The flight to Tokyo was good, I had a 3 seater to myself, excitedly i spread myself across and went to sleep, waking up about an hour later, some business man is at the end of my 3-seater.. er excuse me? grrr. and everytime i needed to go to the bathroom he would get annoyed and refused to even move slightly making it really hard for me to get out. Um.. excuse me, youre the one that moved to my seat! pfft. So i then decided to do as suggested and drink plenty of fluids just to annoy the crap out of him, and each time i had to go over him i made sure i nudged him well.
First nite (arrived there about 9pm saturday nite) it was so frustrating getting the train from the airport then trying to find the hotel. i was wondering around ikebukuro looking for my hotel, there was a moment where i thought i would never find it that nite and would end up sleeping on the streets, i even tried to get a cab but he kicked me out for some reason, i couldnt understand what he was saying. i was ready to cry, plus that area was totally dodgy. luckily i found a girl (which thinking back now was prob a call girl) but yeh she was nice and helped me looked for the hotel. so i really hated that first nite. the following days were then a bit better, i had fun but def more fun if youre with someone else to bag things out with etc.
i avoided buying much coz i was anticipating walking 6 blocks with my over 30kg luggage for the airport bus, it was hell. So i just ended up going to museums, galleries and shrines and managed to get some nice pics out of the SLR, though I'm not really liking my lenses or more truthfully i dont really know how to use my camera but anyway thats another story.
So Sunday i took it easy at Ginza (as i knew i wouldnt be buying anything around there, why yes, I'll take 6 LV bags pls), wondered around looking for the graphic gallery but later found out it was only open during the week, yes well. Went to the big toy store and surprisingly came out empty handed.
Monday i went to Heinjija Shrine, which by the way is in the middle of the business district and had to ask about 3 security dudes where it was. So taking advantage of having my SLR with me I decided to head over to Roppongi (the nice side) after the shrine and took some more building shots. I found a Japanese version of Starbucks, called Koots (i think its japanese) and instead of coffee everythng is green tea. Green tea, iced green tea, green tea latte... you get the picture. I had myself an iced green tea with pearl, it was weird and nice at the same time. I then wondered over to shinjuku for a bit of a shop but came out with nothing again. there must be something wrong with me.
Tuesday I went to MoT, http://www.mot-art-museum.jp/english/ and spent about half the day there. MoT was again in the freaking middle of the suburbs (who wold put a museum there?!) and i had to walk about 15mins thru maze like residences to get there. But..once there it was really nice. There was a really amazing exhibition called something along the lines of Darkness or whatever and it had walls of LED numbers, some crumbly white stuff on the ground, all displayed in dim light or darkness. There was another exhibition by a Japanese artists whose EVERY painting consisted of trains, schoolgirls (in a rude ways) and boots - really weird and i was quite disturbed after seeing his artwork. i got excited when i saw the had free internet thing but to my disappointment I could not check mail, only the museums site and other sites of galleries and museums. Pfft.. you call that internet?! whatta scam!! I then headed for Harajuku to shop some more and just got a few things for the family. On my way back looking for the train station i somehow ended up in Shibuya... WTF?!! so i just kept walking and walking (sometimes in circles - gee, didnt i walk pass this shop before?!) and finally found the station. Mich - I had a strawberry crepe thing to relive the days and went to Daichu - which has now totally gone downhill, its jus now a bunch of random cheapo $2 crap but not at $2.
Wednesday, I first walked to a bigger fancier hotel near mine to buy a ticket for the airport bus, buying this ticket proved to also be challenge. Why is nothing easy?! I went to the airport bus man and told him i wnated to buy a ticket. he then told me to go inside the lobby to get it from there. When i askd the girl there she said "no.. outside" smiled and turned away. ok.. I then went back to the man outside who told me.. no get the ticket from the girl inside. i seriously went back and forth to each person about 3 times and wanted to punch one of them. Finally the man asked if i had a reservation for the bus in which i said no i need to make one. ah bingo! i actually needed to book a reservation with the guy first then take my slip to the girls inside to pay for the bus ticket. OMG!! some signage would help.
I was then itching to find internet and heard the International Forum in Tokyo had them, so went there, wondered around and of course nothing. I was met with "this girl is crazy" looks from the information booth ladies, FINNNNEEEE theeeen. having not eaten properly for days, i decided to go get breakfast at Bagel and Bagel and had - you guessed it - a BAGEL! and an interesting strawberry hot chocolate. I was there by myself when in the space of seriously about 2minutes the place became packed full of japanese business men, i felt a bit awkward but took my time eating anyway muahahaha. I then proceeded to walk around Maranouchi looking for stores that were no longer there.. hrmm yes- superfuture maps.. USELESS!!. After that, I went to Shibuya (intentionally this time) and shopped. Managed to get 2 watches to add to my collection (for those of you that know about my obsession with watches - it was very hard to stop at 2. One of them is a really cool retro casio watch, reeeeeeally old school like your dads wouldve had). I then decided i wanted somehting by a japanese designer as a reminder of the trip and figured it would be cheaper here. I ended up getting a Tsumori Chisato top, looking at the tag, i thought wow thats cheap, only to find out later when i got back to the hotel I had misread the tag and the top cost me over $400.. ah crap!! super special occasion only then! hey anyone wanna buy a tsumori chisato top? eh eh eh? you know u want to.
I was disapponted i missed out going to Akihabara this time, i wanted to get a lense for the slr and a hot pink in-ear headphones i saw a girl had. Surprisingly for such a techy city, everyone had HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE mobile phones, super chunky, must be some magical phone that can do everything... even your laundry. Each person also had at LEAST 2 of these chunky phones..whatda.. very puzzling indeed my friends. What is also puzzling are the lack of luggage the japanese carry. They say they are big shoppers but how the hell do they fit everything in a tiny overnite bag !?! even the people off my flight had tiny luggages and by the time they get on the tain the bag gets even smaller, what the hell is going on? is there also a magical bag i dont know about? weird.
Food -wise i lived off takoyaki, starbucks, 7-11, food from the department store basements, and the free breakfast from the hotel (curried fat anyone?).
Thursday morning - Flight to NY. Stay tuned :)
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