Arrival in Tokyo or The Blessed Gift of Hindsight. (2/2/17)
The first day in a nutshell...was not great.
"What?" I hear you cry. "But your pictures made it look so magical! The flight, the sights, the food."
Ah the power of selective posting.
If you've ever planned a grand scale travel experience, even if it's just in your head, you're probably guilty of a massively inflated ego. I know I was. " We're savvy" I told myself. "I've read all the blogs, we've planned the route from the airport, we've learnt a bunch of Japanese words and phrases, hell Ollie can even hold a conversation! Whatever problem we face, we'll deal with it cool, calm and collected"
With the blessed gift of hindsight I can see how naive I was. Everyone else probably knew but were gracious enough to let me make my own mistakes. Karma, however, was not that gracious. Upon landing in the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo, Karma laughed at my inflated ego and proceeded to serve me beautiful comeuppance.
We boarded the plane at Heathrow with the giddy excitement of a toddler being told they can eat sweets for breakfast. We had our whole journey ahead of us and I couldn't work out how I was going to remain seated for the entire duration of the flight. We paused only briefly to notice that the four seasons was playing over the speakers, reminding us that we were on a classy British Airways flight, not the orange clad EasyJet we were so accustomed to. The flight passed as flights do; fidget, browse the film selection, check the flight tracker, select a film, broken headphones, get new headphones, they're broken too, turns out it's my TV system that's broken so no films for me, check the flight tracker again, oh look it's breakfast time, soggy eggs, love a hot towelette, attempt to sleep, check the flight tracker again and wince at how little we've moved.
I was in the middle of my 9th game of Bejeweled Blitz when I saw we were nearing Japan. Knowing we were on the right side of the plane to possibly see Mt. Fuji (we had paid an extra £50 at check in for the privilege) I scanned the clouds, eagerly searching for a glimpse of the snow capped behemoth. Eventually we spotted it, cutting through the clouds and tinged with the bright pink of sunrise. We craned our necks for as long as we could, and once it was out of sight I immediately started writing in my journal, wanting to capture in words the feeling of setting eyes on such an iconic landmark.
"It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." I wrote. "The way the clouds looked like candy floss as they flowed around the mountaintop. I can't believe we saw it from the plane while the sun was rising. Hopefully that beautiful sight serves as a good omen for our first day!"
Karma laughed.
We landed, collected our bags and strapped them to our backs with the precision and determination of a Year 7 on their first day of secondary school. We knew that our accommodation was at least an hour and a half away, and I knew that somewhere in the airport there lay a secret oasis. A pod hotel called 9hrs within which we could pay for the use of a shower where we could wash the flight from our tired bones. All we needed to do was follow the signs for and find it. Simple.
Karma laughed.
After almost an hour (yep) of trekking up and down escalators, roving through car parks, backtracking and looping around the airport, getting progressively more exhausted and trying not to snap at each other when we took a wrong turn (I confess to making several faces at Oz once his back was turned) we finally found what we'd been looking for. As we entered through the sleek glass exterior I let my bag fall unceremoniously from my shoulders and happy tears pooled in my eyes. Without stopping to blink I paid for us both to shower and bid Ollie a giddy farewell as I entered the female only wing. I barely noticed the decor (Imagine Apple designed a changing room) as I launched my bag into a locker, put on the provided slippers and made my way down to the promised land. I have had many a shower in my time but let me tell you no shower that has been or will be will ever capture the ecstasy of that one. I entered the haven of sandstone and turned the dial, not caring how cold the water would be but being pleasantly surprised when it came out instantly warm. It was glorious.
Upon leaving 9hrs we came across something I had been waiting to see, and the holy land of any child who has ever asked their mum for £1 in the shop.
Gacha Gacha.
Gashapon are basically blind purchase toy vending machines, 'Gasha' (Gacha) being an onomatopoeic word for the sound the machine makes as you crank the handle, and 'pon' referring to the toy capsule that comes out of it. I'd wanted to try them ever since seeing them online, and I spent a happy if stressed ten minutes looking at every one (there were over a hundred in that room alone) trying to decide which one to purchase. The ranged from ¥100 (70p) to ¥500 (£3.50) and featured everything from well known anime characters to shower caps with cats on them, to small beaded bags, to watches, and inexplicably tiny plastic grandmas that would sit on the edge of your drinking glass. In the end i chose to go for a series of cats as fruit as was rewarded with a key chain of a smiling cat whose bottom half was a banana. I hung it on my bag and it became the first of many I collected on my travels.
After another hour and a half of accidentally buying the most expensive train ticket, riding the train into central Tokyo and then attempting to understand how to navigate the overwhelming train stations/underground shopping malls (I should point out that once we got the hang of it the Japanese rail system is the easiest travel system I've ever seen and far surpasses our own) we made it to our apartment. We settled in (read: shoved everything under the bed and packed the essentials in a day pack) and on recommendation traveled to Kabukicho, the so called red light district near Shinjuku. Having passed through Shinjuku on the way, we set off to the nearby tram with some confidence knowing all we had to do once we got there was pick a place to eat. How hard could that be?
Karma laughed.
Kabukicho, so called because after the Second World War a Kabuki theater was set to be built there is also referred to as 'the sleepless town' and upon arriving it was easy to see why. Every available surface was oozing neon, from eye level to skyscraper height. There were a hundred hostess bars with attendants in maid outfits giving out fliers. Music blared from every direction and to top it off Godzilla loomed over everyone from atop a tower. The road, we later learned, was called Godzilla road. Trying to make sense of it all we walked down the main road, attempting to find somewhere to eat and dodging people in bright orange puffer jackets trying to convince us into whatever place they were representing. We thought we couldn't be more overwhelmed, until we reached a crossroads containing a million more lights, sounds and smells.
We stopped. Looking back, this was the precise moment that Karma stopped laughing, and punched me right in the gut. As we stood there with flashes of light dancing on our faces, trying to make out any tune from the overwhelming music I realized I hadn't let myself believe I could possible get overwhelmed and I broke. What if the entire trip is like this? I thought. What if we just argue and nothing is like we thought it was going to be and we end up hating it and each other? As I waved goodbye to my confident exterior through a stream of tears, we spotted what could be our salvation.
"Traditional English Pub" said the sign. "Sausage and mash! Pie! Fish and chips!"
It looked like it had come straight out of Disneyland rather than the English countryside but in a moment of weakness we flirted with the idea of cowering in its distorted familiarity. We looked at each other, and in desperation an unspoken acceptance formed. We took a few tentative steps towards the pub.
"Hold up" I almost shouted, wiping away my tears in a moment of defiance. "If we go back and tell everyone that on our first night in Japan, with all this amazing food around us we had dinner in an ENGLISH PUB we will never be taken seriously again. This is silly. We're being silly. Let's just walk in somewhere and order some damn food."
I marched off in the opposite direction and spotted people eating noodles on the second floor of a building across the road. Without any thought I went up the stairs, opened the door and managed to convey to the server that we wanted a table for two. And that was all it took. The plaster had been ripped off. We pointed at pictures on the menu and ended up with two huge bowls of rice and two pints of beer for about £10, all while Godzilla watched from outside. We looked at each other and laughed at our stupidity, acknowledging that we needed to deflate our egos a bit if we were going to successfully travel for three months without falling to pieces. Neither of us can remember the name of that restaurant but I thank it for being what we needed to put our big girl pants on and get the hell on with it.
After the breaking of the dam, we had a brilliant evening. We scaled the five story arcades and had a few games of Mariokart which Oz won because he's a red shell scumbag. We watched as people danced on a dance mat with the fury and perfection of a classically trained dancer and wondered how much they had to practice to become such a master of dance dance revolution. We even found the famous Robot Restaurant, although we didn't go in.
The next day we told our host Sam about our night. "Yeah..." he said "Kabukicho is for people who are out of their minds."
That made me feel a little better.
**Bonus picture**
This beautifully named photo-booth.
"What?" I hear you cry. "But your pictures made it look so magical! The flight, the sights, the food."
Ah the power of selective posting.
If you've ever planned a grand scale travel experience, even if it's just in your head, you're probably guilty of a massively inflated ego. I know I was. " We're savvy" I told myself. "I've read all the blogs, we've planned the route from the airport, we've learnt a bunch of Japanese words and phrases, hell Ollie can even hold a conversation! Whatever problem we face, we'll deal with it cool, calm and collected"
With the blessed gift of hindsight I can see how naive I was. Everyone else probably knew but were gracious enough to let me make my own mistakes. Karma, however, was not that gracious. Upon landing in the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo, Karma laughed at my inflated ego and proceeded to serve me beautiful comeuppance.
We boarded the plane at Heathrow with the giddy excitement of a toddler being told they can eat sweets for breakfast. We had our whole journey ahead of us and I couldn't work out how I was going to remain seated for the entire duration of the flight. We paused only briefly to notice that the four seasons was playing over the speakers, reminding us that we were on a classy British Airways flight, not the orange clad EasyJet we were so accustomed to. The flight passed as flights do; fidget, browse the film selection, check the flight tracker, select a film, broken headphones, get new headphones, they're broken too, turns out it's my TV system that's broken so no films for me, check the flight tracker again, oh look it's breakfast time, soggy eggs, love a hot towelette, attempt to sleep, check the flight tracker again and wince at how little we've moved.
I was in the middle of my 9th game of Bejeweled Blitz when I saw we were nearing Japan. Knowing we were on the right side of the plane to possibly see Mt. Fuji (we had paid an extra £50 at check in for the privilege) I scanned the clouds, eagerly searching for a glimpse of the snow capped behemoth. Eventually we spotted it, cutting through the clouds and tinged with the bright pink of sunrise. We craned our necks for as long as we could, and once it was out of sight I immediately started writing in my journal, wanting to capture in words the feeling of setting eyes on such an iconic landmark.
"It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." I wrote. "The way the clouds looked like candy floss as they flowed around the mountaintop. I can't believe we saw it from the plane while the sun was rising. Hopefully that beautiful sight serves as a good omen for our first day!"
Karma laughed.
We landed, collected our bags and strapped them to our backs with the precision and determination of a Year 7 on their first day of secondary school. We knew that our accommodation was at least an hour and a half away, and I knew that somewhere in the airport there lay a secret oasis. A pod hotel called 9hrs within which we could pay for the use of a shower where we could wash the flight from our tired bones. All we needed to do was follow the signs for and find it. Simple.
Karma laughed.
After almost an hour (yep) of trekking up and down escalators, roving through car parks, backtracking and looping around the airport, getting progressively more exhausted and trying not to snap at each other when we took a wrong turn (I confess to making several faces at Oz once his back was turned) we finally found what we'd been looking for. As we entered through the sleek glass exterior I let my bag fall unceremoniously from my shoulders and happy tears pooled in my eyes. Without stopping to blink I paid for us both to shower and bid Ollie a giddy farewell as I entered the female only wing. I barely noticed the decor (Imagine Apple designed a changing room) as I launched my bag into a locker, put on the provided slippers and made my way down to the promised land. I have had many a shower in my time but let me tell you no shower that has been or will be will ever capture the ecstasy of that one. I entered the haven of sandstone and turned the dial, not caring how cold the water would be but being pleasantly surprised when it came out instantly warm. It was glorious.
Upon leaving 9hrs we came across something I had been waiting to see, and the holy land of any child who has ever asked their mum for £1 in the shop.
Gacha Gacha.
Gashapon are basically blind purchase toy vending machines, 'Gasha' (Gacha) being an onomatopoeic word for the sound the machine makes as you crank the handle, and 'pon' referring to the toy capsule that comes out of it. I'd wanted to try them ever since seeing them online, and I spent a happy if stressed ten minutes looking at every one (there were over a hundred in that room alone) trying to decide which one to purchase. The ranged from ¥100 (70p) to ¥500 (£3.50) and featured everything from well known anime characters to shower caps with cats on them, to small beaded bags, to watches, and inexplicably tiny plastic grandmas that would sit on the edge of your drinking glass. In the end i chose to go for a series of cats as fruit as was rewarded with a key chain of a smiling cat whose bottom half was a banana. I hung it on my bag and it became the first of many I collected on my travels.
 |
| So. Many. Gacha. |
After another hour and a half of accidentally buying the most expensive train ticket, riding the train into central Tokyo and then attempting to understand how to navigate the overwhelming train stations/underground shopping malls (I should point out that once we got the hang of it the Japanese rail system is the easiest travel system I've ever seen and far surpasses our own) we made it to our apartment. We settled in (read: shoved everything under the bed and packed the essentials in a day pack) and on recommendation traveled to Kabukicho, the so called red light district near Shinjuku. Having passed through Shinjuku on the way, we set off to the nearby tram with some confidence knowing all we had to do once we got there was pick a place to eat. How hard could that be?
Karma laughed.
 |
| Kabukicho |
Kabukicho, so called because after the Second World War a Kabuki theater was set to be built there is also referred to as 'the sleepless town' and upon arriving it was easy to see why. Every available surface was oozing neon, from eye level to skyscraper height. There were a hundred hostess bars with attendants in maid outfits giving out fliers. Music blared from every direction and to top it off Godzilla loomed over everyone from atop a tower. The road, we later learned, was called Godzilla road. Trying to make sense of it all we walked down the main road, attempting to find somewhere to eat and dodging people in bright orange puffer jackets trying to convince us into whatever place they were representing. We thought we couldn't be more overwhelmed, until we reached a crossroads containing a million more lights, sounds and smells.
We stopped. Looking back, this was the precise moment that Karma stopped laughing, and punched me right in the gut. As we stood there with flashes of light dancing on our faces, trying to make out any tune from the overwhelming music I realized I hadn't let myself believe I could possible get overwhelmed and I broke. What if the entire trip is like this? I thought. What if we just argue and nothing is like we thought it was going to be and we end up hating it and each other? As I waved goodbye to my confident exterior through a stream of tears, we spotted what could be our salvation.
"Traditional English Pub" said the sign. "Sausage and mash! Pie! Fish and chips!"
It looked like it had come straight out of Disneyland rather than the English countryside but in a moment of weakness we flirted with the idea of cowering in its distorted familiarity. We looked at each other, and in desperation an unspoken acceptance formed. We took a few tentative steps towards the pub.
"Hold up" I almost shouted, wiping away my tears in a moment of defiance. "If we go back and tell everyone that on our first night in Japan, with all this amazing food around us we had dinner in an ENGLISH PUB we will never be taken seriously again. This is silly. We're being silly. Let's just walk in somewhere and order some damn food."
I marched off in the opposite direction and spotted people eating noodles on the second floor of a building across the road. Without any thought I went up the stairs, opened the door and managed to convey to the server that we wanted a table for two. And that was all it took. The plaster had been ripped off. We pointed at pictures on the menu and ended up with two huge bowls of rice and two pints of beer for about £10, all while Godzilla watched from outside. We looked at each other and laughed at our stupidity, acknowledging that we needed to deflate our egos a bit if we were going to successfully travel for three months without falling to pieces. Neither of us can remember the name of that restaurant but I thank it for being what we needed to put our big girl pants on and get the hell on with it.
 |
| The dinner of champions. |
After the breaking of the dam, we had a brilliant evening. We scaled the five story arcades and had a few games of Mariokart which Oz won because he's a red shell scumbag. We watched as people danced on a dance mat with the fury and perfection of a classically trained dancer and wondered how much they had to practice to become such a master of dance dance revolution. We even found the famous Robot Restaurant, although we didn't go in.
The next day we told our host Sam about our night. "Yeah..." he said "Kabukicho is for people who are out of their minds."
That made me feel a little better.
**Bonus picture**
This beautifully named photo-booth.
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