Tokyo Drift

Hi everyone,

I've recovered from my hissy fit last night about the Japanese food. Ended up getting sweet & sour pork stir-fry from the supermarket and microwaving it at the hostel, followed by a bag of chips. Had a great yakitori chicken set for lunch today with our free guide Nori-san while wandering the back streets of an unpronounceable and unlocateable non-tourist suburb in Tokyo, here's a photo:

We've been in Tokyo for nearly a week now. the first 2 days we were completely shrine'd and temple'd out so we went to Disneyland and DisneySea. It was the best thing we could have done! Tokyo Disneyland is a strange mish-mash of Americanism (it's a replica of the original California park) and Japanism, because everyone is uber-polite with the mandatory excessive greeting and thanking you for going on the rides. But interestingly enough, instead of bowing they wave at you - a rather fake excessive wave. they do it when you go on the ride and your car pulls away, they do it when you get off the ride and walk towards the exit, they do it if they catch your eye anywhere in the park (remember this is ALL staff)... I think it must be enforced Americanism from the Disney franchise. But in any case, it really is the happiest place on earth and we had an awesome couple of days :)





Laura has some more photos of us doing fun stuff at the Disney parks.
www.stacy-laura.blogspot.com
DisneySea is really cool - it''s an ad-hoc park a bit like the Animal Kingdom in Florida. It's on the coast and is ocean-themed. They've built a frickin volcano in the middle of the park, the Journey to the Centre of the Earth ride goes right through it. They've also built Mexico where you can find the Indiana Jones ride and number of Mexican-themed shops and eateries. Each area of the park is so well done, they've created a piece of the world and imported bits & pieces to add to the authenticity. There was a mariachi band playing at the mexican restaurant :P The day we went to DisneySea it was nice & sunny, such a welcome change to the freezing raining weather we've had a lot of the time.

...like the day trip to Kamakura. Bloody freezing! There are quite a few shrines etc. to see but we limited it to the famous giant buddha (Daibutsu) then promptly ran home again.

The area we're in is called Asakusa, it's an older part of Tokyo which is home to the Senso-ji Shrine, the oldest in Tokyo. It's got a horribly touristed-out shopping street leading up to it, but the shrine itself is nice and has all the usual trimmings; incense stand, big bell that you can ring, fortunes tied to a tree, dragon guarding the water fountain at which you purify yourself. There are a lot of covered shopping streets leading off it into a rabbit warren of eateries and game parlours, it's fun just to wander through them and get lost.

We're explored a few areas of Tokyo now. It's an unimagineably large city, with a mind-boggling amount of transport options. There is a subway system to rival London's or Paris's, PLUS a rail system of the same complexity above ground. It's kinda fun to try and master it, I think we're doing pretty well!

We wandered around Shinjuku last night, one of the neon shopping areas. Prepare to be assaulted by flashing lights and beeping noises!



Today with our guide we walked through Akihabara "Electric Town" (actually just shops selling electronics), and later on through Ginza which is gorgeous. It's a beautifully paved, tree-lined boulevard which becomes a pedestrian mall in the weekends when they block all vehicle access. All the luxury boutiques have ENORMOUS stores in this part of town: Prada, LV, Tiffany's, De Beers, Mikimoto, Chanel, Bulgari, and the list goes on. As a traveller in my Kathmandu polar fleece I felt extremely shabby and way too uncool to be there. Doesn't help that Japanese women don't even go the 7-Eleven without looking immaculate.

This morning we met a Sumo wrestler!!! We wanted to watch a practise session and scoured the Ryogoku area for the smaller stables with our guide to find something, but they had all finished by the time we got there, plus a lot of rings (they call them sumo stables) are out of action at the moment because they're all re-laying their clay rings for the big Tokyo tournament next month. But we met this big guy and his buddies:

Oh, and we also visited the Ghibli museum, the home of Hayao Miyazaki and all his anime creations, including
- My Neighbour Totoro
- Ponyo
- Spirited Away
- Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind
- Howl's Moving Castle

Here's Totoro in the window: (to those of you who don't like anime, this will mean nothing to you)
it was a really cool place, we got an insight into how the animation is created and where all his inspiration comes from. The museum itself is located in Mikata, an outlying suburb of Tokyo which had a nice big park and cute little surburbian streets that we explored for a while.


Tomorrow we're planning to hit an antiques flea market at the Togo shrine, then head to Harajuku just next door to go Harajuku girl spotting!!! Watch this space for crazy costumes!!!

Until next time!

Love,
May Lee