Annie & Danny’s Blog

Sadly, today was our last day in Tokyo.  It was a blast being here and was totally what I had expected.  They had the weird Engrish signs, fantastic architecture, and cool cars and toys.  It was also overcrowded at times and expensive as well but not to debilitating heights.  The food pricing is adequate if you can stomach their minuscule portions.

As different a culture it was, Tokyo is still a very consumerist society.  They have infomercials and as we found out this week, they really love Krispy Kreme.  And it’s such a bustling society here.  People are constantly going somewhere.  Trains are filled to the brink every morning and while the attendance tapers off a bit in the afternoon, you are left wondering where everyone is going?  Every night is like Friday night at Shibuya.  Doesn’t anyone care about working the next day?

As I am here typing this up, I am just having a hard time figuring out how could anything here in SF top a day or night out in Tokyo?

This being our last full day here before our travel day, we finally hit Ginza. Not if there weren’t enough snooty stores such as Takashimaya or Lumine, there are plenty more in this upscale district of Tokyo. They’ve got Prada, Hermes, etc. as well as other not-so-exclusive establishments such as Uni-Qlo, which is like Japan’s monotone version of Gap.

Sony’s got a showroom in Ginza which is several floors of their latest electronics.  Nothing too special.  It’s just like a Sony Style store but with ladies standing along every floor.  They do have an PS3 running a virtual guide in the lobby which is a pretty interesting use of that technology.

As with Toyota, Nissan has a little showroom in Tokyo.  It’s quite small compared to Toyota’s in Ikekuburo and it only houses two cars.  The GT-R did gather some attention.  I don’t know if AM-PM workers make serious money here, but we noticed that a GT-R was always parked in front of the AM-PM across the street from our hotel every night.

Just when I thought we found the best toy shop at Bic’s Camera, we find Hakuhinkan Toy Park.

Again if I had to equate this to anything, it would be FAQ Schwartz.  They have a cool little racing track upstairs and loads of Gundam model kits.  It’s strange to think when I was a boy any toy that came from Japan was so alien, cool, and so difficult to obtain and you get here it’s typical like GI Joe to them.

I thought the Japanese World Baseball team’s jersey looked kind of cool and I figured they might have them at the Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants. They didn’t have that jersey but they have a player with the last name “Lee” and I thought that’s a cool T-shirt to have being that San Francisco has the SF Giants and my surname is Lee.  It turns out the T-shirt doesn’t even fit, they have all the shirts packaged in plastic bags and they don’t use the S, M, or L size convention.  Oh well, we might make use of it in the future.

We went back to Shinjuku and finally found the  massive Tokyo Government Building. There are free observation levels on the 45th floor on both the north and south buildings, so this is a pretty great alternative to paying to get into Tokyo Tower to get great vistas of the city skyline.

Being that I own a Subaru, I was pretty excited to find the Subaru Building in Shinjuku, and I was finally ready to take a pic of it.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the over-indulgent showroom Toyota had and it was more like what Nissan had in Ginza.  Just two cars and a couple of ladies hanging about.

I’m getting better on that jet lag…now I’m waking up at 4 AM. It turns out that I’m not getting sunburned. The air is so dry and cold, any of my exposed skin is either getting wind burned or is getting excessively dry. Despite all that, I am dreading the day we leave. I regret I didn’t book a longer trip. There is so much to see and do.

We spent the majority of that day at Ikebukuro. We had planned to go to Ginza and maybe revisit Roppongi as well, but due to the variety of shops here, we couldn’t leave here anytime soon enough.

We had lunch at another fast food place called Lotteria. They have some interesting burgers a la Red Robin, but the food didn’t do justice to the pictures on the menu. I ordered something called the “Titan” or something, a beefy looking burger with bacon, but it ended up being something akin to a little McDonald hamburger. Annie had an interesting fried piece of rice which kind of looks like a hash brown but tastes like… a fried piece of rice.

You can’t equate Japan without Hello Kitty, and Ikebukoro has one of the flagship Sanrio stores. It has some items that seem to be exclusive to this store, but probably won’t hit the States until a few more months.

Nearby is a pretty massive mall called the Sunshine 60. Connected to it is Toyota’s 5 story Amlux building. They don’t sell cars here. It’s more of an exhibition hall for their current models with a myriad of driving simulators based off Gran Turismo. I’ve read there is bigger showroom in Odaiba, which we visited the previous day. If you noticed for the past few years, Toyota, with the exception of their Lexus boutique brand, is pretty bland as far styling go so there is nothing very sexy here. Some of the models are indeed Lexuses here as the Lexus brand isn’t as far reaching as it is in the US.

We went to Tokyu Hands for the first time here. The closest thing I can relate to it compared to anything in the States is Sears. Just floors of household goods, sporting goods, and toys. I was surprised to see some rather trendy US messenger bags here such as Timbuk 2 and even San Francisco’s Chrome label.

Next to the JR Station, is another department store called Bic Camera. Wow. I imagine it’s kind of like B & H in New York. It’s got a fantastic camera store in the basement. Prices aren’t the greatest but it’s got a pretty thorough inventory. I kept on pondering on something I might need here, but ended up just leaving empty handed. They’ve also got an impressive selection of Japanese toys. We had gone to Toys R Us in the Sunshine 60 mall, but this place blows it away. They had many of the newer Gundam and Chogokin series toys. If I was younger, this would have been a bigger sugar high. It sucks I waited this long to get here.

That night back at the Lumine Mall in Shinjuku, I was pleasantly surprised to find Tower Records alive and well in Japan. As you know, Tower is all but dead in the States. I don’t know how bad music piracy has affected the Japanese music industry as it has decimated the industry in the US, but the Tower store here seems alive and well.  It felt nostalgic in a way seeing the aisles of cd’s and those bright yellow and red bags. iTunes is great but just having the physical media, with the actual artwork and higher quality audio, is something I am sure is lost on many of today’s kids.

Again, I didn’t get a good night’s rest.  I probably only slept for three hours before waking up at 2 AM which explains why I have these blogs up as they are helping me kill time until sunlight dawns.

As we are here for only 4 days, I wanted to hit most of the prime tourist spots as quickly as possible.

First up was Odaiba, an artificial island (similar to Treasure Island in the Bay Area).  The Fuji TV building is there as well as several popular tourist and dating attractions such as Sega Virtual Theme Park which was a magnet for young college kids.  The parallels with Coney Island were evident as they even have their own Statue of Liberty.  I’ve always been fascinated with the Fuji TV building since I’ve seen it on one of my former co-worker’s holiday pictures.  It has this giant metal ball suspended between two buildings and it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.  In the lobby, they have stores that sell memorabilia and snacks related to their popular TV shows.

Second was Asasuka, a super tourist trap featuing the Buddhist Sensoji Temple.  Many people make a pilgrimage here to gain some better luck in life and that could involve everything from drinking from a fountain, dousing yourself with incense smoke, and paying 100 yen to enter your wishes into a mailbox.

Third was Akihabara, the Electric Town.  World famous for its over abundance of electronic stores and geeky otaku boys, Akihabara is like what would happen if you combined several blocks full of four story Fry’s/Best Buy type stores with those weird tourist camera shops in the states.  Throw in some giant arcades, manga libraries, and “maid cafes” and there you have one silicon teen’s wet dream.  If I was younger, I would totally love this place but being an American, there’s not a lot here you can’t get in the States.  Back in the 80’s, I totally lusted after those Sony Walkmans you can never get in the US, but with the advent of iPods and other electronics that were actually pioneered in the States, seeing them in a land across the sea isn’t very impressive.  The inoperablity of the super cool Docomo phones and the unique direct to Japan market video games with the systems in the US also qwell my enthusiam for such goods.

Lastly we ended up in Shibuya to meet up with a friend and her husband for dinner.  There is an area outside the subway station called Hachiko Square, and it’s, for the lack of a better description, like Times Square.  Named after a beloved dog who made a daily pilgrimage here to meet with his master, Hachiko Square is a sea of young people waiting for other young people to meet and then congregate at the catacomb of restaurants and shops.  If Akihabara is for the young men, then Shibuya is for the young ladies with the gazillions of shops catering to their inner Paris Hilton.

I said it was a bit cooler yesterday night.  I take that back.  It’s really cold here.  It was probably about 40 degrees here but it was clear and sunny.  Despite the chill, I still managed to get sunburned.

First order of business was breakfast.  Since McDonald’s is just next door, we went for familiarity and went there.  I had like a double egg McMuffin with bacon and Annie had a normal McMuffin.   Yes, I mentioned a double egg McMuffin with bacon.  The food was as good if not better than anything in the states.  Annie felt it doesn’t seem as salty, greasy, and the bun tastes fresher.
The funny thing about McDonalds here is that a lot of business people hang out here and crash.  These are salarymen who either finished a graveyard shift or missed the last train and were too cheap to pay for a capsule hotel.
Another interesting thing about the fast food places here is that the garbage bins are separated.  You place plastics in one bin and paper in another.  You also must empty the ice and fluid from the soda cups.  That says a lot about being considerate towards each other and the environment.  I can’t imagine this idea hitting the US.  You tell anyone to sift through their refuse and they will look at you as if they if you are asking them to eat their first born.

The first place we visited was mid-town Roppongi.  The main reason I thought we should go is that Tokyo Tower is there.  Toyko Tower is a red/white steel girded tower similar to the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  Though no where as massive as that tower, the glass elevator zooming upwards will still give you a bit of a rush.

For lunch, we had Mos Burger.  Mos Burger is a Japanese fast food franchise specializing in hamburgers and fried chicken.  They are small burgers, about the size of an In & Out hamburger.  Annie had a fish filet sandwich heavy on the mayonnaise and I didn’t order anything especially daring as I had a burger with tomato and lettuce, slathered with thousand island dressing.  I am no means a foodie, but for something as American interpreted by Japanese as a hamburger, it was very good.  For someone looking for something unique, they have interesting options like rice buns filled with stir fried chicken.

We next went to world famous Harajuku.  For Annie, this was Camden revisited with the endless trail of vendors hawking odd youth oriented fashion at decent prices. Maybe it’s just me being a X-gen American, but a lot of the kids here look like clowns.  Lots of frilly dresses and goth-like applique which is a bit disturbing to say the least.  Very much like the Hot Topic kids taken to the Nth degree or if Marilyn Manson went pre-op.

Being the dumb American that I am and not knowing the Metric system very well, I decided we walk back to Shinjuku from Harajuku to save some money on our Suica cards.  Having not walked such distances as we are very much acclimated to the type of  commuting that involves wheels of some sort, you can say we had a cross between a leisurely stroll and aching body turmoil.  There were lots of interesting things to see on the way like an open shrine with giant people trailing Koi fish but Annie developed a blister on her foot and my legs are sore as I write at this moment.  Pushing on the wrong size of 30 is no fun.

It’s awesome to say that we’re currently in Japan as I write this morning. We came into Narita last night after a 11 hour flight from SFO, followed by a hour ride on the N’EX train into Shinjuku in Tokyo.
The hotel room is cramp to say the least, but nothing new having stayed in Hong Kong. The Sunroute Shinjuku has every amenity covered from free internet and generous containers of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. They even have the world renown toilet bidet. This is probably something hotels elsewhere should consider providing. But considering the high prices here, it’s probably well worth the value.
Weather wise, it’s not that much different from San Francisco at the moment except it’s not raining and it might be a bit cooler. We had some ramen last night here in Shinjuku. Despite the deficiency in the Japanese language, pointing and nodding seems to go a long way here.
We don’t have a lot of time here, so we hope to hit as many places as we can, but already I feel this city is fantastic.

UPDATE:  Feeling the effects of jetlag, I got up around in the middle of the night and found this great video blog while searching on “Tokyo” on YouTube.  This gaijin, TokyoCooney is an ex-pat living in Japan for several years and answers a lot of questions about Tokyo which anyone would have coming or planning to come here for the first time.  This particular video is about the cost of living in Tokyo which is an interesting POV.  His other videos are here: http://www.youtube.com/user/tokyocooney