Turning Japanese-a Part Ni

After arriving back from our Kyoto adventure on the 16th, we went to find our bags in the Tokyo train station, only to find that we had no clue where they were. We remembered what it looked like, but unfortunately, as no one spoke english, we had a hard time trying to find where they were. Eventually after a little while of looking, we found someone that could help us find what we were looking for, and we got our back packs back.

After trying to navigate the Japanese metro system (we had one "Simple transfer" that had us walk almost a mile and climb up and down over 10 flights of stairs), we arrived at the capsule hotel, which we had been looking really forward to. Unfortunately, the owner spoke no english, the hotel was disgusting, and the guests were even worse, we promptly checked back out and found a hotel across the street. It was small and it was ugly, but after the capsule, we thought it to be heaven. We were staying in Asakusa, the historical district of Tokyo, which was really different than the Shinjuku district we had stayed in our first night there. It was much less glamourous, the first time we saw homeless people in Tokyo, and much more working class.

We woke up refreshed on the 17, and ready to start anew. We went to Ueno, which is like their version of the Smithsonian. We only had time to go into a few of the museums but they were great. We were able to check out some ancient buddhist artifacts, and we learned a lot about the development of buddhism and buddhist art in Japan. We were also able to see some other cultural artifacts, but none that we found quite as interesting as those.

In the early afternoon, we went to the Harajuku district, and saw all the crazy school girls that you imagine when you think of Japan. We took a really cool walking tour, and while some of us may have enjoyed the "sights" a little more than the others, we both thought that it was really cool and interesting. We went into a couple of stores, one that was completely dedicated to toys, but novelty items, such as an entire hello kitty floor. We also went to one that was called Chicago, that only sold used American clothing, including a "Kiss my Grits" stocking cap for 20 dollars, and a wide array of Confederate flag memorabilia. There was also some sort of dancing festival going on in the big square, which we watched for a while. Unfortunately it was rainy so there weren't as many "Harajuku Girls" out.

In the evening, we went to ginza, which is like their version of Times Square. By this point we had the train system mastered, and they even let Dave drive one of them. We came home and got packed up, and got ready to come to Thailand the next day. More of our adventure continues in the next post....