Well..... 2 months later and here it is!
TOKYO DRIFTERS - 2/9-2/11/2013
We decided that our Lunar New Year vacation was too long (1 day off and then a weekend) to just stay in Korea. Scott and I latched on to our friend Cory and Jen's plans to head to Tokyo for the weekend.
Because of the way the flights worked out, we couldn't leave until Saturday. So we left Busan at 11am and landed in Tokyo around 1pm. Upon arriving, we went through immigration and we were asked, "where will you be staying." This seemed a little odd because we hadn't made any reservations. (In Korea, you can just stroll up to a hotel or hostel and get a room for 8 for the night for about 10USD/person, so we thought Japan would be similar.) When we answered, "We don't have a place yet." THE IMMIGRATION MAN LAUGHED AT US! --This should have been a HUGE tip off! But... On we went to the Skyliner into the city, happy as clams, no need for reservations!
Our first day, SATURDAY, was a DREAM!
After we figured out that the cheapest way to get around would be to buy a 2 day subway pass for 50USD and our navigation guru, Jen got us headed toward the right place we were off.
Sensoji Temple
Our first stop was the Sensoji Temple in Asakusa. The streets leading up to the temple were packed with people. And the vendors were selling every touristy trap attraction that you could think of.... INCLUDING... my waving cat -- the number one must get on the trip. Tourist shock when I saw the price of my needed waving cats... 4.50yen PER CAT!! ~ 45,000 Won ~ 40USD!!! Just for a stupid waving cat!?!?! I thought I could find them cheaper some places else and walked away.... (I was wrong... I made a mad dash back on Sunday night to get these stupid waving cats that I just HAD to have.)
After that shock, we continued on to the temple and it was beautiful.... as most temples are (I am now quite templed out). What I found odd was at the start of the temple, you would go over to a large (what looked like a well) and smell the smoke coming from it. Then you would proceed to temple and throw your yens in for luck or as you are praying and then go down to the "water fountain" take a sip, clean your mouth, clean your hands... Pretty much use it like a public tap. (This was beyond weird for me because we were at this beautiful, religious site and people were hacking up lougies and spitting all over the place... Asia can be a disgusting place at times!)
Shibuya Crossing (One of favorite spots!)
After the temple, we headed to Shibuya Crossing (for everyone who doesn't know... This included me, until going to Japan) is that large crossing that they show in a lot of movies/photos of just mass amounts of people flooding the street to cross (as the light changes). PERFECT PLACE TO JUST BE A GOOF.
We took so many pictures of us just goofing around, doing Gangnam Style in the middle of 400+ people, playing "where's the foreigner?" (our take of Where's Waldo), Scott headed out into the middle with our friend Jen on his shoulders!!! We spend a good hour+ just taking pictures and having a blast!!
Tokyo Tower
Okay, so in order to save money, we decided NOT to do Tokyo Tower and opted to go to another building where we could see Tokyo's Nightline AND get a picture of Tokyo Tower!! On our way to the Mori Building in Roppongi Hills (which we were told had a great FREE observatory deck), we got a little turned around BUT luckily, we met this nice KOREAN woman, on the street, who walked us all the way to the Mori Building!! We got there and it was like 20USD for a third floor view, so we opted out of that and decided to maybe spend our money another way. If I went back, I would REALLY go see the nightline of Tokyo, even if it meant spending 20USD or 50USD at Tokyo Tower. Just to actually get a "feel" for the fact that we were in the BIGGEST CITY IN THE WORLD! Because Jen had mastered the subways, getting around was a breeze and it never really felt any different than Seoul or Busan.
Kabukicho District
Jen, had made plans to meet up with some Japan foreigners who were going to show us the town.... And they did! I had my first taste of sake at an all you can drink for 90 minutes Happy Hour. When ever we go with this group of friends, we always have TOO much fun on the first night!! After that 90 minutes of sake and eating we went with the group to another foreigners hang out. Downfall, we had ALL our stuff on our backs! So we were in good enough shape and we all decided to go look for a hotel to drop our stuff off so we could have an epic night....
CWR coozie came with me all the way to Korea, it then HAD to make an appearance in Japan!
Representing A-town all around the world! Well traveled coozie ;)
Here is where we find our mistake -- In Japan, hotels/hostels will NOT rent to foreigners or people who cannot speak Japaneses. We left the Izakya at 10pm, started looking for a hotel at probably 11pm and didn't find a place to say until almost 1am! We had walked from hotel to hotel - hostel to hostel - asking all to rent a room to us and none would!
Finally, we found a couple that showed us to this 24 hour internet cafe that would rent CUBICALS by hour/night!! So we found our "place of rest" and needless to say, none of us wanted to head out to party after that.
SUNDAY
Started off rough for us, even though we didn't go out and party too hard, the 90 minutes of straight sake, Rum, Long Islands - all you can drink kicked us in the butt. THEN...... We found out, our Guru Jen, had lost her wallet (well forgotten it in the restroom of the internet cafe and the manager turned it over to the police). We did a tour of the 3 surrounding police "stations" .... aka.. holes in the walls of different buildings, NOT the big stations we are used to, and finally found it -- THANK GOD! Jen has the best Karma in the world!!
We then headed off to....
Yoyogi Park - Meiji Shrine
The fresh air is exactly what this group needed to shake us of our previous night. Yoyogi Park was absolutely beautiful and SO LARGE. Before becoming a park, it was the Olympic Village for the 1964 Olympics held in Tokyo.
Also, inside Yoyogi Park is the Meiji Shrine. Another beautiful shrine, however, this time it was not the bright colored shrine that we had seen before. This was built as a dedication to the Emperor Meiji (the Emperor known for modernizing Japan). The first site was destroyed during WWII and was rebuilt.
We paid an enterance fee and entered into the Inner Garden where we were able to see a coy pond made for the Emperess and became instant BIRD PEOPLE! Haha. At this site, people would just sit with peanuts of sunflower seas and feed the birds. We were all so enthralled with the fact that the birds would land on our hands and take the peanut so we then began doing it too! I found out, birds of Japan do not particularly like Gold Fish Crackers... : (
Then we happened upon this well that everyone was waiting in line for. We had NO idea what this whole thing was about, but there was a guard posted there so it seemed like a pretty big deal. (Come to find out, it was a well visited by the Emperor and Empress and is said to hold spiritual power. Either way, we saw it, it was a well...
Our next stop was planned to be the Emperial Gardens - What I was really looking forward to.
After getting mixed up in the subway and a hike to where the grounds were, we found out that the Gardens were..... CLOSED! : ( Big disappointment for me, I was looking forward to seeing the gardens, even if it was February and things would all be dead. We all began to get pretty draggy, crabby and hungry!
We made our way back to the area that we needed to be to, to catch our skyliner for the plane in the morning and found a Italian place to eat at. Then began the search of the hotel.... AGAIN.
This time, we were desperate. We would take any hotel/hostel/karaoke room/dvd room that we could get. And again, another 2 hours were spent trying to find a place. We tried the seediest hotels that would only rent rooms by the hour (and had the FREE available option to rent different dress up costumes!!) ... BUT not to foreigners! So we decided maybe we would just pull an all night rager - Where should we start? How about a themed restaurant/bar! BEST IDEA OF THE NIGHT!!
The theme of the restaurant was: "Scary Asylum." First, the hostess cuffed us and escorted us to this TINY box of a room with bars over the doors. We were then served our drinks -- which were themed like medicine or spooky lab tests type drinks. So much fun we had ordering different drinks. Then our hostess moved our party of 6 to a larger room and we got our food. After enjoying about 2 rounds of drinks and a lot of delicious fries and appitizers, a loud siren went off... along with the lights.
*NOTICE* I do not do well with scary things. Movies- NOPE. Haunted houses- NOPE. Scary noises - NOPE.
So, from that notice, I was not having any of those scary servers popping in and out in their scary costumes, getting all up in my business, touching me.... NOPE. I threw Denise in front of me (blocking those creepers) and that was that. However, it was such a fun time and I had so much fun!! USA is REALLY missing the market on these themed restaurants!!
After dining and drinking - we all decided there was no way we were pulling an all nighter and again, begun our search for a place to stay. This time, we focused our search on 24 hour DVD rooms and karaoke rooms. After searching for, yet another hour, we happened on a karaoke room that would allow foreigners. All six of us crammed into this room - paid 30USD/person and got some shut eye.
SUNDAY
I woke up for my maybe 3 hours of sleep (our flight was at 8am... thus we need to check in at 6am), enjoyed a McDonalds (yes!) hashbrown and headed to our Skyliner to the airport.
We got back to the Busan airport around 10am and caught the bus back, right there from the airport!
It was a CRAZY trip. We crammed the largest city in the world into 2 days and I do believe we had a great time doing it. I wouldn't say it was the Meiji Shrine or the sake that made our trip, rather the friends we were with and the ability to just be able to roll with punches that Tokyo through at us. We had our ups-and-downs and our crabby moments but I got a taste of "backpacking" and I can't wait for our next adventure!! Scott and I are looking into the Philippines for our summer vacation at the end of July - 7 days in the sun, on a beach, in the jungle -- Sounds a little better than the concrete jungle of Tokyo....in February!!
Hope everyone is doing well at home and enjoying all that SNOW you just got! Here in Geoje, it is 16C on Friday night and am looking forward to eating...... DOG tomorrow with a big group of friends, then cheering on our foreign team playing American football! Hey, before you judge me for eating dog, ask yourself.... "When in Korea....?"
Love ALWAYS!!!
-C
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