From Tokyo to Narita

Man. That was difficult.

We fly out of Tokyo tomorrow at 8am, which means we have to be at the airport at 6am, but Tokyo's public transportation doesn't start until 6, so that wouldn't work. So we had to get up to a hotel close to the airport today and just take the free shuttle tomorrow morning.

Since we've done everything we wanted to do in Tokyo, all we had to do today was laundry and get to the hotel, but both of those things took up the whole day and well into the night.

First, laundry.

The apartment we've been staying at has a washer/dryer. Unlike the washers and dryers in America, this one was just one machine that did both. Front load washer, then it just keeps the clothes in there and spin dries them. Like this.

We used it last week, but we just put the clothes in in the morning and then went out for the day. When we came back at the end of the day, the clothes were dry. It was miraculous and wonderful. But today, we found out that they actually take all day. We tried to open it after the wash because there were a few things that couldn't be dried, and that only made it worse. All the buttons and dials were in Japanese, so when we paused it to get certain clothes out, it blinked something at us and then shut down. And then we had to unplug the thing to get it functioning again. Which I'm sure put more time on it.

We ended up taking things out after a few hours of "drying" and just packing them damp and now they're hanging all around our hotel room to finish actually drying. Meh.

So we finally got on a train to head out toward Narita around 4pm, which is right about rush hour, so we were fearing the worst because Tokyo is the city that you hear about with crazy packed trains. But luckily it didn't happen today. Or any day for that matter. Either we were in the wrong stations or that's totally a myth.

We took the subway to Oshiagi, the location of the newest addition to the Tokyo skyline, the Tokyo Skytree, the tallest tower in the world right now. It's pretty impressive.

Then we went down and got on the Keisei line which was supposed to take us to Narita. So we jumped on the first train we saw and went up to Aoto, and then we had to switch to the main line that would take us to Narita. But the trains that were on the track that were supposed to go to Narita weren't going there. They were stopping early. So we waited at Aoto for a while, but all the trains kept saying Sakura, which isn't far enough. By the way, this is the map we were working off:

I know, right?

So we finally got on a train going the right direction, but it only took us to Funabashi. Then we got on another train which got us to Sakura, where we got off and saw people with megaphones and announcers over the loud speakers announcing stuff in Japanese and guiding everyone away from the platforms. We looked obviously lost and confused, but nobody spoke English, but they were nice and genuinely concerned about us. We eventually worked out that we were going to Narita Station (not Narita Airport, which was a big point of confusion for awhile). Another lady pointed to herself and excitedly said, "Narita Station!" So we blindly followed her onto a bus, which took us on a roundabout way to the right place.

Come to find out, the typhoon last night which apparently destroyed the Philippines and ravaged everywhere around Tokyo but left the city center where we were at completely unscathed (it was windy last night and a little rainy at times, but it was never typhoon-scale), it flooded the tracks between the city and Narita. So that's why the trains weren't running. So it's a good thing we came through tonight and not tomorrow morning.

The hotel has a shuttle that actually went to Narita Station, so we took that and finally got to the hotel around 9pm. Luckily there was a convenience store next door, so we were able to get some dinner.

Isa thought the mirror in the bathroom was pretty amazing. The part around your face didn't get foggy (or around my neck, but Asian's faces).

I also ate a strawberry Kit Kat for dessert, which was amazing.

Tsukiji and Akihabara

We woke up early (for us) and went over to the Tsukiji Fish Market. It was huge and crazy and we saw lots of random sea creatures.

We stopped by a local shop for lunch with our local friend Tamura. He was one of the missionaries that taught Isa back in the Bronx. He told us this was chicken and beef.

What parts of the chicken and cow, I do not know. There are very few things I've come across that I could not muscle down and wholly consume. But wow. When in Tsukiji, stick to eating fish.

Then we went over to Akihabara which is, as Tamura called it, "nerd city." It was an interesting place full of comics, video games, action figures, and weird porn. Tamura kept us clear of most of the raunchy stuff, and we made it to the electronics part where I found an extra battery for my camera, since it died yesterday while in Kamakura. And then we found a costume shop to play around in.

Yoyogi Park

Today we went to Yoyogi park. We went to check out the Myoji shrine and then walked around for a little bit. The shrine is pretty cool although not very photogenic.

It was crazy packed, the most busy we've seen any place in Tokyo outside of Shibuya crossing. It was fun to see lots of traditional weddings taking place. They got the system down just like Salt Lake Temple. One after another, just like clockwork, parading through the grounds.

It was also fun to see lots of people in traditional dress. We couldn't tell if it was because it was Sunday or because it was the shrine, or some other reason, but we were happy either way.

But even cuter we saw lots of kids in traditional attire. We think maybe it was like a communion or something because they all came out of the same time.

After the shrine, we walked through the park to find a nice place to hang out and watch another session of conference. We found out that on the side of the world, conference weekend is actually the weekend after the United States conference weekend since the time difference is so different. We were a little bummed since we could've gone to church last weekend, but it was fun to watch conference in a park this time instead of at home. Isa found a podcast where we could download an MP3 version of the conference.

Ramen!

This is not cup o noodles.

We went to the top ramen restaurant in Tokyo (Ichiran, click here for their site, which - like their restaurant - is completely in Japanese). You can customize your ramen so it's just right for you, from how soft your noodles are, to spicy level, how flavorful, how much green onion, and even how much you can eat (I ordered 1.5 times the noodles). It was delicious and I'm really excited to make the video from all the footage I took here. (Update: video below!)

Yasukuni and the Palace Gardens

We were excited to explore Yasukuni because one of our Tokyo apps uses the temple there as its cover shot.

We found a few cool places on the grounds, including a small stage, a sumo ring, and a tea garden.

That's when we decided we need to have a Japanese garden in our yard (well, we need a yard first, but when we get that, we'll put one of these in it).

After we left the garden, we saw a girl dressed in full traditional attire. I fully embraced my touristy self and asked for a picture.

Then we walked over to the Palace. You can't go into the palace because the emperor lives there. It's kinda like Buckingham Palace that way. But there are gardens all around it open to the public. We were really excited to explore the gardens, but when we got there, we found out that they're more parks than gardens.

But here are a few of the highlights:

Harajuku

If you want fun shopping and really interesting people watching, Harajuku is the place to go.

This was actually our second time coming through Harajuku. The colors and energy on Takeshita Street is just so fun to be around. We found a few favorite shops. Off the charts number one was 6% Dokidoki. They won't let you take pictures or video inside, but this little store has everything you would hope to find in a Harajuku store. So much color, random little quarks things, and you can't help but smile the whole time you're in there.

Other than that, you have Takenoko, where Lady Gaga shops.

No for real, there are signed pictures of Lady Gaga inside wearing stuff she bought in the store. I took these pictures before they found me and told me "No pictures!"

And last, Avante Guarde is a store full of leggings. Just leggings.

These shiny silver leggings cost $5000! US dollars. Not yen.

Tokyo Temple

The Temple has a Thursday session in English. So we went to it. The Tokyo temple isn't much different from other temples we've been in, just one Japanese style painting and stained glass in the celestial room. The chandeliers and most other elements seemed pretty standard issue, not Japanese, which was a little disappointing, but it was nice to get back in a temple since we didn't have access to one in Juneau.

That's us at the temple. Yes, jeans are the only pants I brought on the trip, so they are the nicest thing I can wear.

Tokyo Disney!

Tokyo Disney is AWESOME!!

We had so much fun. We spent the entire day in DisneySea (as opposed to DisneyLand) because the rides and themed areas are completely unique. DisneyLand is a close replica of the Magic Kingdom in Florida. DisneySea has stuff like Triton's Kingdom...

The Mediterranean Harbor...

A volcano...

And Agraba...

The lines were only bad on Tower of Terror and Toy Story, both of which we've been on, so we spent all our time on everything else: new rides and shows.

The shows were amazing. We saw a big band swing show of Broadway quality. We saw a magic show and Ariel's show and a crazy extravagant jungle rhythms show. And of course, Fantasmic.

A few shows and parades were canceled because of the crazy wind we had, but the weather seemed to deter a few people from coming and encouraged many who came to go home early. The longest we ever waited for any ride was about 20 minutes. We used FastPass a few times, but most of the standby times were pretty reasonable anyways.

It was a great day. We highly recommend Tokyo Disney.

Asakusa and Ueno

We went for old and cool today, so we went to see some shrines and gates. First off was a section of town called Asakusa. It starts off with this long pedestrian walkway with lots of fun little shops.

Then you get to a giant gate.

You go through the gate to get to the temple complex.

Then we took the metro over to Ueno, a Central Park of sorts with a couple shrines, but the biggest one was closed. Here's what we could find.

Ginza and the Palace

Say hello to Ginza, Tokyo's version of New York's Fifth Avenue.

It looks cooler at night.

It's mostly the same brands, except the stores here are taller and cooler. Our favorites included the Yamaha store (9 floors of musical instruments and an actual concert hall), a 5-story stationery store, and a 5-story toy store. Oh, and the world's largest Uniqlo:

It was merchandised so pretty I wanted to take pictures of every fixture. I'm kind of a retail nerd that way.

In the middle of our Ginza shopping tour, we wandered over to the nearby palace to kill some time until dark. The palace grounds are massively expansive, we walked around for about an hour and never actually entered the actual grounds, just the parks and walkways surrounding the palace.

We'll go back another day to properly explore the gardens.

We left the palace to go back to the city just after sunset, since Ginza looked like it would get pretty at night.

We were right.

When the stores closed at 8, we decided to go home because we were tired and we noticed that our eyes were a little bloodshot.