Still suffering from Jetlag, Jen got up this morning around 3am. She couldn’t sleep anymore. She took my laptop and loaded her yoga DVD to do some yoga. She invited me to join but I was sufficiently tired. After she did her yoga she came back to bed.
We both got up around 5am. My cell phone doesn’t work in Tokyo - I wasn’t expecting it to but at least now I know for sure. We each took a shower (it felt so good to take a shower) and got dressed.
It was still so early and we had some time to kill. I uploaded pictures from the plane ride to the laptop.
At 7am we went downstairs for breakfast. I was pretty hungry and ate a lot. The breakfast was a buffet and quite a nice one. They had an omelet bar, lots of different fruits, pastries, juices, cereals, the typical western breakfast offerings (eggs, bacon, waffles, hash browns, pancakes, etc), stuff for sandwiches and sides, as well as some scary-looking fish-like stuff.
After breakfast we went back to the room and got some things ready for our day outside today.
Scott had to go to work today so we’re on our own for the first day and decided to play it safe and just walk around.
We went out to the area close to where Scott took us last night. We went to the huge Shinjuku station area and decided to enter the large department store. It looked like a normal department store with floors of merchandise. There were some differences though. There were a lot more employees around than I’m normally used to seeing in the states. Also, as we walked along the hallways, all of the employees would turn to us (one at a time as we reached them) and said the exact same phrase in Japanese. I didn’t know what they were saying so I just smiled and nodded.
Jen and I got a little lost trying to find the exit but eventually managed to make our way out to the walkway outside. Last night Scott pointed out a large 8-floor electronics store off in the distance. I wanted to check that out.
It wasn’t hard to get to the store and people were standing just inside the doors handing out flyers to everyone who enters. I took one too but it was entirely in Japanese so the only parts I could make out were the pictures of the various pieces of electronics.
The store was like a Frys on steroids. They had so much electronics and so many floors it was easy to get lost in there. I was disappointed to see that the prices were the same as in the states. So much for the idea that electronics are cheaper in Japan.
We walked around the store for about 45 minutes. The entire time every single floor had the same thing blasting through the speakers (quite loudly too). It was some sort of jingle that sounded like Christmas music with a girls voice probably proclaiming all of the savings the store has to offer, etc. The problem was that the music got really old really quick and the whole thing was on a 15-second loop so it was extremely repetitive. I don’t know how people work in that store and stay sane.
After doing that we walked around this shopping district. It was full of people and the streets were so packed that it was difficult to walk around. Jen wanted to send some post cards but we needed to also get stamps. We stumbled across a post office and decided to try to buy some stamps.
We were somehow able to figure out that stamps can be purchased on the second floor. We went upstairs but were unsure how to ask for post-card stamps when we didn’t speak the native language. We saw a kiosk selling some post cards and decided to buy one. I was able to complete the transaction without speaking because I showed the post card to the lady and she nodded (and bowed) and typed out an amount on a calculator to show me. It was something like 235 yen. I paid her and then we walked over to a teller at the post office.
Jen showed her the post card and then pointed to the place to put a stamp and said “to the U.S.A.”. The girl nodded (and bowed) and indicated that she wanted to know how many we wanted. Jen held up ten fingers and the girl nodded again and typed out an amount onto a calculator to let us know how much it would cost. I paid her and we were on our way.
Jen and I were pretty excited that we could conduct business transactions without speaking Japanese.
Once we left there, we walked around some more. Jen and I were getting thirsty and stopped inside a little convenience store (AM/PM) to buy some water. It was a tiny little store and I had a hard time squeezing past the shelves and people with my backpack on.
After this we headed back towards the hotel. From the hotel we were able to see a large park nearby so we decided to try to go to that park today. We found it without much effort.
(Jen standing on a bridge over the road leading to the park)
It appeared to us that this park is some sort of refuge for homeless people. Jen and I saw a lot of homeless people in boxes along the side of the trail through the park. There was no one panhandling unlike the states. Everything seemed orderly and clean.
We walked around the park for a while but Jen suggested we head back to the hotel. Before we left, we stopped by a temple-looking place and observed some people walk up to it, deposit money into a box, and fill out a piece of paper which they placed in another box.
(The strange temple)
As we made our way back to the hotel, we saw yet more people walking (and running) around in their business suits. Most often people appeared to be running in order to catch the crosswalk before the light changed. I even saw girls running in their heels - not sure how they can do that all day.
We decided to get some lunch at a place Scott recommended near the hotel. He told us some basic directions last night so we attempted to find it. Jen and I were pretty happy to discover that we could navigate and find our way around. With little trouble we found our quarry: an Indian restaurant called ‘Maharaja‘.
Lunch was great. We were hungry and ordered from the lunch menu by pointing to the pictures of the different lunch combos. Some might consider it strange that we came all the way to Japan and yet had Indian food for lunch.
After lunch we got some more post cards from a shop in the tunnels underneath the hotel. As we were walking around we ducked into a ‘Dkny‘ store to browse around. The clothes weren’t that great in my opinion and the prices were extremely high. As we began to leave the store, a girl who works there ran up to us, said something in Japanese, bowed, and handed us two envelopes. I figured they were some sort of advertisement. We went on our way.
Later, we discovered that those envelopes contained some nice ‘Dkny’ handkerchiefs. That was pretty cool.
It was time to fill out the post cards so we sat in a atrium/courtyard area outside and worked on the postcards. Jen did most of the writing because her script is much more legible than mine.
(Me filling out postcards)
The sun sets very early here and as such the sun started to go down while we were sitting outside. It began to get a bit cold so I put on a windbreaker that Scott lent me.
We went back to the hotel and took a nap for about an hour. We were still a bit jet-lagged so this helped quite a bit. Scott was running late. He was supposed to meet us after work so we can all go out tonight.
(View of the city from the hotel room at dusk)
When he did arrive, we got ready and headed out. I decided to dress warm since it seems to get cold at night.
Scott took us to a part of town that is like Atlanta’s Buckhead. It’s a trendy part of town with some restaurants, bars, and clubs. It took a few train rides to get there. We had dinner at a trendy place. Yumiko met us there and did all of the talking since everything was in Japanese.
(The subway fare card we bought)
Scott ordered some sort of flower tea and it came as a wine glass full of hot water with a whole flower floating in the glass. While the presentation was quite nice, it wasn’t too practical to drink. No matter how hard he tried, he would keep swallowing pieces of the flower.
Jen, on the other hand, had a type of ‘Japanese Wine’ that Yumiko recommended. She said that it tasted like bad cold Sake and didn’t like it too much.
Dinner was pretty good. Jen and I sort of shared our food to get a taste of what everything is like. I enjoyed the salad the most (except for the seaweed-like topping).
After dinner we walked down a long street. Our destination was a small bar where one of Yumiko’s friends was having a birthday celebration. The place was hard to find but we eventually found it. From the outside it was very hard to tell that it was a bar - you would have to know about it beforehand.
Inside were a lot of people (including Yumiko’s friend) sitting at a large table. There wasn’t any room for us so we sat at another table and talked.
One of Yumiko’s friends (a German guy) came over to join us and we all talked with him. He works for a local cell phone company and helps develop the UI’s for the cell phones. We chatted a bit about the Symbian OS - he doesn’t have a lot of respect for that design and can’t figure out why it is so popular.
Scott, Yumiko, Jen, and I made plans for tomorrow. We decided to go to the fish market in the morning. The German guy suggested that we go at 6am because things die down by around 8am. He also said that the joke among the locals is to tell tourists to go on Sunday. The fish market is closed on Sunday.
It was pretty late and I felt pretty good. I think I adjusted to the time change much better than I was thinking I would.
Around 11:30pm we all decided to call it a night. Jen and I took a taxi back to the hotel and Scott went to Yumiko’s place to spend the night. It’s awfully nice of Scott to let us stay in the hotel by ourselves.
The taxi ride was 3,600 yen. I paid with a 10,000 yen bill (roughly $100 USD). We headed up to the hotel room and went to bed.
