Sunday, May 1st, 2011
Today is my second day in Japan. I am here with my younger sister Kristine, visiting my parents who live in Kobe. Our two days here so far have been quite the adventure. I have been to Japan once before, when I was a high school student and playing trombone in my concert band. And although there are elements of the culture here that I do remember from that first trip almost 10 years ago, I feel like I am in a whole different world, and am seeing this amazing place through a new pair of eyes.
Our first day was a bit of a whirlwind. The flight was long and boring, and I didn't even get in a wink of sleep. We made our way through customs quite quickly and efficiently, and boarded the express train into Tokyo. Once we were at Gotanda station, we just had to follow the map to a hotel that looked only a few blocks away. Sounds easy, right? Well, not so much.... we ended up taking a wrong street and were looking around, bewildered, for about 15 minutes. I remembered that in all of my other travels, I always had someone there with me who was good at that kind of the thing.. the map-reading, the directions-following, the instinct-trusting... but I'm not really all that good at navigating my way around a foreign country... and neither is my sister Kristine, apparently. We were both very frustrated at this point and really just wanted to GET THERE already! Lucky for us, a very nice young Japanese man came up to us and offered to help. He called our hotel for us and then guided us, on foot, right to the front door. Amazing! I knew that Japanese people were friendly but, wow. We thanked him and made our way into our room.
On the plane, I had high hopes of spending our first, solo night in Tokyo, a FRIDAY night at that, in some amazing, lively, club or bar, drinking and dancing with the locals. I thought that we would have the energy and enthusiasm to venture out and take the city by storm. But, when we both laid down for a nap and woke up at 9:15 pm, we decided that we simply could not leave our nice warm beds, and we snuggled up for a long sleep. We woke sometime around 5 and then stayed up until breakfast of tea and toast at 7 am. My parents arrived at the hotel a few hours later and we spent the rest of the afternoon bopping around the city and taking in the sights. We went to the busy Shibuya district, whose train station accommodates over 3 million travelers every single day! Whoa. Then we headed over to the fancy Ginza district, which is basically like 5th Avenue in New York; lots of big skyscrapers and fancy designer shops, with huge t.v. screens and lights. The streets were closed down so we were able to stroll around and take everything in. I remember being at the Ginza area when I came here with my high school and it was a really cool area to explore. We made our way back to the hotel in the afternoon and had a snack at the hotel. I felt really sick all day yesterday, with an upset stomach, sore throat and headache, so I didn't feel up for much. But after missing out on going out the night before, I summoned up a second wind and we all went out to a local izakaya down the street. You can find izakayas in Vancouver, and basically the word means a pub or bar that also serves food. It is primarily a drinking spot, and they are always a good time! We had a couple of drinks there and some snacks and then went back to our hotel for the night.
Today, I was feeling a bit better, and a good thing too because we had a lot of fun planned! We went to the Harajuku district, for some amazing shopping, and even managed to see a couple of the famous dolled up, costumed, Harajuku girls! So cool :) The shops were absolutely amazing. This is truly the shopping and fashion centre of the world. It's totally overwhelming. We bopped around all afternoon and then made our way back to Kobe, to get settled into our parents' apartment. We bought some beers and snacks from the grocery store and then hung out for a bit before going to sleep. Kristine and I were completely exhausted, so we quite anxious to get to bed. Then, I realized that I had left my iPhone at the hotel in Tokyo. DOH! Seriously... who does that? Well, in my defense, I hadn't been using my phone at all because it was on airplane mode and totally useless to me. I grabbed it out of my purse for ten minutes to listen to music, and then fell asleep instead because I was feeling so nauseous. I left it on the bed and Kristine and I headed down to the lobby to meet my parents. When we got back, the room had been cleaned and my iPhone had been moved, but I forgot where I had put it and assumed it was still in my purse..... NOPE! Stupid, Heather.... so stupid...
Anyways, that was my second day in Japan, and so far we've been having a blast! Today we spent the whole day in Kyoto, but I will update my blog about that later, as it's 10:30 and I am exhausted!!! More to come later :)
- Heather