Daily Archives: January 2, 2010

Tokyo Winter Break – Summary

02 Saturday Jan 2010

Posted by in Rollin' outside of Kyuushuu

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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^