Tokyo

This is a side street in Shinjuku

Tokyo Is HUGE! I can’t get over how big the city is! We arrived Friday at Narita Airport and would probably still be on the train to our hostel if it weren’t for these two Japanese girls who decided to help us, we must have looked so lost! They showed us where to transfer lines and everything. We understand the subway system now but at first we had no Idea, because there are so many lines. We stayed at the Ace Hostel, a wooden capsule hostel. I had a small locker to store my valuable things and slept in a “capsule” it was actually pretty big and quite comfy!

That night we had sushi in the Shinjuku district which is nicknamed the Times Square of Tokyo.

I tried a type of clam sushi, not so good! But I also had tuna, cucumber and roe maki, and a few different types of sashimi too -tuna, salmon, yellowtail.The roe here is sooo different, it’s so big compared to what we have at home. The fish is so fresh here I love it!! We saw hundreds of adult arcades, apparently it’s very popular here..it’s very strange.

The city is very clean, there is barely any liter or trash on the streets or sidewalks And the subways are also extremely clean and modern, I was pretty surprised by this. About 1 in 15-20 people wear face masks, which I did not expect to see in Japan.

We were exhausted by the end of the day so we went to bed pretty early. On Saturday we woke up at 4:45am, yes I know that is extremely early. We went to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. We got there too late to see the tuna auctioning - that is over by 6am! We walked around the whole market, it was HUGE. There were hundreds of stalls selling fresh fish, shellfish, etc. We saw some pretty big tunas being cut up, it was interesting. There was also a produce market that is connected to the fish market and we bought what we thought were giant grapes, but actually tasted kind of like plums. Across the street from the Market are shops and stalls that sell the fish and produce to people. There were also a lot of sushi restaurants. We didn’t wait in the line at the “best” restaurant, because it was wayyy too long. We still had to wait about 20 minutes to eat at the restaurant we chose. Thank god the menu had pictures so I knew what I was ordering. I had two types of tuna served on top of a bowl of rice with small pieces of nori (sushi seaweed) sprinkled on the rice. All the sushi restaurants there are small, and the one we ate at only had 15 or so seats at the bar. I had the freshest sushi that morning - at 7am - that I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.

After hat we headed over to Ginza, one of the most famous downtowns of Japan. There is endless shopping here, everything from H&M to Burberry to Tiffany & Co. I couldn’t get over the size of the buildings and stores and the endless amount of stores! Each store was more than one floor!!

By this time it was only 11 am so we headed over to the Imperial Palace and the East Gardens. We walked around the grounds for a while. It was a cloudy day so we couldn’t see Mt. Fuji from the viewing tower there. It’s located in the middle of the city, but when you are inside the Gardens you can’t even tell you are in a city! It was so peaceful there. I felt so at peace walking around the gardens. Unfortunately the cherry blossoms bloom in the Spring, so there were only a few left that still had the flowers on them. The whole area is surrounded by a mote which was really neat. And there were hundreds of Ginko trees which are so cool! After this we headed over to the Roppongi area to a building called Roppongi Hills. We went up to the 52^nd floor of that building and saw 360-degree views of the city. It was the most amazing views. And from there you can see just how GIGANTIC the city really is. It just went on and on as far out as you could see/as far as you could see because of the clouds.

After this we were exhausted because we had been up for about 12 hours. We went back to the hostel to take a nap and shower before going out to dinner and experiencing the nightlife in Tokyo, but we didn’t wake up until 6:30 this morning! Opps

This morning we went to Yoyogi Park in Harajuku. This is the area Gwen Stafani always talks about. In the park we went to the Meiji Shrine, a shrine for Emperor Meiji who died in the late 19^th century sometime. Before you g in you have to wash your hands and mouth with these long wooden spoon-types. I washed my hands, not my mouth though. We also saw a wedding precession there too.

Now we are on a train to Kokura, which is 50 minutes west of Hiroshima. We are going to visit Katie’s friend and spend the night with her. A lot of people have bamboo lunch boxes with meals inside so the train smells like fish and food, it’s not the best smell for a 3 hour train ride…