April 15-21: Hopped on the bullet train from Shin-Osaka and made it to Tokyo! Why do I have no pictures of the inside of the bullet trains?!! They were nice, kind of like a coach liner bus, but with much more spacious seating. Assigned seating as well… Even though we had our rail passes, we still had to reserve a seat ahead of time to be guaranteed a spot.
These images below are of the transit, C-Train-like system in Tokyo, where IT NEVER STOPPED BEING CROWDED. These trains were PACKED! Day and night it did not seem to matter when we were on the train, they looked liked this:
Like, on a Saturday or even a Sunday night, it was probably around 9:00 or later at night, after our convention was finished for the day and we had gone somewhere for supper, the trains were still full of people. Every time we rode the train, when our stop was coming up, we had to start making our way toward the doors ahead of time so that we wouldn’t miss getting out at our stop!
Speaking of doors, all trains had the cutest little warning signs, if you can call them cute… We saw a lot of cute things in Japan… Signs, merchandise, there always seemed to be something around to make you crack a smile when you saw it:
We stayed in Tokyo for six nights, down to three of us now rooming together, while the other two that were with us in Osaka had their own Tokyo accommodation nearby.
We stayed at the Ibis Styles Tokyo Bay Hotel. There were some vending machines in the hallways, including one for alcoholic beverages:
I mean absolutely no offense whatsoever to my traveling companions, and a huge Kudos to my buddy for finding a hotel room with 3 beds! BUT! In the absolute first 5 seconds we spent walking into this room, I immediately wanted to get my own room, haha! It was so tiny, and the three of us were about to spend the next week here together.
So yeah, three single beds, and the only way we were getting our suitcases open was to put them on the beds. There was not enough floor space or table space to do much! There was a wardrobe-like contraption that filled up very fast, considering all three of us had hauled our soaking wet laundry from Osaka.
The pillow situation on the beds was less than desirable! One very flat pillow and NO EXTRAS. Every day I asked the front desk for an extra pillow and blanket, and every day they said they would get back to me. To be fair, they did get back to me but they never had extras available. Thankfully I had my giant Snorlax and some hoodies to assist!
There was a little station with a tiny fridge, safe, and kettle with a couple of mugs. Ummmm…. NO COFFEE MACHINE! Good thing I had my little guy (a 5 cupper he is), again! Wooooo! Kettle promptly unplugged and coffee machine promptly plugged… 😛
The bathroom and shower were decently sized. The shower was much bigger than the one I used in Osaka, and easy to move around in. Counter space for three people was extremely tight.
Once settled, my two companions and I did a brief wander out to a nearby mall where we found a food court. It was around supper time. The food court had a steak place that we decided to try. I believe we ordered by pointing to the pictures on the wall, and then paid with machine. The steak was pretty darned good, although I had to eat if fast because I’m sure it kept cooking in the cast iron dish it came in! I like my steak a bit on the rare side! Whichever seasoning they used though, made it all worthwhile:
On our the way back to our hotel, there was a grocery store on the way (in the mall), so we briefly walked through it. There was a liquor area with a couple walls of craft beer, with many singles available. The images below are one wall, and it continued around the corner. There was a lot to choose from!
Once we arrived back at our hotel, after stopping at the 7-Eleven along the way because it was there, we inquired about laundry machines so that we could re-wash and dry our soaking wet clothes from Osaka. There were laundry machines, separate washers and dryers on our floor, woooo! I didn’t get any pictures of these things, ugh! They were pretty old school looking, and small. They accepted coin and card, and there were a few of each kind of machine. Aaaaand, there was a lineup. Sigh!
We didn’t have to wait too long though, and we took up most of the machines and tossed in whoever’s and however many decent amount of clothes we could get in without the machine being overly full. Washing was no problem. Drying? OMG!!!!! The dryers seemed straightforward AND they were only a dryer, but NO! After trying a full hour-long cycle more than once, our clothes were still soaking wet. It was like it was on the cold air cycle or broken… or something! There were other people (tourists like us!) there too, trying to dry their clothes and having the same problem! We had to give up because it was getting real late and people were waiting well into this night! Everyone was complaining about the dryers, haha!
So, our clothes were washed again but still soaking wet. UGH! What is up with drying clothes in Japan??!! We had to resort to hanging up everything from pants to shirts to socks and underwear, all around the hotel suite. There was not a lot of space and definitely not enough hang-y things for all our stuff! Jeans took FOREVER to dry. So annoying. Even after things had dried out, nothing really felt clean. BLAH.
Annnnyway, some pictures along our walk from the hotel to the train station… The landscaping was very nice, and the beautiful weather made it that much better. I’m sure our hotel was in the Disney hotel district, as everything around us was pretty and kept up well. Disneyland was not far away, and there were shuttles going to and from our hotel to Disney all morning it seemed.
Bicycles again….EVERYWHERE! And some crazy riders out there, or maybe we were just in their way. Had to really be aware of our surroundings and not get hit! There was a bike store at the mall, rentals and purchases I’m guessing!
McDonald’s for breakfast. Yep. McDonald’s was everywhere! I should probably mention that of my two great pals with whom I roomed with on my entire travels through Japan (and later New Zealand,) one of them is gluten-free, and the other will not touch anything if he doesn’t know what it is, or if it has a strange name, or if it comes in sauce of most kinds. Even back home in Calgary, he steers clear of sauces. And umm… Japan doesn’t do gluten-free. Totally non-existent options everywhere we went. Maybe you need to know where to look?? It became almost a game for us, in that everywhere we went to eat or drink, we looked for gluten-free options and found nothing. Not ever. Not that restaurants didn’t have gluten-free foods, they just didn’t have separate menu options and you had to order accordingly to be on the safe side. And be careful of soy sauce! That stuff is in EVERYTHING.
So! Maybe this does or doesn’t need saying, but we did not dine at too many Japanese establishments! A bit unfortunate but oh well! It’s not like I haven’t gone to other countries and not eaten the local fair… I’m looking at you, Subway in Iceland!
At McDonald’s it was dead simple to order something. They had the self serve ordering machines, and they were in both Japanese and English. We could order from those and prepay and not have to talk to anyone! They had mostly the same things as McDonald’s in Canada with some noticeable differences, number one being the BACON POTATO PIE. OH. MY. OH MY!! This thing is heavenly, I had one every day that I was in Tokyo! It was like the apple pie crust with a filling that reminded me of a perogy. SO GOOD!!!!
For our first full day in Tokyo, we went to Shibuya (see next blog post), and throughout the day, I had developed an itchy, scratchy throat. Scratchy and a bit sore! I did not feel sick though, but I was worried I would become so, especially for Star Wars Celebration which was in a couple of days, the whole reason I came to Japan! Can’t be sick for that! Never got sick though. I still had energy for the rest of my trip, and felt completely fine otherwise. No sinus problems, no sneezing, no wanting to just curl up in a ball and sleep. THANKFULLY! Neither of my roomies got sick either. It had to have been a reaction or allergy to something? Maybe? I had it for the entire rest of my stay in Tokyo and as soon as I left the city, it went away so…. Shrug?
During our ventures throughout Shibuya, we found a pharmacy. For all the remedies on the shelves, absolutely none of it was in English, so my Google Translate app came in very handy here. At first I was looking for something just for sore throat. The granule sticks I found were interesting, dump the packet in your mouth and it dissolves! I tried those and some lozenges I found, and they did absolutely nothing for me! 😛 😛
Google Translate at work:
The next day I went looking for something a bit more hardcore. I didn’t want to get cold medication but I found one that looked fairly powerful so gave it a go. When I went to the pharmacy to pay for it, they made me sign a waiver! No English speaking person there, but she was well prepared and just handed me a printed waiver that was completely in English. It was a full page long, but basically said I knew what I was doing and that they weren’t responsible for any side effects or reaction I might have. It made me a bit terrified to try it! But I did take it each night and guess what… IT DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR ME. Well, I may have slept a bit better which is why I kept taking it, but my itchy scratchy throat stayed with me until I left Tokyo!
One evening we decided to see if the nearby Disneyland had a ‘Downtown Disney’ or a Disney Store we could browse in. We didn’t go into the paid park, but the outside was all decked out with Star Wars!
It was neat to see all the poster advertisements in Japanese:
The fireworks just happened to start as we were leaving the area!
Stay tuned for adventures in Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara and of course, Star Wars Celebration!
A visual location of our hotel Ibis Styles Tokyo Bay and other areas we visited. Makuhari Messe is the convention centre where Star Wars Celebration took place. By train, getting to these areas was between 30-60 minutes:
