another life blog

I’ve long been fascinated with the land of the rising sun ~ from my early start in Japanese anime as hobby, to my fetish-like love for eel bowl – it’s the place I always wanted to visit and possibly live in with a cute Japanese girl (they can be very hot & sexy too). Like with all my other trips with parents, I’m always more subdued and restricted (I restrict myself from even voicing my desire for things because I know beforehand that whatever I wanted is irrelevant and impermissible), so though I saw and did a lot – there are a boatload more things I wanted to do and one day, I shall go back with a much fatter wallet!

With that said, this is a recap of my trip to Tokyo, Japan! Along with some pictures at the bottom for your viewing pleasures.

I like Tokyo. It possesses properties that are hard to come by in many metropolitan cities here in the states (not that I’ve been to many, but say in comparison to New York, Boston, Miami). It’s clean – extremely clean even in places you never would expect it to be clean. Case in point – we were walking around in a known fish market that’s been on travel channel – and it’s clean (not so clean that you could eat off the street, but there weren’t any yucky fish guts lying around like in Taiwan market). It’s very diverse landscape wise ~ from Shinjuku to Ueno – it’s just a short hop away via the underground subway, but when you feel like it’s a completely different city! Shinjuku has all the giant skyscraper while Ueno got zoo, musuems, and more humble flats. Some places hardly got anyone walking around, other got people hustling against each other trying to get by. I remember coming out of the subway near the Imperial Palace of Tokyo and thinking… “damn, it’s a giant park in the middle of the city that’s as big if not bigger than NY’s Central Park!” And there are more parks and temples and many other places that you wouldn’t expect! Then there’s the customer service…

In Tokyo, the service people are just too nice and friendly (even if they don’t speak English). The best example is when we went to Mitsukoshi Ginza to buy little shoes for my mother (whose feet are so small, the only shoes she can buy in the states are for little girls). Years ago, my grandmother bought a pair of Washington shoes for my mother – and she always treasured it (she wouldn’t wear it except for incredibly special occasion like close family getting married). So there in Ginza, my mother wanted to buy another pair of “Washington” shoes. Except she didn’t know they don’t sell Washington shoes in Mitsukoshi and that it’s actually a separate store (if she knew, she didn’t convey such info to me).

So, there we were in Mitsukosihi shoe section, looking for shoes – and this older dude came out to greet us. Basically, their rule of thumb is – if they see you, they say “irashaimasen” immediately. Even if you are paying no mind to them, they will look at you, bow a bit, and say irashaimasen. Hell, we were walking and a girl came bursting out from the back seemingly in a hurry — stopped, bowed, and said “irashaimasen” before moving on quickly. Er, I digress. The older dude greeted us, and I said simply “Washington Shoes?! Here? Where?” He looked confounded for a second before smiling and held up his finger and said, “wait please!” He rushed back to the counter area, grabbed a piece of paper and pen, then rushed to the other side to where he kept his stuff and grabbed his reading glasses and came rushing back to me. So the paper was a map, and he pointed out where we were first, and said, “Washington Store” and pointed at another location on the map. This was already a step above and beyond any normal customer service person would do – but he went further. I said, “thank you!” and he replied with more directions to make sure I knew how to get there. Heck, if I didn’t indicate I know how to get there, I think he would’ve liked nothing more than walk us to the Washington Store 2 blocks away. Ahh, what service. Countless times I’ve asked for directions, and they always responded pleasantly every time. Lovely people.

Tokyo is such an incredibly large city — you really can spend days looking around. Initially, I had wanted to take the Shinkansen to another city like Kyoto – but “you-know-who” decided against it. So within the city of Tokyo, I wanted a few things: 1) To see Akihabara and possibly go into a maid cafe 2) To see Tokyo Tower and point at it 3) To eat eel bowls and 4) To see the famous intersection that’s likened to NY’s Central Square< ?> during New Year’s Eve.

Of course, with my parents in tow, visiting a maid cafe to satisfy my inner craving was really out of the question. I still ponder what they would say if I had asked dad to take a picture of me posing with a maid serving coffee latte. Still, I was happy enough to meet a maid on the street handing out coupons to pedestrians (I didn’t ask to get a photo taken though, she was really busy). Akihabara is a nice place for electronics and all things anime for sure. My dad bought a nice Olympus u725 for around online market value, and he was really pleased with it. I also went into doujin/model store for all of 30 seconds (it was like… greatness).

Tokyo Tower is a famous landmark for quite a few anime I saw in the past (namely X and Bottle Fairies). It’s really a gigantic tower and posing next to one of its 4 legs was kind of pointless. Due to cost and the fact you can’t go to the top, I opted not to go to the top (and my parents telling me to go instead of going with me). Still, I am happy enough to have taken a photo of myself pointing at the background that is Tokyo Tower (see below for pic).

Eel bowl. Delicious. Freshly grilled with delicious toppings. The eel bowl I have depicted below is really one of the best eel bowl I had ~ coupled with the awesome price of just 875 yen, it can’t be beat! God I want more eel bowls now! Other than eel bowls, I enjoyed really a wide variety of dishes except for Yakiniku. I so wanted to eat Yakiniku in Japan and I almost tricked my parents into going to one! Except when we did go, the place was ****ing empty! GOD**$)@&!$%)! Why did they pick that night to be empty and my parents enforced the rule that if they’re empty, their meat is not fresh, thus we can’t eat there! $%#(@$%&!@$

Lastly – to see the wonderful night life that is in Tokyo. Hahahaha – going out at night is impossible with my parents in tow ~ so that was just a wishful dream.

So – maybe next time, Kyoto, Hokkaido, and definitely maid cafe in Tokyo. At least now I understand the extremely complex subway system! Woot!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 11:02 am and is filed under my life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.