Shaylynn went Kansai

So last weekend a group of friends, including myself, decided to make a plan and head out to the most well-known and famous place in Japan.  We went to Tokyo.  It ended up that we split up into two different groups who went on different days and did different things while meeting up inbetween, since some of us didn’t want to miss school, and others didn’t care.  Yet, I feel like I got to see a fair portion of things that I wanted to see while I was there.

So my friend and I ended up taking a night bus from Kyoto to Shibuya.  It was fairly nice accomadations for the trip there, and it was an all-female bus.  I’m not going to lie…  In comparison to our bus which we later came back on, which wasn’t an all females’ bus, it was a tad bit more comfortable.

We slept on the bus, and when we got into Shibuya it was still quite early, so we waited around in Mcdonald’s for awhile, had some breakfast, got ready for the day in a Mcdonald’s bathroom near the train station.

The first day we got there, we went to the Ghibli Musuem.  This place is amazing looking from the outside alone and always teeming with people.  If you want to go see the historical compliation of Hayao Miyazaki’s fantastical masterpieces, such as artwork from Mononoke Hime -Princess Mononoke-, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro, this is a great place to check out while in Tokyo.

Unfortunately, you can’t just hop on the amazing Ghibli musuem bus that goes between the station and the museum and is decorated with Miyazaki characters, you have to make sure you purchase a ticket online (to be picked up at a local Lawson’s) before the day you plan to go.  They even make you choose a time slot.  To be honest, I’m not sure why it’s so terribly specific.  If you aren’t there 30 mins after your appointed time, you apparantly lose your spot.  Not to mention, I’ve had plenty of friends who’ve said they’ve traveled all the way down there, without having bought tickets in advance, hoping to get in but simply couldn’t.  Luckily, this advice helped a lot.

So, we were able to get an early time slot and head over there.  The place is stunning and hard to describe every detail of what goes on in there.  So I will go ahead and say check it out yourself.  There’s way too much to do in this building, from interactive art pieces to Miyazaki film shorts.  I couldn’t take pictures inside the actual musuem, but outside we were able to grab a few with the famous Raputa.  From the pictures you can also see the highly decorative manner of the musuem building.  They also have a wonderful musuem store with all kinds of wonderful Ghibli treasures you can get as gifts for friends and family, and possibly yourself.  Being a fan of Princess Mononoke, I had to pick up one of the cute little bobbling Kadama keychains they had on sale there.

After that we took the train to Harajuku and did some shopping like only two girls could shop.  We went down Cat’s Street, according to my friend and tour guide of the area, and found some lovely shops, including one I work with in the states, called h.naoto.  It’s simply the name of the head designer, but it’s high-fashion gothic Japanese; like that which would be associated with Visual Kei, but has also designed for famous groups in America such as Amy Lee of Evanescence.  They’ve worked closely with famous Japanese groups as well, including the famous song writer and producer Yoshiki, former bandmate in X-Japan.  The store was also next to a Putumayo store, which is another clothing store that deals more in Lolita.

We went to Shibuya after that and met up with the rest of the group who had arrived a couple days prior to us.  We hung out in a Starbucks for awhile, from which we could see the famous Shibuya crosswalk quite well.

After we got organized, we hit up an Izakaya for dinner, and drinks since there’s no choice in the matter at Izakaya.  The guys, whom we had met up with, told us about their adventures to the largest fish market in the world, and Akihabara to get panties from a vending machine.  Ah, so that’s also a reason we think we were better off traveling without the boys.  Just kidding, boys.  No, but really.

So we headed back after that, met my friend Midori’s friend, whom which we were staying with in Shibuya.  His place was nice; an apartment on the 14th floor overlooking all of the Shibuya area.  Very lovely.  He spoke all Japanese though.  So I wasn’t exactly able to communicate efficiently, just partially.

The next day we decided to go to Yokohama and check out Midori’s friends’ hockey game.  All of her old friends were there, and I got to meet them.  It was a pretty successful game as well.  Their friends’ team won against the other group, and one of them even got MVP for their fantastic display out on the ice.

We decided to go straight to Ueno from Yokohama.  It was quite a lot of traveling by train as Yokohama is the prefecture beside Tokyo.  If you know what’s Ueno is famous for, you would know exactly where we were headed.  Tokyo Tower.  This amazing structure is one of the most famous in Tokyo, and well-known to gaikoukujin (foreigners) as well.

From the top of the tower, you can see all of Tokyo, and you can even pinpoint a few other things, such as the famous Rainbow Bridge.  The tower has a lot of interesting stuff on the various floors you can check out.  Different shows seem to come and go.  They had some interesting exhibits set up on the lower floors.  We didn’t go to the special observation deck at the very top, as it is an additional amount, but it’s definitely something you can check out.

The last day of our trip, we decided to visit Akihabara.  The boys made it sound like so much fun.  However, our plan wasn’t to collect strange panties from a vending machine.  I wanted to look at all the crazy Otaku things they had in the area.  I have many friends who are, themselves, in some form or fashion, a fan of anime.  Whether they are an outright crazed otaku or not has yet to be completely assessed, but otaku are fans who are obsessed with the stuff.  I was a bit of a fan of the older stuff… I know nothing about anime these days, but it was nice to see some familiar things like… Gundam (to which there was a whole cafe dedicated to), and Evangelion (which seems to have gained a couple strange new characters since when I had been familiar with it).

Mostly I was on a mission to get some omiyage (gifts) for people, including my boyfriend’s little sister who likes a bunch of animes I wasn’t even sure what the heck they were about.  But I just grabbed some neat looking stuff for her.

The other thing I loved about about Akihabara was that, they actually close of the streets for a bit during late sunday hours.  So people litter the huge streets.  It was quite fun.  Definitely worthwhile, especially if you enjoy anime, videogames (of which I do), and other such hobbies.  There are a couple of other shops around too, for the average person, you just have to find them between all the brightly lit otaku shops.

That night we headed to Shinjuku and caught the bus back home.  The lesser of the buses.  When we arrived back, I was exhausted.  But I ended up dropping everything at the dorms and going straight to school.  Night busses are really convenient for letting you not miss classes.

So that’s my experience of Tokyo in a nutshell.  We did a lot more than that… But to explain everything would take much longer.  If you get a chance, go be a tourist and make plans to visit Tokyo.

~ by Shaylynn on .