Well we said good-bye to our Korea this morning and left for Tokyo at 7:00am. After an uneventful flight we arrived at the Norita airport, but something just wasn't quite right. It was raining first of all and where was the banner and entourage of greeters with flowers awaiting our arrival. We found our luggage and arranged to have most of it stored at the airport for the next week while we travel light in Japan. One point for Tokyo, which was quickly erased when we realized that this is pretty much a cash only country (Mina had done her homework and was prepared, Brett and I not so much). I tried 6 different bank machines and got 6 different messages telling me that my card was no good here. Mina took out some extra cash for me and now I'll just cross my fingers that I've got enough to get by.
We found our train, purchased tickets and after an hour and a half ride we arrived in Tokyo. O.K., here we are, so now what? Again, we were missing Rotary. We knew we wanted to see something, but weren't quite sure where to begin, so we wandered in the rain, the only people on the crowded streets with no umbrella. It was quite a cool site to see hundreds of umbrellas, mostly clear (very effective so you can still see where you are going on the crowded street), all moving in unison in an endless stream down the street.
Japan feels different than Korea. It is greener and seems cleaner. Tokyo is very modern, far more multicultural than Seoul. We explored the Shibuya district which is popular with teens -- the teens here seem much more worldly, high fashion, smoking, etc. They love very high sparkly strappy heels. There are bicycles everywhere. And green, orange or blue boxy taxis everywhere too.
Our hostel, K's House Tokyo, is adorable and in a great part of town. I felt much better about being in Japan once we finally got here. A day of being lost in the rain, humping my black carry-on and heavy shoulder bag through subways and crowded streets, being left totally to our own devices (thank God for Mina!), eating at possibly the worst place we could have found (we had Hawaiian Rice Bowls, which looked like BiBimBop our favourite Korean dish and really was white rice with macaroni salad and deep fried shrimp all smothered in a thousand island type yucky dressing) just about did me in. But we have a very clean room to ourselves and are two blocks away from a river with a running train and a cool temple, park and shopping area. So I will give Japan a chance.
We walked through this one touristy looking street that turned out to be a slot machine type game that they play. Huge, smokey rooms. Loud, sounds just like slots. They have buckets of silver balls that they feed into machines and with no skill involved, they either win more balls or don't. It was full of adults. Gambling is illegal here, so they exchange the balls for prizes. It was too smokey in there, so we didn't try it and I didn't get to see what the prizes were. I don't get it.
We found our train, purchased tickets and after an hour and a half ride we arrived in Tokyo. O.K., here we are, so now what? Again, we were missing Rotary. We knew we wanted to see something, but weren't quite sure where to begin, so we wandered in the rain, the only people on the crowded streets with no umbrella. It was quite a cool site to see hundreds of umbrellas, mostly clear (very effective so you can still see where you are going on the crowded street), all moving in unison in an endless stream down the street.
Japan feels different than Korea. It is greener and seems cleaner. Tokyo is very modern, far more multicultural than Seoul. We explored the Shibuya district which is popular with teens -- the teens here seem much more worldly, high fashion, smoking, etc. They love very high sparkly strappy heels. There are bicycles everywhere. And green, orange or blue boxy taxis everywhere too.
Our hostel, K's House Tokyo, is adorable and in a great part of town. I felt much better about being in Japan once we finally got here. A day of being lost in the rain, humping my black carry-on and heavy shoulder bag through subways and crowded streets, being left totally to our own devices (thank God for Mina!), eating at possibly the worst place we could have found (we had Hawaiian Rice Bowls, which looked like BiBimBop our favourite Korean dish and really was white rice with macaroni salad and deep fried shrimp all smothered in a thousand island type yucky dressing) just about did me in. But we have a very clean room to ourselves and are two blocks away from a river with a running train and a cool temple, park and shopping area. So I will give Japan a chance.
We walked through this one touristy looking street that turned out to be a slot machine type game that they play. Huge, smokey rooms. Loud, sounds just like slots. They have buckets of silver balls that they feed into machines and with no skill involved, they either win more balls or don't. It was full of adults. Gambling is illegal here, so they exchange the balls for prizes. It was too smokey in there, so we didn't try it and I didn't get to see what the prizes were. I don't get it.
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