Tokyo! Day 01 - 23/12

It's been a while since I concluded my trip to Tokyo with the empathetic ear/shoulder to vomit on, Maggie, so I thought I'd update this journal of sorts before I completely forget what I did. Halfway there. So thanks to the non-alzheimered, identical memories of Maggie, my memories have been reborn and immortalised on the crap-festooned midden that is the intarwebs. So as the title suggests it's the first day of Ali & Maggie's adventures in that oh-so-wacky Tokyo.

We actually left to go to Tokyo from Kyoto the night before on the night bus, but because that night didn't resemble a normal night with sleep my mind thought I had arrived the day before. We arrived at Shinjuku Station after a nine hour ride with rest stops every few hours that would wake me from my shallow slumber with the blaring of fluorescent lights. Luckily I slept next to the window and managed to grab what z's I could – Maggie had no such luck. The entertainment for the first few hours of the journey was provided by Maggie's portable DVD player and the comedic stylings of Sheldon. The bus seats didn't go back very far and there wasn't a lot of room to stretch your feet so you had to sleep upright and hunched which is near impossible but it was cheap and that is all that really matters. So were arrived in Shinjuku far from being fresh-faced, and according to Maggie I looked like I was about to keel over. I know I'm not to be around when I'm in that state. We arrived at 7am or so and had a whole day of fun planned ahead of us. Goodie.

Getting ready for the day at Shinjuku Station.
Just thought you wanted the memory of how tired you were, Maggie.

Our first stop was the hotel in Shibuya and to get there we had to navigate the poorly planned labyrinth that is the Tokyo subway system and even worse, the stations themselves. Finding an exit out of the station was hard enough. We were chuffed to find our hotel was across the road from a Denny's, but our expectations fell flat when we saw the sundaes and pancakes we envisioned replaced by salad and shit like that. Who the hell goes to Denny's for a freakin salad. Japan you disappoint me, but it was salad for me.

On the internally stored itinerary the next stop was Ueno, home of the national zoo, museum and science museum all surrounded by parkland and linked by broad boulevards. We planed to go to the museum only as I had no wish to see animals in cramped cages as I'd heard the zoo was like. Even the museum took up until past lunchtime. The mascot of Ueno is a panda and after sighting a cafe that sold panda themed foods we rocked up only to find it was closed. That's Japan for you, either turn up exactly on time of do without. 2 pm is not considered lunchtime and afternoon tea does not exist in this country. The museum was alright. It had a lot of things I had already seen at the Japan exhibition at Te Papa a few years ago, and because Maggie had felt like she'd dragged me along she was worrying that I wasn't enjoying the endless rooms of Jomon pottery. Oh contraire! She couldn't believe how long I could spend looking at broken pots.

Jomon pottery figures from burial mounds.

This is our buddy M. R. Bighair from the ¥1,000 note.
Ok so his real name is Noguchi  but his hair is rather impressive.

The afternoon's entertainment was the long awaited trip to Nakano for our dorkfest. Maggie is a collector of cels from 90s animes and Nakano being the home of many of the online sellers, she locked herself up in a few shops and poured through the stacks of hand painted cels. Meanwhile I geeked out in the anime figure and DVD stores pushing through the throng and beating off the sweaty, bespectacled otakus as we all tried to navigate the narrow corridors and shop aisles, stepping over the bodies of fallen nerds in search of that elusive figure. It was chaos. The thing I found pretty funny was the fact that this entire five levelled rabbit warren of anime shops only opened from midday until midnight – prime time for socially inept otaku. Also all of the shopkeepers were expected to wear cosplay costumes to work so it wasn't unusual to see green haired girls running around with otaku leering after them. I didn’t buy anything on this particular trip to Nakano as it was just reconnaissance, but in the second trip several days later, I went nuts.

That night we met up with Maggie's friend from university, Steph and her English teacher friend Janelle for dinner at a Mexican restaurant near the hostel they were staying at. The food was great but the music kinda subtracted from the atmosphere. All night they played a CD of 'Who Let the Dogs Out' by the Baha Men with what seemed like every known remix of it. Naturally after the fifth time we'd heard it we were ready to gauge out our eardrums with a rusty salsa spoon. We then headed back to Shibuya to get our tickets for the big trip to Disney Sea from the Disney Store there and as ascended three fights of stairs trying to avoid the first floor which housed only Duffy Bear. F***ing Duffy Bear. This bear is the new mascot bear for Disney Japan. It's a generic looking teddy bear that you can buy and wears the outfits of Disney characters, in fact it's so generic it hurts to see Disney stoop that low. I hate Duff Bear. So that's why we avoided the first floor. The second and third storeys had the usual Disney merchandise and the fourth floor had the ticket booth for the Disney theme parks. We wanted to go on or before Christmas to see all the Christmas themed stuff but it was all booked out – the only tie of the year it is so we settled with going on the 27^th. Well we actually bought tickets for the 26^th as we forgot about the trip we were going on the 26^th and had to come back the day after to change the tickets for ¥200 each.