TWB – Day 4 + Return

Tags

108 bell tolls, ARASHI, Geihinkan, Meiji Jingu, Sensouji, Tokyo, Yamanote Line merchandise

I’ve been holding off on this one because it’s gonna be massive.  I’ll try to be brief. ^_^; Picking up where the previous post left off…

At the stroke of midnight, the crowd surged forward into the temple.  The young dude in front of us was taking pictures of the crowd and saying 「すげえ、これ！」(“this is incredible yo!”).  I guess even he was surprised by how feisty the people got. ^o^  It seemed to me like the cops were pushed out of the way! Their “shibaraku omachi kudasai” signs sunk into the crowd like the Titanic into the deep.  Well, just that faster and with less ice.

Somehow, we made it up the few steps to the temple’s main hall alive.  But once close to the altar, I felt the full pressure of hundreds of people pushing against me.  I honestly wondered if I’d be crushed to death!  I looked for Cassie in the crowd, spotted her, then took a few seconds to relish the sight of fistfuls of golden five-yen coins flying through the air before throwing mine in, clapping, and getting the hell outta there!

The Flying Five Yen Coins compete with Dazaifu Tenmangu's Flying Plum Tree for the title of Most Righteous!!!

That poor 飛び梅 (Flying Plum Tree)…I just can’t help myself. >o<;;;;

Oh, right, I said I’d be brief.  I’ll try to cut back on the jokes, since that’s not what you folks come here for.  Or is it? @_@?

Number 13 Excellent Luck! (Even though the top line is written horizontally, it's read from right to left.)

So anyway, I waited for Cassie to emerge from the throng.  Then, we went to get our fortunes.  I don’t know if this is only for New Year’s, but instead of a simple box that you draw an omikuji from, there were metal canisters filled with numbered sticks with a hole big enough only for one stick to fall out.  You shook the canister until a stick fell out, and took a fortune from the drawer with the number on the stick you got.  I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw that I drew number 13, but it turned it to be 大吉 (daikichi), Excellent Luck!

Then, we walked around all the 屋台 (yatai), or stands selling stuff.  There were yatai for yakisoba, fishes on sticks, yakitomorokoshi (fried corn-on-the-cob; this was the first thing I ate in 2010.  ^___^), choco-bananas, amazake, fried mochi, and tons of other stuff that I can’t remember.  There were also yatai for daruma dolls and various luck charms, such as the bamboo rakes that help you rake in fortune.

Ring those mortal desires away!

We were about to head back to the hotel, but on the way we passed by the place on the temple grounds where they were doing the 108 tolls of the bell for the New Year (除夜の鐘撞き, joya no kanetsuki).  They were on ring number 70-something when we got there.

Shortly before midnight, temples start ringing their bells. They ring them 108 times to symbolize the 108 mortal desires (according to Buddhism) and pray that these desires disappear.   I don’t know if at small temples where there aren’t as many visitors each ring is struck by a different person, but since there were tons of people here, they had prearranged who would do each ring, and announced each person’s name and what number toll they were going to ring.  It was funny to see some of the men who struck the bell so hard they almost lost their balance, but they were mighty satisfied with themselves. ^o^  There were three women in kimono and face make-up in a row who rang the bell; when they went up everyone took photos of them.  I don’t know if they were geisha or just women completely decked out in the traditional style.  The women’s ringing of the bell elicited as much applause as the men who tried to ensure all of Tokyo heard their ring.

We stuck around until the 108th ring, then the speeches by some important dudes.  After that, they threw the branches that were up around the bell stand into a fire in a pit.  It must’ve been around 3AM when we finally returned to the hotel.  We showered quickly and went to bed.

We got up around 11AM.  I packed up my stuff, since I would depart Tokyo at night.  We went back into the thick of Akihabara Electric Town in search of a maid keitai strap.  Several stores later and no luck!  We stopped for breakfast at a donburi place, then resumed the search. We went into Don Quixote, a store selling all sorts of stuff with lots of American products.  What the store has to do with Cervantes’ famous character is beyond me.  Anyway,  I picked up Caramel & Yakipurin (aka flan) flavored Kit-Kats and Japan Railways socks.  Yes, official Japan Railways socks! There were towels, boxers, and socks featuring the signage from Tokyo’s circular Yamanote Line.  I got Tokyo, Shibuya, and Ebisu.

Three pairs for 1000-en yo.

We popped into a game center; no luck, but we took silly purikura (short for “print club,” which in English makes little sense given that it’s actually a photobooth and you don’t have to join anything to use them).  Goofing off completed, we continued the search.  How could it be that there wasn’t a maid keitai strap in Akihabara?!  We went into some regular stores and some…stores where the only females besides us were plastic and had triple J boobs. (I’m estimating.) The guys buying these oddly proportioned figures didn’t bat an eye at our presence though.  One store had a notebook full of customers’ drawings and impressions.  It had a note saying, “feel free to leave your impressions after shopping.”  Since I didn’t buy anything I didn’t draw in it.  But…I wonder what kinds of things people wrote? I mean, it’s almost like asking people to write down their thoughts of the AV section. ^-^;

Anyway, lest I give the impression that all of Akihabara is crawling with hentai and its 3D brethern, I actually found a very nice V-neck sweater for just 1800-en in a jeans store.  I think it’s for men, but who can tell with a sweater like that?  Maybe because it’s bright magenta.  <tangent> A friend recently emailed me this fascinsating article where I learned that pink used to be for boys.  The logic was that pink comes from red, an aggressive color unsuited for the “delicate” female, who was better suited for calming blue.  Go fig. </tangent>

We gave up the search for the maid keitai strap, asked Cassie’s iPhone where Meiji Jinguu was, and set out.  As we looked for it, we passed by a huge, European style building.  I asked the policeman guarding it what it was.  He said it was the “geihinkan,” but since I didn’t know what that meant, I asked him if it was a government building, and he said yes.  Somehow I had failed to see the large Imperial Seal on the gate. ^_^; When I looked it up at home, I saw that 迎賓館 (geihinkan) meant the State Guesthouse.

The Gate of the State Guesthouse

I rather like this shot through one of the gate's rings. ^_^

We walked around some more, and the iPhone was saying we had reached Meiji Jinguu!  But there was nothing shrine-like in sight, and since I knew that “jinguu” was more important than just a “jinja” I knew it had to be something hard to miss.  As we stood around confused, considering going back to the hotel as it was 4PM by then and my bus left at 9PM, we noticed we were next to Meiji Jinguu Golf Course.  A little ways up was Meiji Jinguu Baseball Field. ?!!?!? The iPhone had led us to the wrong Meiji Jinguu!  Cassie looked it up again and found the actual shrine.  We decided to rest up in a café before catching a train to the right location.

"I'm too sexy for this rope, too sexy for this rope, so sexy it hurts."

(At this point in the post, WordPress’ editor decided it wanted to act stupid and put things in dumb places.  Moving photos around without deleting and reuploading everything has proven difficult, so I will just apologize for the poorly placed photos.)

At the train station, everyone was taking pictures.  When we got closer we saw what the commotion was.  There were advertisements for a New Year’s Special drama featuring super popular boy band ARASHI.  There was a large billboard, but also ads on pillars showing each of the guys shirtless with duct tape over their mouths and real rope wound around the bottom of the pillars!  The policemen were actually yelling at people who touched the ads! Luckily, they didn’t see me when I did, LOL.

Then we went to visit the deified Emperor Meiji. (Nice segue, no? >o<)

It was a long, winding, dusty trail through a forest to reach Meiji Jinguu’s main hall.  It was dusk, so the sense of light was beautiful, but again, without a tripod, I couldn’t really capture it.  And, since we were in a rush, knowing that there would be a large line, we couldn’t really stop to snap photos.  As with Sensouji, we waited an hour, slowly advancing towards the temple.  Since it had already been the New Year for a good 15 hours, people weren’t pushing.  Once we got in, we put in our 5 yen and looked at the crowd for a bit before moving on to the omamori stands and yatai.

The whole of this white tarp is for throwing the 5 yen on!

I got an omamori for studying. Yeah, even though I live so close to Dazaifu Tenmangu, which is one of the temples for the academically inclined,  but I figured it couldn’t hurt to have an Emperor on my side right?  No offense to Sugawara no Michizane. Anyway, Cassie got another fortune, but I figured I couldn’t top what I got at Sensouji and decided not to risk it. ^o^  We didn’t dally too much at the yatai since I had a bus to catch.

We went back to the hotel. I grabbed a nikuman from the attached conbini before heading to the room to pick up my stuff.  Oh yeah, I should mention this:  we had been a bit worried about having access to our money since we both bank with our regional bank rather than a large national bank like Sumitomo, and we’d been warned about this at Tokyo Orientation, but it was no problem.  The ATM at the conbini even had a calendar with the schedules the different banks would keep during the holiday season! (ATMs, like human employees, have days off in Japan, with the exception of some found in 24-hour conbini; but if you go to even those ATMs on a day when your particular bank has a holiday, you won’t be able to do anything.) I had taken enough money with me for the whole trip, but I took some out just in case, and vowed not to spend it.  (Hey, I came back with half of that just-in-case money! ^o^)  In short: you can file “you won’t have access to your money all over Japan if you bank at a regional bank!” under Things They’re Still Telling JETs Even Though They’re No Longer True.  Well, unless you bank at a super-duper inaka bank with only one branch I guess, but does such a bank exist?

But getting back to the story (:P), we headed to Shinjuku Station.  The bus ticket only said that the departure point was “Shinjuku Station West Exit.”  So we go to the West Exit, and there’s a bus terminal there, but…it seemed to be only for local buses.  To make a long story short, “Shinjuku Station West Exit” refers to several city blocks along which buses going all over Japan line up. x_X  Luckily we’d gotten there early, but it took us 30 minutes of walking around asking to figure out what the hell was going on and where I needed to catch my bus at.  It was a block over from where the bus coming into Tokyo had dropped us off.  There, a woman asked me, “Oh, you’re going to Hakata Station aren’t you?  The bus will be here soon.”  How she knew, I’ve no idea.  Maybe she’d been on the same bus as us coming from Fukuoka?  Or maybe she overheard me cursing Nishitetsu under my breath for not being more specific on their bus tickets when there’s no signage for them at the bus stops? ^o^;

So, I get on the bus and get cozy.  About 20 minutes later I realize I left my phone charger in the hotel room and text Cassie to see if she can bring it back with her when she gets back to Fukuoka.  It’s cool, she says, so I relax and try to watch the Japanese-dubbed American action movie, something with Jamie Foxx, but I couldn’t get into it so I played some Final Fantasy: Dissidia instead.

Fourteen hours later and I was back in Fukuoka.  Out of sheer exhaustion I was able to get some sleep on this bus trip, though not much.  I had two particularly funny moments of half-asleep disorientation.  First, probably from a combination of sleep deprivation and dehydration (my water had run out), I thought I was dead.  ^o^;;;;  It didn’t help that on these overnight buses, they have curtains to divide the rows at night; so there I was, sleepy and thirsty in my own dark curtained-off bus seat, I couldn’t feel the breath in my body, so I honestly thought I had died. I thought, no, I have to drink something…even if all I have is this energy drink which will prevent me from sleeping…so, I drank it. The Final Fantasy Elixir I’d bought in Akihabara. LOLOL

Yes, I thought I was dead and drank an Elixir to feel better.  Oh my god….>o<;;;;;;;;  There aren’t enough sweatdrops in the world.

The other funny thing that happened to my disoriented self was, open waking from sleep, I looked out the window and saw something white and something black beyond that.  Since I’d been trying to sleep, I didn’t have my glasses on.  I thought, Huh, why are we driving by a white sand beach?  Thinking the white stuff was sand and the black stuff beyond water.  I put my glasses on and looked out the window again and…realized I’d been looking at the side of one of the other Nishitetsu buses making the trek back to Fukuoka.

*Mega Super Ultra Facepalm + LOL*

Furthermore, I realized that we weren’t even moving.  We were in a parking lot making the first driver-only rest stop of the trip.^o^;;;;

Well, once Cassie got back in town, I went downtown to meet her and get my phone charger. We went to watch the Nodame Cantabile movie (it was great!) and ate at Canal City Hakata’s Ramen Stadium, an area full of ramen restaurants.  After that, we went our separate ways.  Soon as I got off the train back in my neighborhood I ran to the SoftBank store to pick up my phone (it had needed repairs right before I left for Tokyo, so I’d been using a substitute phone they’d given me) before the store closed.  I equipped my phone with the Kingdom Hearts chibi Sephiroth strap I’d bought at the Square-Enix Store a few days earlier and returned to my cozy old government housing. ^_^

~End of Tokyo Winter Break~ (’bout time right?!)

Tokyo Winter Break – Day 3

Tags

Asakusa, Big Black Maria, Ginza, hatsumoude, Kabukiza, Roppongi, Roppongi Hills, Sensouji, silver accessory shop, Sony Building, Tokyo, Tsukiji Hongwanji

Thursday, December 31st, we woke up too late to have the hotel’s 1000 yen breakfast.  I’d been wanting some fried rice, so we walked in the general direction of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and ate at the first Chinese restaurant we found.  Now, while I’m pretty sure “chaahan” (チャーハン） equates to “fried rice,” none of the chaahan I’ve had in Japan so far is quite like the fried rice I’ve had in the States. I wish I could say chaahan in tastier, but most of it is not.  So, at this Chinese restaurant, I looked at the menu and saw a chaahan that looked like the fried rice in the States.  Without noticing the 「辛」 written above the picture, I ordered the big serving.

辛 stands for “spicy” (as in, 辛い “karai”).  It didn’t go well. It’s not that it was terribly hot, but after a lot of even a mildly spicy food, the spice accumulates in your mouth and gets hotter.  I couldn’t finish it, and it wasn’t that good to begin with.  *sigh* So we finished up, left, and once again headed for the museum – stopping at a conbini on the way to pick up dairy products to fight the spice.  As we walked, we saw a sign for a silver accessory shop with a very interesting name, and decided to check it out after the museum.

Well, we really should’ve known, it being New Year’s Eve, but the museum was closed.  *wump wump wummmp*  All I could do was take a picture of the Museum of Photography.

Because nothing can break my sense of irony.

After that, we headed back to the silver accessory shop’s sign.  We followed two more signs into a small alley.  (The suspense is building, no? ^o^) Finally, we came to it: Big Black Maria.

This ring is called SATORI, meaning "Englightenment." This picture is from Big Black Maria's site, linked to above. They say they ship overseas. : )

While there wasn’t a big, black Maria, there were many pictures, paintings, and statuettes of the Virgin Mary, along with plenty of Mexican-style skulls (such as the sugar skulls for Dia de los Muertos), some Buddhas, and other random things that metalsmiths who were probably hippies would amass.  And of course, the main attraction: awesome silver accessories.  When I saw the price tags, I was thinking of getting outta there, but the guy started straightening up the place (it was a bit messy; but hey, they’re artists!) so I started to feel bad about not buying anything after he’d gone through the trouble. And, there was a really cool ring I actually wanted, 禅ヒッピーリングSATORI, (“Zen Hippy Ring SATORI,” LOL)  pictured above. The price: over 19,000 yen (about 200USD)!

Luckily, there was a similar ring, 禅ヒッピーリング道  (“Zen Hippy Ring Michi,” michi meaning “road” but in this case it probably means “the way” as in the teachings of Buddha), which cost 13,000 yen (about 140USD).  SATORI is basically two Michi rings put together. While I like single-knuckle armor rings, SATORI’s price was a bit much, so I went with Michi and vowed not to buy myself anything else for the rest of the trip.  We waited about 20 minutes while the shopkeeper/metalsmith/artist sized the ring for me.

After that, we went back to the area of the museum to look around.  The area was Ebisu.  There was beautiful weather, it was a pretty open area, and there were barely any people around, so it wasn’t the usual atmosphere one imagines for Tokyo.  We took in the air, walked the length of the skywalk between two stations (I can’t remember which ones) on its moving walkways, and decided to head for Ginza, to the Sony Building and the nearby Tsukiji Fish Market.

In the Sony Building we saw all sorts of cool gadgets, some more useful than others.  Among the useless ones was Rolly, a cylindrical music player that “dances” in time to your music by rolling around. Cute, but the novelty wears off pretty quickly. The most useful ones were cameras with auto-stabilization.  That is to say, no matter how unsteady your hand, the video captured would remain steady. The main attraction, however, was the HD 3D technology.  It was unbelievable! Well, I haven’t seen the latest 3D in the States.  I’m comparing this to crappy “3D” where you put on those paper glasses with one red lens and one blue lens.

After that, we headed towards the Tsukiji Fish Market.  On the way, we spotted the Kabukiza, the main kabuki theater of Tokyo.

There wasn’t much going on at the fish market by the time we got there.  It’s a bunch of stalls with seafood.  But as we left, we saw the side of a strange building and went to check it out.  Turned out to be Tsukiji Hongwanji.  According to its Wikipedia article, the current building was built in the 1930s, which helps explain the strange architecture (for a temple).  The article refers to a “memorial” in the temple’s main hall to X Japan’s guitarist Hide, but…well, I guess you can call a table in a dark corner with notebooks and photos a memorial.

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The banners on the temple say, 心の安らぎのために本堂へお参り下さい, "Come to the temple for peace of mind." (Loosely translated.)

Next, we went to Roppongi.  Now, the previous two days we’d gone out with coats on and been too hot, so on this day we had decided to go out with just sweaters.  It was fine in the daytime, but by evening it had gotten chilly. When we got off the subway in Roppongi, it was windy and the sun had set.  Shivering, we saw “Maman,” a huge sculpture of a stylized spider, and had a nice view of Tokyo Tower just past dusk.  We both struggled to get a good shot, but could only withstand the cold for so long.  Without a tripod, this is as good a photo as I could get:

Having at least gotten this much, we ran into the nearest building not caring for what it was.  Turned out we were in the Mori Arts Center within Roppongi Hills Mori Tower.  They had a special exhibit going on that seemed cool, about art and medicine, but tickets were nearly $50, so we didn’t go.  Instead, we went to the museum gift shop.  They had really cool stuff, such as purses made of zippers.  Just zippers!  So, you could custom build your own purse to whatever size and color(s) you wanted by buying the purse bottom, top, and then how many ever zippers you needed to make the body.  There was also a shirt with blinds drawn on and a string attached to where the string would be on actual blinds, and if you pulled the string the shirt would roll up like blinds! I picked up some post cards and cookies to be omiyage for the teachers. Done shopping, we decided to go back to the hotel to get our coats and drop off our swag.

Once bundled up, we set off for dinner.  We ate at an Asian fusion restaurant not far from Akihabara station.  The food was great!  They had chaahan that actually tasted delicious!  Still not like fried rice in the States, but it was very tasty.  Since it was our last meal of 2009, we made sure to get desserts.  I had cheesecake. ^_^

By the time we finished eating, it was about 10PM.  We made our way to what we thought was “Asakusa Temple,” the famous temple with the red gate and huge red lantern in Asakusa.  In the station we asked how to get to Asakusa and followed the instructions we were given.  But once we arrived, there were signs everywhere pointing to “Sensouji” (the signs said “Sensouji” in romaji).  We were a bit confused, but then noticed that “Sensouji” was written with the same kanji as “Asakusa Temple” (浅草寺).  We followed the signs, and indeed, Sensouji was the famous temple with the large red gate. (Once I got home I looked it up in Wikipedia, and it turns out that Asakusa Shrine is next to Sensouji; the shrine being a Shinto shrine, while Sensouji is a Buddhist temple.)

「決めポースするな！」

We actually hadn’t walked in from the main gate, so we walked down the path with all the stalls selling omiyage, amazake (sweet sake) and some kind of deep-fried mochi (rice cake), then came to the main gate.  We took the obligatory pictures with it. As Cassie took mine, there happened to be this young guy next to me doing 決めポース (“kime poosu,” meaning “set pose”), and his friends were yelling at him not to do that. When I see this guy, I feel as if a victory fanfare should be playing. ^o^

Then, we walked back toward the main hall.  This was at around 11PM.  It was crowded, but since people were still looking at the stalls, half of the approach to the temple was still clear, so we were able to go almost to the very front of the crowd.  Why they were only lining up on one side, I don’t know.  I was worried that we’d cut in front of hundreds of people, but neither they nor the many policemen we walked past said anything to us.

Approach to the temple

Hm, I just realized I haven’t explained what’s so important about going to a temple on New Year’s. ^_^;

On New Year’s, and the days following that, it’s customary to go to a shrine (or temple) to do 初詣 (“hatsumoude”) meaning the first visit to a shrine of the new year.  You pray for a good new year, or whatever you feel you need to.  You should have a five-yen coin (or two, or three, or…a fistful) at the ready for when you enter the shrine, as “five yen” in Japanese is “go en,” which also sounds like “relationships,” so you throw the five yen coin(s) into a special area for them to hope for good relationships.

Anyway, we went up near the front of the crowd, close to the entrance to the temple’s main hall.  A few people were allowed in before the stroke of midnight; I don’t know if they were special people, or people who didn’t care about not going in during the New Year proper.  As it got closer to midnight, the crowed slowly pushed forward.  By then the aisle was completely packed.  The police officers keeping the crowd in check held up their 「しばらくお待ちください」(“please wait a little longer”)  signs with a little more fervor.  Cassie and I started doing a countdown at 10 seconds to midnight, and this Japanese guy next to us joined in. ^o^  Once it officially became the New Year, it was no-holds-barred!

~Day 3 melts into Day 4~

Tokyo Winter Break – Day 2

Tags

Shibuya, The Lion King Musical, Tokyo, Tokyo Pokémon Center, Zoujouji

Before I go into Day 2, there’s something that’s been on my mind about the maid café.  The maids are supposed to follow orders, but at the same time, they give orders, and as patrons in the “world” of the maid café, we follow them unquestioningly.  I didn’t see anyone refuse to do the “magic” or refuse to take part in the 15-minute “Dream Time” ordered by two of the patrons. I wonder what the maids say if a customer says, “no, I don’t want to say ‘moé moé kyuuun’ at some guy’s champagne!” ^O^

Anyway…

On Day 2, Wednesday the 30th, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant.  They had a 1000 yen all-you-can-eat Japanese/Western breakfast.

Then, we hopped on the Yamanote Line to Hamamatsuchou to go to the Shiki Gekijou (四季劇場) to get tickets to see the Lion King musical.  I don’t particularly like musicals and decided to go if there were cheap tickets.  Since there were, I bought a 3000 yen ticket, though I had to sit a few rows behind where Cassie was. We got our tickets and since we had over two hours till showtime, we went to kill time at the Tokyo Pokémon Center; we had happened to see a sign for it at Hamamatsuchou Station.

The Center was jam-packed with people of all ages.  There was every kind of Pokémon merchandise available.  I was surprised to see shirts with this nice, glittery design on it.  I don’t remember at the moment what Pokémon it is, but it was cheap, large, and pretty so I got one.  I also picked up some Evie clear files (the PCFC grows!) and souvenirs for a certain Pokémon-loving friend. ^_~ (Though, once I got back to Fukuoka I learned there was a Pokémon Center in nearby Canal City Hakata. ^_^; Though it’s only about half the size of Tokyo’s.)

Now, from where we were we could see Tokyo Tower, so after the Pokémon Center we walked towards it.  On the way there, we turned onto a street with a torii.  Before reaching the shrine at the end of the street, we stopped at a Starbucks.  I’d been wanting a chai latte for a while.  (Someone got me hooked on those. LOL) As my friend checked out some Year of the Tiger goods there, a friendly barista started talking to us.  She recommended we go to either Asakusa or Meiji Jingu for New Year’s.  There were free pamphlets at the counter explaining the temple down the street; turned out it was Zoujouji (増上寺, “ji” means “temple” so I think it’s a bit redundant to say “Zoujouji Temple”).

Zoujouji with Tokyo Tower in the background. Preparations for the huge New Year's Day crowds were under way.

At Zoujouji, we got omikuji, or fortunes written on little folded pieces of paper that you draw from a box after dropping in 100 yen.  Since these mikuji also had little guardian charms attached, they cost 200 yen.  I drew a good fortune, with a charm of a bamboo rake.  The bamboo rake helps you “rake in” fortune if you keep it in your wallet.  (You better believe I put that bad boy in there! ^o^) If you draw a bad fortune, you can tie it to lines set out just for that, (some temples have small trees for this) and the temple spirits or gods will take on the burden of your bad luck. ^_^; There was a beautiful Buddha statue there, and across from it was a pine tree planted by Ulysses S. Grant.

I left the photo at full size so you can read the plaque.

Since we still had time before the show, but not too much, we stopped at Mos Burger on the way back to the theater for some quick lunch. It was pretty good.  Then, we rushed out to the theater and got there about 15 minutes before show time.

As I said, I don’t particularly like musicals, but since I did like the movie The Lion King, and that’s pretty much a musical, there wasn’t much difference when it comes to the random let’s-bust-out-in-song-and-dance-even-if-we’re-villains factor so I enjoyed it. Being familiar with the story made it pretty easy to understand in Japanese.  Actually, all the historical dramas I watch also helped, since everyone spoke to Mufasa in keigo.  The sets, costumes, and effects were incredible.  It’s been a really long time since I saw The Lion King so I don’t really know how the lyrics in Zulu and Swahili are supposed to sound (well, to say nothing of them probably being pronounced incorrectly in the original movie anyway), but my friend commented that the Japanese cast sounded funny trying to sing in African languages. They didn’t do the Mufasa/Que pasa joke with the hyenas.  When Zazu was singing in a cage and Scar told him to sing something happier, it sounded like Zazu started singing enka! The audience laughed.  I assume it must’ve been a pretty famous song. At the end, there were about 10 curtain calls!  Before leaving the theater I picked up some “crepe cookies” with the musical’s logo to be an omiyage for my kouchou-sensei. (Once back in Fukuoka, a while after I gave him the gift, he went to the shokuinshitsu to give me a 2010 calendar from Shiki Gekijou that the theater had sent him, lol. The picture for December is of Simba, Nala, and Rafiki presenting their cub.)

消火栓 (shoukasen) means "fire hydrant."

Hm, I could’ve sworn I took a picture in front of the theater, but I guess I didn’t, or I accidentally deleted it from my camera.  Oh well.  Instead, have a picture of cute chibi (samurai?) firefighters that I saw on fire hydrant covers in several places around Hamamatsuchou! I assume that under these covers is just a simple water pipe for use in case of fire.  Seems more logical than the red fire hydrants that stick out of the ground and get used by children on hot summer days to cool off.

After the show, we went to roll around Shibuya some more.  My objective was to go to Tower Records to get CDs of Russian composers, whose work isn’t available for sale in the U.S.  While the poor clerk scoured his database for the uncommon composers, I thought about buying the 3-disc Nodame Cantabile set they had, which covers all the music used in the live action drama and the movies! It was just about 4800 yen, which is pretty good for 3 discs but…I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more interested in the pretty pictures of Tamaki Hiroshi than the music itself. ^o^;;;;

Oh yeah, before going up to the 6th floor where the Classical section was, I picked up GACKT’s latest single, “Stay the Ride Alive,” his third collaboration with the Kamen Rider franchise.  It wasn’t supposed to be out until New Year’s Day, but both Tower Records and Tsutaya had it on December 30th, if not earlier, even though both stores had signs for the single that said “OUT 2010.1.1.” For buying the single, I got a free GACKT x Tower Records poster.

The closest I'll ever come to taking a photo with GACKT? *wump wump wuuummp*

Tower had heavy promotion of Michael Jackson’s This Is It going on.  There was a TV playing “Smooth Criminal” with Japanese subtitles, mega-LOL.  「アンニ大丈夫か。アンニ大丈夫か。大丈夫か、アンニ。」^O^

After Tower, we went into the nearby Tsutaya.  I picked up GACKTIONARY, a book chronicling the 10 years of GACKT’s career so far.  It had been out since mid-December; honestly I could’ve gotten it in Fukuoka, but when it came out I was like “It’ll be a while before I can read Japanese quickly enough to actually want to read this book, so why bother?” but since it was right there in front of me, fangirl collectionism won out. ^o^;;

Tsutaya had a special sign for their store this day; instead of the usual “Tsutaya” sign, the first “a” was Ayumi Hamasaki’s funky looking “A.” People were taking pictures of it, but I don’t really care for Ayu (no offense to her fans) so I didn’t.

When we were done shopping, we looked for a place to have dinner.  A restaurant with various yakiniku caught my eye.  It was actually a motsunabe place. Motsu = innards and nabe = pot.  Nabe ryouri is very popular in the winter months.  I didn’t know that motsu was innards, it was the yakiniku I’d gone for, but since they had a tabehoudai (all-you-can-eat) for the nabe, we got some.  We tried the innards; I didn’t like them so I only ate the other kinds of meat. Ironically enough, motsunabe was orginally a Fukuoka specialty. And here I went and ate some all the way in Tokyo…

~End of Day 2~

Tokyo Winter Break – Departure + Day 1

Tags

109, Akihabara, maid cafe, Sephiroth, Shibuya, Square-Enix Character Goods Show Case, Tokyo

Alright, here come the day-by-day posts. It takes me a long time to do each post, so I will only post one day at a time.  In the meantime, there’s always the summary below this post.

Before leaving, we went up to a shop in the Transit Center to get snacks for the trip.  There I found Marias, these cookies/crackers.  I had been thinking of bringing Marias as omiyage, but decided against it given how fragile they are. It was surprising to find them, and I bought a pack.  These Marias are from Portugal.

Portuguese Marias from the Fukuoka Transit Center!

We left Fukuoka around 7PM via overnight rapid bus. The bus ride took 14 hours.  The older gentleman (or as I say, that ojiichan) in the seat in front of me didn’t turn off his light until midnight, and even then, he opened the curtain! I can’t sleep sitting up or even reclining anyway, but it was somewhat annoying.  In the evening they played some boring movie, but in the morning they played 「犬と私の１０の約束」, or, Ten Promises to My Dog. It’s a cute movie; really sad.

When we got to Tokyo, we hopped on a train and went to the hotel, the Hotel Mystays Ochanomizu.  It’s really close to Akihabara Electric Town, affordable, and comfortable. We checked in, dropped our stuff in the room, and had breakfast at the nearby Spanish-themed restaurant El Chateo del Puente. I had a dish that was called…something or other manchego. (Manchego = Spanish sheep milk cheese.) I don’t remember, but it was good!

Olé!

WARNING: This post is about to get really GEEKY really fast! If you can’t handle it, go do something that proves how much of a non-geek you are.

After breakfast, we headed on a train for Shibuya to go to the Square-Enix Character Goods Show Case.  Yup, that again. I got two chibi Sephiroths, an umbrella with various Final Fantasy critters like Mog and Cactuar on it, and took a better picture of the life-size Sephiroth statue in the floor there.

I left this one at full size for your viewing pleasure. ^o^

After the SE Store, I happened to spot the Soccer Shop Kamo and went in to see what they had. ^_~

Then, we went to Harajuku to walk around and see all the people in the crazy Harajuku fashion.  There weren’t too many people in extreme clothes.  Then again, there were soooo many people there that it was hard to distinguish one for the other.  It’s the closest thing to the Castlevania boss Granfalloon that I’ve ever seen.

Next, we walked around Shibuya in search of the famous 109 (sometimes pronounced as “ichi-maru-kyuu,” meaning “one-o-nine”) building, where all the trendy girls shop. There is now a 109-2 building across the street from 109 with shops for men. Their website linked above has a few sections in English. The intersection in the photo below, like many major intersections in Japan, is a six-way crosswalk.  That is, when the lights turn red, they turn red on all sides for cars, and pedestrians cross the streets in all directions.

Shibuya 109 and the super busy intersection

We had lunch in a restaurant inside 109.  I was surprised to learn the girls who shop there eat. *rimshot* Anyway, the Italian city of Genoa is written in Japanese as ジェノバ (“jenoba”), which is the same way that Jenova (Sephiroth’s “mother”) is written, so when I saw ジェノバ風えびスパゲッティ (Genoa-style shrimp spaghetti) I had to eat it! ^o^ It was green too!

After dinner we went to Akihabara.  Akihabara is known as the tech and nerd capital of Japan.  Well, of the world really. ^o^  There’s plenty of stores for all your gamer/otaku/pervert needs.  (If you’re the only girl in the shop, you should probably leave.)

In front of Akihabara Gamers

As we walked around, we happened to see a Kotobukiya, a store that makes and sells various model kits, figurines, and other fandom goods.  I picked up a Lightning (the protagonist of Final Fantasy XIII) clear file to add to my Pretty Clear File Collection, as well as a Rosch Elixir to finally have 8 Elixirs (enough to be entered in the drawing for FFXIII stuff or a PS3).

After that, as we were walking about, there were many young women out in the streets promoting various maid cafés.  A maid café is a café where all the waitresses dress as maids, call patrons ご主人様 (goshujin-sama, meaning “Master”), and act super cutesy.  The second girl who gave us a flyer led us to the café. They serve a bit of diner type food, but also lots of sweets. My friend tells me that girls go to maid cafés because they think it’s cute and/or funny. Since I don’t know much about all the different types of maid cafés, rather than give the impression that they’re all the same, I will leave this link to a blog post on Akibanana reviewing the MaiDreamin franchise: To Akibanana!

Anyway, there was a 500 yen minimum table charge, and one drink minimum (it didn’t have to be alcoholic).  We both got parfaits.  The parfaits came with a choice of commemorative photo or game time, which I assume means the maid will play some cutesy little game with you.  You can’t take photos of the maids with your own camera, but you can buy photos that they already have printed, or get the food items that come with the chance to take a picture with the maid of your choice.

Like the maids, all the sweets were put together to be as cute as possible.  When it came time to take a picture with one of the maids, I had wanted to take a picture with one of the cooks, but I said the wrong name.  The girl who came out didn’t seem too pleased. T_T Oh well. They draw a heart and write the name of the maid over all the photos. I would put it up here if I had a scanner, but since it’s just about 2 x 3 inches, if I took a picture of it it wouldn’t come out right.

Two patrons paid for the “15 Minute Dream Time,” which included the maid bringing this to everyone’s attention, lowering the lights,  popping open a bottle of champaign, and proceeding to have everyone in the bar (maids and patrons) make the champaign more delicious with magic.  The magic consisted of putting your hands together in a heart shape and saying “moé moé kyuuun!” The maids also had patrons do this “spell” on their own drinks.

After that, we went back to the hotel.

~End of Day 1~

Tokyo Winter Break – Summary

Happy New Year! 新年あけましておめでとうございます！

Well, I got back to Fukuoka from Tokyo about 7 hours ago.  I’d been catching up on the interwebs, munching on Marias (yes, Marias as in the cookies, real Marias!), and looking at all the pretty pictures.

Hm, I should probably explain that from Dec. 28th-January 1st I was in Tokyo with my friend Cassie, since I’m trying to make this blog accessible for everyone including random readers that end up on here by Googling things like “cat walking a bike,” “tokyo eat,” and “lyric time slip kanji text” (those are all actual search terms that landed people on this blog, lol).

(Yay, run-on sentences! And so many parentheticals, too!)

Anyway, we did a lot in those four days.  Below I will write a bullet-point summary of the the trip.  I’ll write actual blog posts with photos (and video?! If I can figure it out) for each day later.

EDIT: Here goes a video! It’s the first video I make and the first time I upload to YouTube, so I don’t know yet about how to upload things in high quality, I just used the “Share -> YouTube” feature on iMovie which didn’t give me a high quality option.  This won’t replace the day by day posts, and doesn’t include everything.

Monday, December 28th, 2009

• Depart for Tokyo via overnight bus at around 7PM

Tuesday, December 29th

• Arrive in Tokyo around 9AM
• Check in at the hotel
• Eat breakfast at El Chateo del Puente
• Go to the Square-Enix Store
• Soccer Shop Kamo
• Walk around Harajuku and Shibuya; eat lunch in an Italian restaurant inside Shibuya’s 109 Building
• Walk around Akihabara; go to Kotobukiya and the maid café MaiDreaming

Wednesday, December 30th

• Breakfast in the hotel restaurant
• Go to Shiki Gekijou to get tickets for The Lion King
• Tokyo Pokémon Center
• Starbucks
• Zojoji Temple
• Lunch at Mos Burger
• Go see The Lion King
• Roll around Shibuya; go to Tower Records and Tsutaya
• Dinner at a place with motsunabe tabehoudai

Thursday, December 31st

• Drop postcards/nengajou off at the post office next to the hotel
• Chinese food for breakfast
• Go to a conbini to buy dairy products to counteract the spicy rice
• Attempt to go to the Tokyo Museum of Photography, but find it closed
• Silver Accessory Shop Big Black Maria
• Roll around Ebisu for a bit, then go to Ginza
• Go to the Sony Building
• Stop by the Kabukiza on the way to see the Tsukiji Fish Market
• Spot and go to Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple
• Go to Roppongi, run away from the cold by rushing into the nearest building, which happens to be the Mori Arts Center
• Return to the hotel to get coats
• Dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant
• Go to Sensouji; try amazake, look around the stalls, line up to go into the temple, do a New Year’s countdown with the Japanese dude next to us,

Friday, January 1, 2010

• then get crushed by Japanese and a few foreigners bum-rushing into the temple
• Throw in the go-en and get away from the altar while rib cages are intact
• Eat food from the many stalls, take lots of pictures
• Hear bell tolls number 70-something through 108 at nearby Ben-Ten-Ji (I think that was the name of it)
• Go back to the hotel around 3AM; shower and sleep
• Get up around 10 or 11AM; I pack up (Cassie’s staying one more day)
• Drop another batch of postcards/nengajou off at the post office
• Go to Akihabara in search of a maid keitai strap; go to various stores
• Breakfast at a donburi place
• Continue the search for a maid keitai strap, end up in Don Quixote
• Take purikura
• On the way to Meiji Jingu, walk past the Geihinkan (State Guesthouse)
• Realize that the “Meiji Jingu” the iPhone was leading to was an area of sports arenas named Meiji Jingu, not the shrine
• Rest up in Veloce Caffe
• Photograph the interesting ads in the train station
• Go to the real Meiji Jingu; line up, go in, and get some stall food
• On the way out, receive a Christian pamplet from a dude wearing an afro, huge sunglasses, and tiger costume (2010 being the Year of the Tiger)
• Return to the hotel, rest up, grab my luggage
• Go to Shinjuku Station’s West Exit, as written on the bus ticket, and where there is a bus terminal, only to realize that “West Exit” refers to several city blocks along which buses line up to board passengers, spend half an hour trying to figure it out
• Get help and find the correct loading point 15 minutes before departure
• Depart Tokyo around 9PM
• Realize I left my phone’s charger in the hotel room

Saturday, January 2nd

• Arrive in Fukuoka around 11AM

Well, that’s it for the summary.  I think it’s pretty amusing to see the trip broken down like this. ^o^