Sunday, 20 March 2011

Recap of Tokyo Day 1

I haven't had nearly enough time to provide a full account of my trip, so I'd like to start at the beginning again and work my way through so that I can provide a little bit of insight to those of you who haven't had the opportunity to experience all that Japan has to offer.  Now I know that I barely skimmed the surface of this amazingly beautiful country, but I loved every moment of what I did see.

Our trip started out on a dreary Wednesday in Toronto, foggy, rainy, even snowy.  We were more than happy to leave all of that behind.


Our flight was long but uneventful.  The funniest part of the day was watching the poor woman two rows ahead of us struggle with her tray table.  She appeared to be trying to suspend a furoshiki (Japanese wrapping cloth) from the table, perhaps to put her valuables in?  In any case, she managed to rip the clasp for the table right out of the seatback and thus her table would not stay up.  The cabin crew fought back laughter as they first tried to duct tape the table up, but ended up using a seatbelt extender to literally buckle it to the seat in front of her.


We arrived in Tokyo and took our obligatory first photo in front of the "Welcome to Japan" wall at Narita... how many of you have a similar photo?  I bet lots of you do from at least one of your trips!


We took the Narita Express train from Narita to Shinagawa Station (one stop past Tokyo Station), took just under an hour and was "free" with our JR Rail Pass.  Dad fell asleep but I was too excited to sleep at that point, even though the sun went down halfway into the ride so I couldn't even see out the window.


Got a little lost looking for our hotel but check-in was easy and we got settled in right away.  They had Shiseido shampoo/conditioner/body wash in the bathroom - I think this is one of the first times in history that I've ever used the in-house toiletries instead of my own!  I also loved that all the hotels had a hot water pot in every room with complimentary ocha (green tea).  

Don't judge us, but we definitely had McDonalds for breakfast the first morning.  It was just so convenient and oh-so-tempting.  We ordered off the picture menu (egg mcmuffin and coffee) and took it back to the hotel to eat.  Their packaging was so clever, they put the cardboard drink tray in the bottom of the paper bag and piled everything else on top.... it was brilliant! 
The first stop on our Tokyo tour was the Meiji Jingu Shrine in the Shibuya area.  It is dedicated to Emperor Meiji, the great grandfather of the current Emperor Akihito.  It is one of the largest Shinto shrines in Japan and the largest in the Tokyo area.  While I was there I picked up an Omikuji (poem-drawing) composed by Empress Shoken, who was said to have written over 30, 000 of them in her time. 



We made a brief stop at the main gates of the Imperial Palace, which is surrounded by a huge moat.  The tour would normally take us through the Palace's East Gardens, which is the only part of the compound that is open to the public, but it is closed on Mondays and Fridays.


From there we went to Asakusa to see the famed Kannon Temple.  This temple is the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo and is set in the heart of the old Geisha district.  There is also lots of good shopping in the surrounding areas, including the Nakamise Shopping Arcade which is the long row of shops that leads up to the front steps of the temple itself.  This is where we were when the earthquake hit, as you might have read in some of my earlier posts.


While I was there I purchased another Omikuji fortune scroll, which I had to read 3 times before I realized that it really wasn't a very good fortune.  Lucky for me, I tied it up on the special rack so the bad luck can be blown away by the wind.

 We did a bit of shopping since we had some time to kill before we had to go meet Tomo-san and Hiromi-san for dinner.  I bought a lot of odori (Japanese dancing) supplies like new shitagi (undergarments for kimono), tabi (traditional Japanese socks), and a new hairpiece. 
 The streets were lined with hundreds of shops selling everything you can imagine, like this little store that only sold senbei (Japanese rice crackers).  It smelled amazing.












Another example of some of the hilarious stuff they sell in Japan - hats for dogs!  They had tons of stores specifically for pets, even though we didn't see as many "purse dogs" as we thought we would, you can tell that the Japanese consider their pets to be as much a part of their family as their human counterparts.





We watched this guy make ramen noodles for a good 25 minutes, it was incredible.  He had such an attention to detail, he would put Paula Deen to shame.  Made us hungry so of course we had to go find somewhere to eat lunch after that.  Lots of restaurants will advertise on the door whether they have English menus available, to save us from having to go inside and ask, "Ego wakarimasu ka?" (informal way of asking "Do you understand English?").  We ended up picking the one that had the best looking display in the window, and it tasted even better than it looked.

You've already heard about the rest of our day, because about an hour after lunch the quake hit.  Please click here for details if you haven't read it yet.

I know I'm going backwards by starting at the beginning but my journey tells the story about how Japan changed me.  I really value every detail of my trip, and I hope that through my stories and photos that you can feel a little bit of that magic too.

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Japan 1988

Japan 1988
Dad, Mom and I in Japan, Oct '88