Tuesday, May 29, 2012

We Have Arrived! Welcome to Tokyo

So remember how yesterday everyone was knocked out by 9? Well it is 10, and I am so tired, so I am going to try to make this short, even though it probably won't be haha.

So this morning we got our gear stored and the other half gathered and boarded the shinkansen, the awesome bullet train bound for Tokyo. Unfortunately, again, it was too cloudy to see Mount Fuji. Sigh. But it was a nice ride and I had a little nap too :)

Mom said that the train was a "great way to see the country," while Julie (who is more awake) added the following:

"I highly enjoyed the shinkansen; I wish all of everything had trains as transportation. It was fast and efficient, and I could look out the window! I also noticed the quiet more on this train; Japanese people do not talk on public transportation..it slightly felt like church."


Once we arrived and successfully reached the hotel, we were very hungry. And what was across the street? Dennys, yay! American food; sounds perfect right? Coincidentally, when I was here last, my friend Pat told me of how he found out that Dennys had drastically different food in this country. Interesting. So even though I warned them of this, we went there for a  late lunch / early dinner. It was very good! I had some omu rice that had some chicken, mom had "hamburger steak" with like 4 potato fries, and Julie had Steakdon (steak with rice  and sauce) and mini ramen.

Mom said that "Dennys was okay, my hamburger tasted the same. I also tried gyoza, which was very good!" Potstickers have been approved, yay!

Sidenote: Mom went to the conbini (convenience store) all by herself today! YAY!

Julie said that "It was definitely different; I thought there'd be more American food even though Rosie said it would be different. It was still good; it was interesting that the food had similar high calorie counts to the US, but had a larger selection of lower caloried foods."


Restaurant for the win, alriiiiiiight. Next, Julie and I met up with her friend Mami, who lives nearby Tokyo. Together, we went to Asakusa, home of Sensoji Temple with the huge lantern. We shook the little fortune box to get fortunes because they had English on them. Julie got the best fortune possible, while I got the worst one. Yay.

Julie weighs in on the event:

"I liked that I got the best fortune ever! I like that it's in the center of a city area, which is cool. There's an open market there, so I like the old time-y feel. However, it was clearly tourist pandering, it's not old at all period. Everything was built in 1960 or after, which reminded me that 
Tokyo completely had to be rebuilt and lost all of that legitimate old stuff. It was like a Disney-fied version of Kyoto, where actual old stuff exists."


Definitely true. A hilarious part of Asakusa is the view of the new Sky Tree, the tallest tower in the world, accompanied by the Asahi Flame, a monument atop the Asahi Beer Hall which is commonly referred to as "the golden turd."

Julie said its like "Tokyo's bad version of The Bean in Millenium Park in Chicago."

Here's The Bean:


Here's The Poo:


I tend to agree.

Finally, Mami, Julie, and I went to an izakaya, which is a Japanese bar:

"The food was a good deal price wise. They get you on the drinks though. It was interesting because it was a bar but a restaurant; there was no literal bar and all the areas were divided. Also, the bar menus were quite extensive."


So a nice fun day.

Tomorrow? Return to DISNEY! YAY!

~Rosie

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