Just plane dumb

So after a surprisingly decent night in my very own morgue, I got up around 7 and headed to Sakura to pick up Em, shower and update my blog (I was finishing up my Hiroshima post). By 9:30 I began to wonder and had the front desk call her room (yes, Sakura has phones in the room... not bad for a hostel). Apparently the alarm clock decided to run out of juice around 1am.

So like yesterday we were getting a late start. On the list of to dos were to visit Akihabara to look for Joe's requests (maracas and toy) and Dad's souvenir. With our flight at 4p, we backed out two hours for checking in, and an hour for the train to the airport. If my math serves that is 1p.

That leaves two hours to do all of this. Hmm...well worst comes to worst, we probably can squeeze down the two hours a little. From experience I knew that the international flights at times will shutdown the baggage conveyor around 45 minutes before takeoff. So it would be wise not to push it.

Akihabara is fairly easy to get to, just take the Ginza to Ginza the Hibya to Akihabara. If any place would have Maracas controllers for Dreamcast this would be it. Interestingly, every shop knew EXACTLY what this Samba de Amigo maracas were only no one knew where to buy it. We finally settled on the 10 story electronics haven known as Yodabashi Camera. Still no maracas but they did have a toy section. Apparently there is a fairly famous Japanese tv show with a fairly famous character with the unfortunate name of harudogei (pronounced Hardo Gay). Each person on the toy floor knew about this also "Ahh yesss hardoo gay no it does not exist here". Sorry, Joe, we tried.

So with time ticking away we were at the 1:15 mark. Later than I had hoped but still doing okay. It was time to book it to the hostel again. It took about 30 minutes to get back due to the lunch rush hour. Back to backwards math. 4p - 20 minutes to get to and from the hostel minus an hour train minus 30 minutes and we are looking at the current time, meaning in order to beat that 45 minute cutoff we would have to run, to beat an hour cutoff we would have to pray.

Having never been in a hurry during the day I underestimated how long it would take to navigate the souvenir shops stretching from Kaminarmon gate to Sensoji. We knocked into half of Tokyo on the way to the subway while we yelled "Sumimasen!"constantly. We even bumped into a French woman on the train who gave us a fairly disgusted look and asked us where we were from. Em and I in unison said "Canada". I added in "Tranta" for a little something extra.

Em and I nearly threw up from running with packs on and by the time we caught the metro to Ueno, bought our ticket and walked the long corridor to the Keisei line our only hope was for a delayed flight or to fly some other way. Japanese punctuality was offset by their cleanliness obsession as that prevented us from taking off early. We took the 2:40 train putting us at check in 5 minutes before take off. At this point I was resigned to missing the flight but was not looking forward to the inevitable question "Why, again did you miss the flight?" "::sigh:: we were looking for a Hardo Gay toy"

Unfortunately for us the flight was on time. Very fortunate for us there was a flight in 25 minutes to Newark...that had also stopped check in.

Continental rocks. If you ever have a choice in airline and the price is pretty close, pick em. The lady reopens the baggage line and tags our packs while throwing out requests to other employees to help us find our gate. We were literally walked from the counter the gate to make sure we would make the flight all with no extra charge for the new tickets. As in Amsterdam a year earlier, Em and I heard our names over the intercom for the final boarding call. The security check was a bit haphazard and again the staff asked us if they could check our baggage. We may have lost our aisle seats for that flight but we felt very happy to have made it aboard. The 11 hour flight mostly zipped by and before we knew it we were touching down in the big apple. At customs we were greeted with this New York accent yelling, ¨Hey YOU! You... you get ova´here."

I missed Japan already.

We had some time to kill in Newark (5 hour layover), so we found a bar serving Brooklyn Breweries' line up (I found the IPA to be just ok) and a Borders mini where I looked at some guidebooks for my next trip to China next year.

Having been up for about 30 hours we got 8 hours sleep in some very comfortable beds.

I will post a few more pictures, a wrapup, and a youth hostel supplement over the next few days.

Until next time,

Joey

Rising sun

After Disney we settled called it a night with the intention of waking up early. That we did, about 0430. Our roommate (a Swedish girl) was out hanging with a couple of English guys when she decides to head back to the hostel. She was apparently quite drunk when she hailed a cab in Akihabara. That should be a short ride (30 minutes at most). She said he drove her around for almost two hours not letting her out and demanded 10000 yen when she finally got out otherwise he would have called the police. It shows you bad stuff can happen to you when you are drunk, female and alone... even in Japan. We thought she should have called his bluff, not paid him anything and allowed the police to arrive. He would be in a lot of trouble. Although since she was mispronouncing the name of the area as Asah-Koo-sa instead of Asock-sah he may have thought she was trying to go to Akasasa which could take that amount of time. It would also have taken her through Roppongi the "unsafe" area of Tokyo. Of course all of that doesn't explain why he was touching her leg.

SumoMasen

With that craziness the night before we didn't get up until about noon. We woke up and began arranging our Sunday night's stay. The hotel was in Narita so we would probably have to leave around 4p to beat nightfall. As we started talking we found out that we could probably reclaim the points to have another night in Tokyo. Capsule hotel here I come. With that same late start we weren't able to buy Sumo wrestling tickets but we did see some of the participants outside.

Em suggested we head to the Tokyo tower in Roppongi which is featured heavily in Anime. It began the start of our Japanized European Icons tour of the night.

The Tokyo Tower, stands 13m, or roughly one nanny-nanny-boo-boo, taller than its Parisian counterpart.



In Shinjuku, they have a skyscraper clock looking just slightly like Big Ben.



Of course in Asakusa you have the Tourist board Seiko Glockenspiel.


Em wanted the extra night to go to a Jpop club. Should be easy enough right? I mean this is Tokyo. Our guide book (Let's Go) suggested the Jpop cafe. Perfect! The directions led us a bit astray as it uses landmarks rather than streets for guiding you in. We arrived a full 30 minutes before it closed. I think. Upstairs it was entirely empty save for two Japanese girls smoking in a dimly lit room.

Hard to call Shibuya a bust that night. We found a bizarre store specializing in unusual condoms, a Tshirt store that has an "if-it-is-in-English-we'll-sell-it-regardless-of-how -nonsensical-it-is" attitude, and an arcade with a video game that is best described as a drum version of Dance Dance Revolution.

We took the 2nd to last train from Shibuya up the Ginza to Asakusa. Capsule hotels for the uninitiated are places for drunk business men to fall asleep when they miss their last train out for the night. At roughly 25 bucks a night, they don't come that cheap but are frequently an indication of a helluva good evening. Since most are segregated based on sex and Em's tendancy towards claustrophobia, I was on my own. It was surprisingly comfortable considering I was essentially sleeping in a decent sized refrigerator.

--Joey

Hiroshima and Miyajima

Em and I left our Tokyo pseudo-Ryokan for Hiroshima. This was destined to be a fairly long day since we were headed back to Tokyo that night. The shink can make some distant sites remarkably achievable daytrips.

We arrived, threw our packs in the locker and were out. If you didn't know any better, you would not know there was ever a single bomb that fell on Hiroshima. It looks like Tokyo, Kyoto or any other decent sized city. In fact the only sign of the attack was a government building left in its partially destroyed state.

Across from the A bomb dome (seriously, this is what they call it) you have the field where the Hiroshima Carps play and on the other side of the river, the Hiroshima peace park. They commemorate the attacks every morning with a bell at 0815. They also have a before and after section within the official museum which doesn't so much blame the US for what happened but simply calls for peace and uses Hiroshima as an example of the costs of war. They wisely choose not to throw stones from their duct taped pyrex shack.


I am sure some people would think that Americans would be personas non grata in this town but we didn't find that at all. In fact, as we walked through the peace park groups of Japanese children would walk up to us say hello and then, if they were girls, giggle.

Whether you agree with dropping the bomb in Hiroshima or not (I being in the camp of the former) the photos and memorials show you that just because because a decision was right and necessary doesn't make it good. Inside the museum I came so close to blocking a few cameras. They have signs everywhere that say "No photography" in several languages. Yet here were some Nigerian military taking photos in plain site with full flash and everything. Not only was that incredibly disrespectful but the photos won't come out behind glass!

With time quickly disappearing we cut our visit to the musem short and headed to the sacred island of Miyajima. Its most famous attraction is the floating torii (considered one of the top three views in Japan; similar to wonders of the ancient world). The island is really beautiful and I wish we could have camped out there. After a few pictures we had to jump back on the shink to Tokyo. Given Japanese punctuality that makes Germany seem like Spain, when the train to Hiroshima was two minutes late we started worrying a bit.

With 10 minutes between us and our last train out we ran everywhere from the train to the lockers to the platform and made it with a few minutes to spare. Exhaustion makes for decent sleep. Around 2330 we pulled in to Tokyo station where we got the sardine treatment on the way to Ueno and ultimately to Asakusa via the Ginza line. We were actually double booked with accomodations at an Akihabara capsule hotel and the Sakura hostel and when we arrived at Sakura at midnight, I was glad I didnt have to go wandering for my accomodation.


--Joey