Joe In Japan

It’s been a while since I posted in this space, huh? Well, I just took my first trip during my time here: a couple days down in Tokyo with some of my Korean friends. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first I thought that I’d try to play catch-up and go over what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks since I posted last.

Two weeks ago on Sunday, Alex (one of the other American exchange students) organized a barbecue out in the Shimoda Heights parking lot. It was great fun, there was a good mix of foreign and Japanese students with whom to converse. There was also plenty of meat for the eating! In the shot above, you can see Koji (on the left) and Takashi grilling it up.

Afterwards, we headed out for some karaoke action at Melody Queen. I’ve come to really like karaoke, I think I’ve been four times in the past three weeks.

 That’s Brandon in the middle. He’s actually going to be heading back to California early, so this week we are going to have a farewell party for him (he leaves next week, but will spend the rest of his time in Japan down south). He’s been here since last May and is a really cool guy to hang out with.

The following Sunday, Loukkad, who is one of the students in my Japanese class, invited everyone over to enjoy some Thai cuisine. 

There ended up being quite a few people over, including most of the Thai students I knew, everyone in my Japanese class minus one person and a few of the other foreign students. We chatted and ate for several hours, good times all around.

Well, that’s it for my playing catch up, time to get into the details about what happened on my trip down to Tokyo! I guess it all started about a week before when I heard from Gan that several of the Korean students were planning to head down to Tokyo because of a job fair that was being held on the coming Saturday. The following week, I went out with Gan, Lim and the others and we bought our tickets for the yako basu, which is the overnight bus. It takes nearly ten hours to reach Tokyo from Hirosaki by bus, but this is definitely the cheapest way to do it. It cost 10,000 yen, or about $100 US for a round-trip ticket.

We boarded the bus down at around 9:15 in the evening. Hwang, Lim and I got seats along the back of the bus and we did our best to get as comfortable as possible. However, this is easier said than done. The bus has incredibly cramped seats and tight quarters. I drifted in and out of sleep and the fact that we stopped three times (waking me up in the process) didn’t help things. I arrived in Tokyo a little tired, but I had a lot of excited energy from being able to see Tokyo for the first time.

We were introduced to Tokyo by way of a side street a block down from the Ueno station. There were quite a few homeless people right next to the bus stop, but this is a big city after all, so that’s to be expected (as unfortunate as it is).

I snapped that shot as we made our way to Ueno station. I was a little underwhelmed at first since I heard about how big Tokyo is. When I saw trees jutting up behind some buildings (which was from Ueno park), I quipped, “are you sure we are in Toyko?” In retrospect, I suppose I could have done without all the hustle and bustle of downtown Tokyo, considering my tired state.

We made our way into the station to see about getting tickets to go to Akihabara later, but first we wanted to find out where a public bath was. Since Lim, Hwang and Hedlim (another one of the girls) would want to be looking their best for the job fair and any subsequent interviews, they would want to be at their cleanest. As we were heading around in Ueno, we stopped in at place to get some breakfast. 

There was this little place near the station that had some cheap breakfast sets for about 400 yen. Perfect! After eating, we headed towards the downtown of Ueno. We managed to find a suitable public bath after some searching, since the first one we found was for men only. It was the most I’d paid for a public bath (1100 yen, or almost $11) but it was a quality one. There was complementary towels, robe, soap and shampoo. Hwang, Lim and I bathed and soaked in the large hot tub, which happened to have a great view of the Ueno skyline. 

After the bath, we made our way back to Ueno station to get on a train headed for Akihabara. It would be my first time on the Yamanote line, a famous train line that goes to all the major downtown sections of Tokyo. After buying my ticket, we headed up the stairs to the platform. I just knew that I wanted to take some video of this, so here it is: 

I’d been waiting for this moment for a while and I’d finally arrived - I was in the geek capital of the world, Akihabara! It was early in the morning and the stores hadn’t opened yet, but I was still excited nonetheless.

That was the first picture of the day in Akihabara. I forgot to mention, Melanie came along too (the girl second from the right). We ran into each other during the first stop that the bus took. She said that she came down on the spur of the moment to meet a friend from Tokyo, but ended up spending a lot of time with us, which was fine with me. The more the merrier! We ended up going over to a nearby McDonald’s to have something to drink and wait for Gan, who was coming over from Shinjuku. He actually went down the night before to meet with some friends and go out and party, so I was wondering about his condition for the day’s job fair. 

We ended up staying in the McDonald’s for about an hour, at which point Gan came and we headed back outside to where the station was. 

I really like the looks and expressions of everyone here. They almost look the part of business fashion magazine models, haha. After everyone said their byes, it was just Melanie and I together to explore Akihabara. I visited a bunch of stores, it really runs the gamut there - from tall department stores to small hole-in-the-wall electronics shops. I ended up buying a couple things: an extra battery for my camera and a gamepad to use with emulators on my computer, namely. We also went into a couple game centers, which are basically gigantic arcades. I played a UFO catcher at one and won myself a Rirakkuma stuffed toy. I even managed to get a picture with Rirakkuma in the flesh outside of one of said game centers:

Akihabara was a huge place, covered with colorful signs, large billboards and TV screens. Everything on display was in one way or another related to the otaku (geek) culture - video games, anime, manga and electronics of various types.

Melanie and I had some lunch at a local KFC and ended talking about, of all things, religion. I had mentioned at some point during the course of the trip that I had been to a Catholic school for one year and she started discussing her belief in Christianity. I sat politely and listened (all I could do since I’m not a religious person), but I couldn’t but feel how weird it was to be talking about such things in a place like Akihabara. 

We finished up our time in Akiba for the afternoon at Sofmap, a large department store and then made our way back to Ueno, because Melanie knew of a store that she wanted to visit and pick up something for a friend.  Once we made it back to Ueno, we were in this shopping district directly across from the station known as “Ameyoko.” The place was full to the brim with little storefronts along narrow streets, making it impossible for car traffic to go through. We ended up stopping in at a Mos Burger to take a rest, because it was at this point we both started to feel really tired. Only sleeping a couple hours on a cramped bus can do that to you. The DSs came out and I played a bit of New Super Mario Bros. and Melanie played some Pokemon. Afterwards, we made our way outside to shop around a bit more and then said my good-byes to Melanie because she arraigned to meet her friend from Tokyo for some dinner. I was on my own at this point, so I mostly just wandered around Ameyoko and went into a couple stores. The video that is the post previous to this one was taken then, of a street merchant selling a kind of toy that could respond to commands, both in Japanese and English. He kept proving that there were no strings or anything by waving his hand over it and covering it with a piece of paper. 

I ended up hanging out in Ueno’s large park when I got an email from Lim saying that they were done with the job fair and that we should meet up to go have dinner in Akihabara. I hopped on the Yamanote once more and popped a squat directly across from the station so I would be sure to see them when they emerged. It took about fifteen minutes, after which I spotted Hwang. He and Lim came over and I asked Lim how it went, to which I got a less than enthusiastic reply. They seemed pretty tired from the the afternoon of handing out resume’s and talking to prospective employers. I had also noticed before they came that there were several girls in maid outfits handing out flyers near the station. I had assumed that they were for “maid cafes,” a type of cafe that could only come out of the most geeky and unusual section of Tokyo: girls dressed as french maids serve drinks and food in a cafe-type setting, the whole time using very humble language (such as calling the customers goshushin-sama, which means “my master”). Upon hearing about these, I knew I had to check it out. However, when Hwang and I went to ask one of them about the cafe, they went on to explain to me that they were actually a kind of escort service! I subsequently discovered that there are also maid casinos. Maids do good business here in Akihabara! 

Anyways, at this point we met up with one of Lim’s Korean friends whom I hadn’t met yet (and whose name currently escapes me) and we all went to find a place to eat. I was shocked at how expensive certain places could be. One place was selling steak dinners for more than $80! We eventually settled on a tonkatsu place. Tonkatsu is breaded, deep-fried pork, which is what you can see in the upper-left of the above photo, covered in egg. Hwang and I ended up talking for quite a while, 100% in Japanese. I still feel what I can say is simple, but the fact that I can understand and carry a conversation (with the assistance of a dictionary, however) is a definite sign of improvement. 

After the dinner, we headed back into Akihabara to find a place where Lim could buy a BB gun. He’d been talking to me about getting one in the week leading up to our trip, so he seemed quite excited. We eventually found a place that he’d looked up on Google Maps, and it was quite the sight to behold. It looked just like a gun shop might look like in the U.S.: all the guns were real looking and had realistic weight and action (I’ve fired guns a few times in my life, so I know a little about this lol). Lim ended up buying a replica Glock 17 pistol and a box of BBs. 

The night was winding down at this point, considering how tired we were. The next step was to find the hotel, which was located in Asakusa, about ten minutes away from Akihabara by train. The name of the hotel was “Hotel Bandung,” which was recommended to Lim by a friend. It was a really cheap place, with the cost being about 2000 yen a person for one room to share. After we got into the room, we headed out for a bit to drink at a nearby bar. The night ended early for us, and especially for me. Once we got back to the room, I was asleep before Hwang and Lim were ready for bed. 

The following morning, on the way to have breakfast at this Korean restaurant that Hwang had spotted the night before, we were passed by this rickshaw on the street. The guy actually waved as I took shots from the sidewalk, but they it came out blurry. It was nice to see some traditional Japanese culture in the large, concrete jungle that is Tokyo. I sort of reminded me of the horse-and-buggy rides that you can take in the big cities back home.

The breakfast out at the korean restaurant consisted of kimchi (a kind of staple of Korean food, spicy pickled cabbage) and this spicy red vegetable soup, all of which were quite good. I’ve had Korean food in the past with these guys and it’s always been really, really spicy. We ate quickly because we had to get over to Akihabara and meet up with Gan, who I hadn’t seen since yesterday afternoon, and because I wanted to check out a maid cafe while I was there.

We were wandering around Akihabara after we got out of the station, trying to follow directions that Lim had in order to get to where some maid cafes were. But we ended up pretty lost and had to find help from a police box, which was conspicuously empty. We waved down a taxi shortly there after to drop us of in the downtown of Akiba. It was at that point that we learned from the driver that there had been a stabbing in the streets. We soon enough found the scene of the crime, it had traffic blocked off for many blocks around. 

Emergency workers were crowded around some of the victims who hadn’t already been taken to the hospital. I think we showed up about an hour after the stabbings happened, which we learned later also involved people getting run over by a truck driven by the assailant. All in all, it was a pretty shocking thing to see in a country so well known for its safety and peace. It was even more shocking to learn that this was the worst stabbing incident since WWII. It was definitely a downer, but life must go on and we made our way away from the scene, trying to clear our minds of what we saw.

We walked the streets a bit longer, and finally did make it to what appeared to be a maid cafe. 

I was a bit hesitant at first, actually, because of the apparent high cost of going to one. But it was Hwang and Lim who talked me into going, saying that it was a “once-in-a-lifetime” sort of thing. It is true though - I’m not going to be in Japan forever and certainly not have the money to many times, so we decided to just go for it.

The way it worked was that it cost 1500 yen just to sit down and there was a 90 minute time limit. This included one free drink and one free “mini-game” (a board game of choice) that could be played with one of the maids. Pictures of the maids was strictly prohibited and if you did want a photo, you could pay 1000 yen to have a polaroid taken which would then be decorated by the maid. Any extra food or drink that you wanted would cost more, too. With all of that in mind, we hopped in the elevator and made our way to the fourth story of the building.

When we made it, we entered a room painted yellow with a bar on the left and a row of tables on the right. There was a crowd of people inside, with almost every seat at the bar taken only a couple free tables. A chorus of girls making their greetings could be heard, after which one of them ushered us over to a table. The outfits they were wearing where looked very much like traditional french maid dress, along with pink ribbons and in many cases, cat ears worn on the head. She started out by washing our hands for us with the wet cloth that you always get before a meal in Japan, and then afterwards explained how the cafe worked. We ordered drinks too, some coffees and soda.

I was really impressed by the service of the place. It may be a bit on the expensive side, but they do go out of their way to make sure you are taken care of. I even had sugar and cream mixed into my coffee for me! After a little while, we placed a white poker chip that we received in the middle of the table, indicating that we wanted to play one of the games with a maid. We played this “Pirates of the Caribbean” themed-game, taking turns inserting plastic swords into a plastic barrel, trying not to be the one to make Captain Jack pop out of the top. It ended up being that Lim won, so Hwang and I got the loser’s prizes of having to wear animal ears. I got the bunny ears:

At the end of our time, I paid to have a picture taken with Masami, the maid who played the game with us. She decorated it with all manner of markers and personalized it for us. I would post it, but it is a polaroid so I’d need it scanned. However, Lim also mentioned that he doesn’t want his girlfriend to see the photo, either, so I’m going to hold true to my promise. Sorry I’m being lame. :P

After the maid cafe, we met up with Gan to go shopping at this large department store called Yodobashi. Hwang spent the whole time checking out camera lenses (being the photo buff that he is) while Lim, Gan and I wandered the stores, checking out this and that. It was an enormous store, like Best Buy on crack - games, electronics, computers, cameras, toys, even clothes and a whole level dedicated to golfing equipment, along with a roof-top driving range. 

We were getting pretty hungry at this point, so we arraigned to meet with Hedlim and Melanie back in Ueno for some dinner. There was this little tempura-don place that we found that sold all varieties of tempura on rice. We were all exhausted at this point and everybody was dragging pretty bad. But the meal helped, and we spent the remainder of our time in Tokyo checking out Ameyoko again. We closed out the evening by relaxing in Ueno park, which is directly adjacent the downtown section of Ueno. Gan and I were goofing around with our cameras, and I ended up getting this shot, which I think is pretty good for just wildly waving my camera around:

And with that, I conclude this post on my trip to Tokyo. I know it’s been a while, huh? Hopefully we won’t see such a gap between posts here, but I’m not promising anything. I just hope you enjoyed coming along with me on my first trip to Tokyo. :) I’m already making plans to go again, since we only really saw Ueno, Akihabara and Asakusa. There is still much, much more that can be seen. 

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