. unit at home was broken, so my sister was complaining about the heat. I was able to wish my dad a happy birthday which was nice. We did all of this after breakfast which was the same as the day before.

After the call home, my Aunt and I tricked to find the Yasukuni Shrine. We had so many issues and ended up walking all the way around the Imperial Park Grounds when we were just trying to cut through them! The shrine wasn’t really busy which I figured would happen due to the nature of the shrine. This particular site is a memorial for the war dead, anyone who died in combat has their name inscribed here in memoriam. War criminal or not, this has lead to lots of conflict between Japan and other countries around the world.

After visiting the shrine and praying, we went into the War Museum on the grounds. This particular museum functions as a comprehensive tour of Japan’s war history. I found it very enlightening, they talk mostly about their own history, so you get to learn about the different sides of many conflicts through different eyes. While you don’t have to agree with everything that is on display here it makes for an enriching learning experience.

After Yasukuni, we walked through Kitanomaru-Koen to get the Imperial East Gardens and the Palace Grounds. The East Gardens were pretty and had some unusual plants, but the palace grounds were kind of a bust for me. You couldn't really see any of the palace, just a few of the security gates. I understand why but it would have been nice to catch a glimpse at least.

We went to the SkyTree and saw a really cool view, my own personal thoughts are that the elevator ride up is more engaging than what you’ll see from that height. You’re up so high that everything is dwarfed in comparison. The only real plus is that if you get there early enough in the morning, you have a chance of catching Mt. Fuji. I was not so lucky.

Right under the skytree is a mall that I walked around. I got some very pretty, and a wind chime to take home with me.

We stopped by the hotel to drop off our shopping bags then headed back out to look for ARTNIA in Shibuya to hopefully pick up some Square Enix souvenirs for myself and my brother. We got more than a bit lost again this evening looking for this cafe I ended up blowing through most of my data searching google maps alone but we eventually found it. The food was delicious, I had the Chocobo pancakes, and the trinkets I got were well worth the trouble of finding this place!

[wayfaring-writer]

Bath Time - 02JUN2016

We woke up early again and met with our guide around 1000 just after breakfast. Today we were headed to Ikebukuro and the Sunshine City. Upon arrival, we made our way to the top floor where J-world is located. This is Shonen Jump’s indoor amusement park of sorts (think of it like a Dave N Busters but with a bit more involvement and Anime!). This place was bursting with fun things to do, and I got a ton of amusing photos, played lots of games (free and otherwise) and walked away with way more anime paraphernalia than any one person should hope to need.

As if that wasn’t enough. Locate one floor below was the pokemon center where I purchased even more gifts to sate my inner raging nerd. By far the coolest thing I got was a Pikachu water bottle. After exploring the mall a little bit more, we left for Odaiba.

Once we were there, we went to have lunch at our guide's favorite restaurant. The food was delicious, but I was already full off of the cream puffs, and chocolate mousse filled biscuit I had been talked into trying. (Our guide knew of all the best places to buy snacks in the subway station). We walked around for a little bit after eating dinner heading to the Statue of Liberty that they have, which, like the one in America was also a gift from France. Though there's isn't quite as large.

After walking around a bit outside we ventured into the Toyota Mega Web where we got to see a showcase of all kinds of old cars as well as their line up of new and upcoming vehicles. They also have this simulator that our guide talked us into doing. It was fun, but my aunt in her terrified mom friend glory started yelling at the simulation to be careful and watch out for things! Oh my gosh, I have never laughed that hard.

Our guide left us after the simulation, and we headed to the Oedo Onsen Monogatari. Once we were there, we were given Yukata to rent (which we got to choose ourselves), and we spent hours walking around inside the park. This onsen is set up to look like a festival, so inside there are games and plenty of things to do outside of sitting in the baths. There were three types of baths in the complex. The first one we visited was the outdoor foot bath. It was nice to sit and dip our tired feet into the warm water and just feel the cool night breeze. Once we were rested, it was time to put on our game faces and check out the indoor bathing.

We washed up properly before entering the baths (thank you signs and anime!) They had indoor baths that reminded me of fancy hot tubs. In the center was an elevated bath that fit a handful of people and along the walls were several baths of varying temperatures. My favorite one inside was this microbubble bath, but I couldn’t stay in long because it was so warm. After sitting inside for a bit, we made our way to the outdoor pools. It was just amazing. Sitting outside on a cloudless night in these warm, relaxing waters a cool breeze against your face. Uh, 10/10 would recommend the experience.

Still feeling adventurous after the bath we headed back towards the mall and waited in line for the Ferris wheel in Odaiba. We had some trouble getting to it, seeing as we got on the train in the wrong direction but we managed to get to our destination and boy was it worth it. The skyline from the island was spectacular, and the mild panic my shifting in the car caused was equally funny. I got some great shots of the city from in here, it’s a cheap and excellent way to get a view of the Tokyo skyline from a higher vantage point.

[wayfaring-writer]

The Beds Roll - 01JUN2016

Woke up around 0715 to shower and eat breakfast before our guide showed up. I had a Japanese breakfast with egg rolls (literally the scrambled eggs had been cooked into logs), rice, a croissant, and some milk. The milk was a bit different. We met our guide at 0900 in the lobby. She introduced herself, and we were told we could refer to her by her first name. She took us to a sumo house early in the morning to try to catch a practice but they had already finished, so we turned around to head back towards the subway. That’s when our guide noticed another sumo house with a guide outside who told us the practice was still going on. We walked in and got to watch them finish their training. Our guide was crazy excited and even went so far as to ask if we could get our photo take with one of them. I wasn’t until after we left that she explained the man we had our picture taken with was Toyonoshima the number 3 sumo wrestler in the country, and that was his Tokitsukaze (sumo stable)in Ryogoku!

After the sumo stable, we walked to the museum and stadium in Ryogoku and took a few photos there. After the sumo stadium, we walked up to the station to go to Asakusa. Our guide was super excited for us to try Melon Pan and while we were waiting for the train, the Hello Kitty subway car rolled into the station. Apparently, it’s super rare to see it, she has lived in Tokyo for almost 6 years giving tours and had never seen it.  After we got off, we went to the visitor center to get a sky view of the Senso-Ji and the shopping street in front of it! Then we walked the long way to the temple and shrine so we could get a good photo of the sky tree and the Sumida River. On our way to the Senso-Ji, we saw a wedding party taking pictures.

Once inside the temple grounds, we entered the shrine and learned how to purify ourselves for prayer. Our guide told us about the different ways to pray at the shrines. We also saw another wedding taking place at the shrine, so we weren’t able to get too close.

We went over to the temple after that, on our short walk over the guide explained that this was one of the only Shinto Shrine and Buddhist temple ground still combined. They had started building the separately or destroying one over the other before anyone really understood the cultural significance of it. In each temple, they have a place where you draw for your luck, little fortune lotteries if you will. I was advised not to participate at this particular shrine because it was notorious for it’s ‘Terrible Luck’ fortunes. The actual statistic is a 30% chance of drawing good luck, but I went for it anyway.

There was this small hexagonal contraption that the kids were shaking. Once it was my turn, I picked it up and literally launched a stick out of the small opening. I picked it up, and the number on the top (written in Japanese) was 85. When we opened the draws, we read that I had drawn the “best of luck” fortune. I thought my guide was going to try to take me home with her.

We left the Senso-Ji on our own after getting the best Melon Bread ever to head to the Sumida River Cruise to go to the Hamarikyu Park where we saw the Tea House and the Wisteria bushes. It was quite pretty, and we got lots of nature shots. Even got photobombed by some tourists our age.

When we got back to the hotel, my Aunt took a brief nap, and then we headed downstairs into the station beneath the hotel for pizza. And Holy. Crap! This place had the best hot sauce I’ve ever tasted! I’m not even sure if it was hot sauce, but it burned in just the right way. Mhh~

After dinner, we walked to the Tokyo tower at night! That was amazing the city looked gorgeous, I also realized that Roppongi’s main street looks like the Tokyo Tower! They had 3 view decks, the main one, the higher galleries coming in at 350m and the lower floor that just so happened to be covered in blue string lights. The Walk back to the hotel was a quick 15 minutes then I went right to sleep. As I was getting into bed, I realized it was moving and couldn’t figure out why. Turns out the damn thing had wheels!

[wayfaring-writer]

Magical Time Skip - 31MAY2016

So we landed in Tokyo, Narita around 1500 Tokyo time but 0200 Cincinnati time, my mom was notified upon our arrival, and I found out my dad had been watching our flight to figure out where we were. After landing, we waited in line at customs for about 45 minutes then we go to go pick up Aunt’s luggage from baggage claim. After that, we met with the airport connection which was helping us get or JR passes and to the Green Tomato Shuttle service.

The shuttle ride took a little over an hour to get to the city, but our poor driver couldn’t find the entrance to drop us off at the front of our hotel. So we drove around Roppongi for an extra 30 minutes looking for the drop. After our 6th time around the block, he let us off one stop early and got us out of the shuttle. One he grabbed our luggage from our of the back he took off running towards the hotel, so we had to chase after him!

In Tokyo, we stayed at the “hotel Villa Fonte Roppongi - Itchome station” The hotel was charming and had an open-air breakfast area. Our room was on the 3rd floor right by the vending machine with the drinks. With things like coke, melon soda water, and beer all different varieties. The food vending was on the second floor and right next to it was the underwear machine! After we had settled in we walked into Roppongi to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. Adventurous I know. I had some perfect chicken mac, and cheese and an alcoholic soda with chocolate ice cream then went back to the hotel to sleep! Beds were crazy comfortable.

[wayfaring-writer]

In Route - 30MAY2016

So we left Cleveland today at 10a for our connection to Japan. The flight from Cleveland to Toronto was crazy turbulent which really didn’t help my nerves for the trip to Japan. The airport in Toronto was beautiful! It was all white with large windows, and the signs were super easy to read. Customs was a breeze!

Mom really wanted Laurie and me to check on our return flight, but it was so far in advance they couldn't do anything (which I knew was coming).

The flight to Japan was on the new 789 Dreamliner (Boeing). The plane was massive, and we actually had a decent amount of legroom. About 4 hours into the flight they auto dimmed the windows, the guy in the section ahead of us got in trouble because of the “un-dimmed” his window. The dinner was pleasant but didn’t really sleep the entire flight, maybe dozed for a few minutes. Oh well.