That’s the one word of Japanese I learned before my four-day trip to Tokyo. Besides “Arigato,” it’s also the only word I know in Japanese.
Four days isn’t nearly long enough to visit any city, but in the case of Tokyo it’s even more ridiculous.
The strategy, I would’ve thought, would have been to take in the visit with a macro lens. After getting a idea of how big the city is, just focus on the little things that make Tokyo != home, rather than trying to drink it all in at once, which would be like trying to down an entire 5-gallon keg using a teaspoon to sip.
My parents, though, decided to grab teaspoons and get to work. So. We wandered through Ginza, Roppongi, Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Asakusa. Then we had lunch. We then took a boat ride and ended up in some park with cherry blossoms, and then walked through a couple more department stores, browsing mainly the basement levels, because those had food (everything else was just like….oh yes, Lacroix. Oh, yes, Chanel. We have those too!). My sis took a bunch of pictures of food, like she was one of those Food Network personalities, but…not.
To finish the day we also went up some 40-story tower to take in a view of the whole city. We bought dinner from one of those department stores, just like, it seems, the entire population of Tokyo does, after work.
The next day we visited Mt. Fuji. We signed up for a guided tour, and that was quite nice, mainly because it was so relaxing. I mean, we got to spend a full *15 minutes* at the base of Mt. Fuji to take pictures and stuff! We were also taken to Hanone, which had volcanic springs (ie., smelled like rotten eggs.) We took a cable car ride down some mountain (SCARY!), and snapped more pictures. The funny thing about the tour was that it was an English-speaking one, and we were nearly all Americans (with some Germans thrown in), but for lunch, they took us to a hotel that served us American food. It was very good, but you’d think they’d realize we’d want to try the native stuff. But I guess the Asians see things like my dad (when the family visited me while I was in Paris, the first restaurant they went to was a Japanese sushi place. They also brought canned kimchi with them).
The best part about the trip to Mt. Fuji was that the night before, I’d idly wondered if they’d have like, stuffed Mt. Fuji dolls to buy as souvenirs. And, at the gift shop, they *did*! I love the Japanese.
We took the bullet train back to the hotel and that was neat – while waiting in the station for our train, at least 5 other ones passed by, and they are *scary* fast. And when you’re in one, and crossing one going the other way, it’s even more impressive.
We had ramen for dinner, then my mom and sister somehow had enough energy to visit Tokyo Tower (blatant ripoff of the Eiffel), which was behind our hotel. We took lots of pictures, but my battery’s dead and I don’t have my camera cable so I can’t post any yet.
I skipped all the parts where I complained about being tired, and all the times we got lost. This happened way too often, and it wasn’t the ‘good’ kind of lost where you can just wander (though we did plenty of that). No, it was a directed kind of lost, like, my dad *needed* to take us someplace, but he had no idea how to find it, and had to ask for directions at every corner, while we passed by dozens of other neat things we could’ve done instead, and by the time we got to where we ‘needed’ to be, it was completely underwhelming and we were all cranky.
Anyway, Tokyo is quite clean and nice, and people are pretty nice, especially considering it’s such a big city, and those tend to be rare traits in big cities. Service everywhere is impeccable. Food, or at least whatever we ate, was pretty much exactly like what you can get at home, no better, no worse (kind of disappointing!). I was not at all surprised to find a lot of Starbucks, but here, there are only one or two in a neighborhood (some cafe called “Excelsior” competes directly with them, with a similar logo and everything, except theirs is blue). Family Mart (Famima!) and 7-11 abound. I was somewhat surprised (don’t know why) to find Yoshinoya there, though we didn’t have time to partake (you know I would have!). We did try MacDo at the airport, and like everywhere else outside the US, the food is exactly the same, but smaller. The Japanese McDos do have this dessert called chocolate pie, which is exactly that. We also tried a Beard Papa cream puff, but it was in a subway station, so I don’t think it counts. It was still good, though.
I was somewhat dismayed by how much “Engrish” abounds – you would think they’d at least run their stuff by one of the thousands of native English-speaking people who live in their city, rather than have signs blaring, “Imformation!” all over the subways.
I also know that I can never travel with my parents again. I’d promised myself that after our family’s stressful tour of London a few years ago, but greed got in the way (who is going to turn down a ‘free’ trip to Tokyo?). But the way they ‘travel’ is just too strenuous. As short as our trip was (or I guess *because* it was), I seriously couldn’t wait to just come back home so I could like, relax, and take a real vacation, which was really what I needed. I am going back to Westwood tonight just so I can get at least a full day’s worth of rest before starting the Spring quarter.
And I don’t mean to be ungrateful, because we DID get to visit a place we’d never been before. But in the end, as hard as my parents tried, we definitely missed a whole lot of Tokyo. I feel like it’d take at least 6 months to get a good start on getting to know the city, so I definitely want to go back to do it “right.” First, though, I need to learn more Japanese.
Filed under: travel
