Don't Japanic

The title is a reference to the mantra of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

As soon as we arrived in Japan, Taylor, Isaiah, and I hopped on the bullet train and traveled to Tokyo to meet Taylor's friend from high school, Shun.  Shun was born in Japan, but moved to the US when he was very young.  Then he moved back to Japan when he was still young, then moved back to the US for middle school and high school.  He graduated at the same time as us, but took two years to try to become a professional skier.  It didn't go the way he wanted, so now he's back in school, starting his second semester as a freshman.

Shun met us at the station and we took the most quiet subway ride of our lives (everyone keeps off of their cellphones and to themselves) to his suburb.  His place is meant for one person to live in.  We fit all four of us.  The layout is as follows: Door in, “kitchen sink” to the left, bathroom in front of you, turn right and there is a living room, then a ladder up to a sleeping loft.  Shun, of course, slept on his mattress up top so all three of us slept in a tiny room.  It was more fun that it was uncomfortable though.

Anyway, the first night we went out to a Jazz club to hear Shun's jazz club from school perform.  Prior to them, though, there was this crazy band who I'm sure were hilarious if I understood Japanese because all of the locals were laughing.  Afterward we went to dinner at a place called “Smokey” where (and this is in no way unique to Smokey, its how its done in Japan) they bring out the raw meat and you cook it right in front of you.  It was delectable.

The next day we went to Disney Sea, which is part of the Tokyo Disneyland park, though it is not actually owned by Disney.  Some company built the park and licensed the Disney name and characters.  This place had a Tower of Terror that was not as good as ours, an Indiana Jones that was about the same as ours (except for the themeing, it was the Crystal Skull and one illusion with a fireball that scared the crap out of me), a looping coaster, and some other stuff.  But the coolest part about this park was the themeing.

The area called “Mysterious Island” looked like something right out of Myst or some other sort of “in-the-past-but-futuristic” game or movie.  Here was the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride, that we rode six times because it was awesome.  We spent all day at Disney Sea, then met up with Shun to have our first real Japanese ramen meal.

You buy a ticket from a vending machine and then give the ticket to the chef who compiles the meat and vegetables and noodles and soup, slops it in a bowl, and serves it.  It was at this restaurant that I tried my first Japanese toilet treatment.

For those of you who don't know, many of the Japanese toilets have a little extra device for cleaning yourself after you're all relieved.  You press a button and it sprays water exactly where you need it to go, and then you press stop once you're good and satisfied.  I thought this would be a little uncomfortable, and it was.  But only for a minute.  I have never felt so refreshed in my entire life!  Not only did they have this but they also had toilet seat sanitizer, so you can wipe down the seat before you sit on it.  The Japanese are SO innovative!

The next morning Shun left us directions to meet him at his school, Sophia University.  We followed his very detailed subway directions and made in there without any problems.  We met his jazz club and some of his friends, as well as two American Japanese kids who are studying abroad at Sophia. Together we went around the Tokyo, going through shopping areas that reminded me of the East Village in NYC, and then to a much busier section.  One thing that was strange to me was that there was almost no littler on the street, but trash cans were hard to come by.  This was strange.  Anyway, the craziest section of town was the “Electric Town.”

*Some things not suitable for young children in this paragraph*We got off the subway and went outside and it was just full of electronics stores, lights, cameras, computers, everything you could imagine.  Along the street were what seemed like hundreds of stores.  We went in to lots of them to get the feeling for it, and in the process ended up in some “Adult” stores (if you know what I mean).  But these were not your typical porn shops.  These were 5 story buildings full of different types of pornography on every floor.  And there were people on every floor, including men in suits carrying briefcases.  I won't go in to details, just know that it was hilarious.

A word about the men in suits.  It seems like the culture is get up, put on your suit, go to work, work, leave work, buy porn, play Pachinko (a crazy pinball-like game where you lose money very quickly) and then ride home.  The line between what kids do and what adults do is much different than in the US.  All the adults still play video games like DS and Panchinko.

For dinner we had sushi, where you sit around the counter and take the sushi off of a belt that is going around it.  They calculate how much you eat by the design of your plate and charge you accordingly. I ate a modest amount.  It was very, very good.  I had shrimp and squid and some other fish I couldn't identify but it was really good.

Our fourth day there, we went back to the university and had lunch there, and watched some dance and jazz performances, but the real fun was that night when we met up with a lot of Shun's friends and went to a restaurant where it was all you can drink for two hours.  We had some fun drinks and ate some good food, and then did nothing but laugh and crack jokes until we went back to Shun's and went to sleep.

The last day we went to a more historical part of Tokyo before heading back to Yokohama.  There was a Buddhist temple and the first real touristy shops I had seen the whole time.

My experience in Japan was different than any other experience I have had so far, especially in Asia.  Since we traveled solely on our own, we had no SAS guidance to give us information about the country and its culture (apart from what we learned in class).  All my other trips in Asia were SAS guided, so it was weird not to have information being pumped through me.  For this reason, I feel like I didn't experience Japan like I did the others, and I feel like I know Japan in a different way then I know the others.

For instance, in Thailand I went to an historical place.  In Vietnam, we walk around the city but also did a lot of historical stuff.  In Japan, we traveled on the subways with the working stiffs, we walked the streets with students, we visited a university.  I feel like I have a good sense of the day in and day out activities of urban Japan.  That is something I don't necessarily know about Vietnam, but as a trade off my Japanese history is a little less developed than, say, my Chinese history.

The food was amazing, but expensive.  Everything in Japan was expensive.  It was my most expensive port so far, dropping almost $200 on transportation and food alone.  Sorry mom and dad but it was my only option.

But it was fun nonetheless.  One thing disappointed me, though, the puzzles!  I was hoping to find puzzle books oozing off the shelves, news stands with lines out onto the street and the subways and buses littered with people with their noses in their puzzles.  This was not so.  In fact, the puzzles were much less prolific than I had hoped.  I still bought a book though, just to keep my spirits up, and to say I got a puzzle book in Japan.  Looks like I'll have to keep buying them online because I was hoping to stock up.