24 hours in Japan
Over this past weekend, I went to Japan for one day. Yes… twenty four hours.
I had a general battle plan of what I was going to do in a short amount of time. I’ll start when I landed at the airport.
So… we landed and the pilot did a very good job; barely felt that. I got my personal item and carry-on and headed out the plane, but before I did, I talked to the flight attendent for work.
Day 1
The first thing I did when I left the plane was use the restroom. The second… I got lost. After regrouping myself, I found my wait out of the airport. Before I left the airport, I did a currency exchange to get some yen. I asked the information desk on how to get to the hotel. She told me there’s a free shuttle. Sweet… I’m down.
I arrived to the hotel and it was nice. I checked in and the first thing I had to do was eat. Since Mike told me about the red district and how it’s up all night, I asked the concierge how to get there. She told me how to and it would take me arond 2 hours. I was like, it’s okay, cause the shops close late night. But she asked how I was going to get back because the shuttle from the train station to the hotel stops at 9:30 (it was around 6). So, I asked where can I go to eat and she suggested the Aeon Mall. She told me how to get there by the shuttle and bus. She also gave me a pamphlet of the mall and I was sooo hungry just looking at the pictures of food they served.
I took the circle bus and it was cool. I got to see the city. The train station had a bunch of places to eat so I thought I’d go there tomorrow. Anyways… I got to the mall and started to find the resturant that I was going to eat.
I wanted noodles because I figured it was going to be the most filling. I should have went to the second floor because they had ramen, and it looked good. But the noodles I got was good, just not ramen. After I ate I had around 2 hours left at the mall, so I walked around. There was this arcade called Capcom Plaza. I went inside. Wow, the games are sooo advanced. There was this game called pachenga or chenga or chango… I don’t know, but anyways, it was a came that had these metal balls fall down and it gave points or something.
I watched the guy play it and it was interactive. I guess somehow depending on where the balls fall, it gave him a team. Each team member had a strength level. The team would “fight” the enemy. It had a video of how the fight went down. The video was like a cheesey version of the power rangers. Hahha, the fight didn’t even look real too. He looked real into the game too.
I saw this fishing game too. Basically, it was like that hippo game at Chuck E Cheesey’s. But the center was a video (crisp video too) of a pond. Each station had a fish rod. Nobody was playing it but I thought it was pretty cool.
Anyways, I was done with that I went walked around and I got to a pet shop. Aww… the puppies were soo cute.
I walked some more and ended up at a music store. I bought Mikes CD that he requested. I didn’t know where to find it, so I asked the staff.
Started to walk some more and started to observe the people around me. The teenager guys had hair like dragon balls. There were family there. Actually, on the bus, there were old ladies by themselves too. The girls… yeah, some where pretty cute.
I window shopped some more. Then it was time to wait for the bus to get back to the hotel. There were a bunch of chinese people that went on the bus as well. They were talking in mandarin, so I could kind of get the jist of what they said. Some of them looked okay too. But they seemed old too. Anyways, by the time I got back, it was around 10pm and I’d figure I’d hit up the bar.
The bar was chill. I asked for Asahi on tap. They gave me some snacks. There was a guy that was playing the guitar. I think he was just a vistor like me, but just had a guitar. The people that were there liked what he played and kept cheering him on. I was nearly done with my drink and the bartender asked if I wanted something else. I asked if he knew how to make a Tom Collins. He said yes and I said I wanted one with gin instead. He looked at me and said mixed. I was confused so I just said “…. yes…”. He took out Tanqueray and had the expression “yeah?”. I said no, and asked for Bombay. Tanqueray looked expensive, so I asked for Bombay. He went to get Bombay. He came back with that in one hand and grabbed the Tanqueray. He did the pouring motion with both of them and said “mix?”. I said no. I asked said “Tom Collins with Bombay.” He did the same thing, but said tom collins holding the tanqueray, then holding bombay and saying bombay. I said, no and some how I got him to understand “Tom Collins”. Then I said “Tom Collins with Bombay”. He then said “OH… Tom Corrins”. Then I said yes while thinking, I hope he knews what I’m asking. He started to make the drink and looked correct.
He started to mix the drink but he kept looking at me. *shake shake shake*…*looks over and smirks*….*shake shake shake*…*looks over*… *shakes it weirdly* …. *I look away cause it was getting homo*…. *does more shaking* … *gives me my drink*
He made the drink right, but not that strong, which is perfect for me. After that drink I was done. So I got the bill and went back to the room. Watched the discovey channel for a while and knocked out.
Day 2
The battle plan for today was to go to the electronic district in Tokyo. I was reviewing the train maps and knew how I was going to get there. I had to take two subways. One to get from Narita to Yamata (??), then one to get from Yamata to the electronic district.
I got the ticket to go to Yamata. And when I was riding the subway, I started to calculate the time I would have once I got there. I had to make sure I was back at the hotel by 2 or 3. After calculating it, I would have only one hour of walking around the electronic district. That didn’t even have the time to eat. Basically, I would take about an hour to get to Yamata, then another hour to the electronic district. So, it would have been a total of 4 hours of riding the train.
I said forget it and got off and went back to Narita. Glad I calculated the time, cause I only spent 1 hour total on the train and not 4 hours.
Once I got off, I needed to eat. So I started walking around and found this small ramen shop off this alley. They were open, and I went in. It was the smallest resturant ever. But the food looked good. I sat down at the counter and looked at the menu. They were pretty cool cause it said on the side that to tell the cook if you don’t eat meat; which I did. So, I ordered the ramen with this whiteish/creamish soup. It was sooooooooooo good. It had corn, seaweed, egg, and the noodles I’ve been waiting to eat.
The counter had a front view of the kitchen and you can see what they were doing. Watching them make the ramen was like watching poetry dance. They were not making the noodles, they were dancing with them.
I got my ramen and the first thing I did was look at it. Everything was perfectly placed. I sniffed the aroma of the soup. I got my soup spoon and tasted the soup. It was awesome. I started to mix my noodles. Then I prepared myself for the noodles. I then started to eat. This is not noodles. This is ramen.
When I first sat at the counter, more and more people started to come in. Once I got my ramen, I didn’t noticed anything. It was just me and my ramen from the beginning to the end. When I finished, I looked around and the place got packed.
The lady next to me ordered the same noodles that I did. Kind of weird, but she asked for butter. She placed the butter in her soup.
So, I paid my bill and started to walk around some more. Found some interesting shops. I came across this one place that was preparing eel. There was a group of people taking pictures and taking video of it too. This is what they did… Get the live eel, strike the neck, poke a metal thing through it’s head to make it stay on the board, slice the eel in the middle of the back, split the eel in half, and remove it’s spine. The guy then chopped off it’s head and end tail, and cut it in half.
Kinda gross.
I start to walk away from this after witnessing this guy do that to a couple of eels.
I got this pastry from a side alley and asked if he knew of some good sushi. He pointed to this place across the street. That was cool because I was thinking of eatin there too.
So, I went in and everybody greeted me. I sat at the bar and the chef didn’t really know english. But yeah, we managed.
First I brought out a paper that Mike wrote on. It had a suggestion of a sushi to eat. I showed the chef and he found it and showed me it. It looked gross. It looked like a half squid half shrimp. I made a face and the sushi chef also made a face. I said no to that one. Mike later told me it’s called the mantis shrimp and he didn’t like it either.
But yeah, I’m not sure if it’s just the place I went or if it’s like that all around Japan, but the sushi isn’t like the ones here. The rice size is the same, but the fish is 3 times as long. It was good.
The one I really liked is the red snapper. The scallop was really good too. I’m not a big fan of cooked scallops, but the raw one is really good.
I liked how the chef made the sushi too. He was like dancing or something. Like cutting it just right. Very precise and accurate. Getting the fish, doing some type of flip in his hand and putting the rice there.
After I was done with that, I started to walk around some more. I passed by some cigarette vending machines and they had the usual brands. But they had some weird ones. Marlbolo Ice Mint. Camel Nutty Menthol. Interesting….
I got some pastries from a bakery for my mom. Some snacks from the 100 yen store.
Went back to the hotel and waited for the shuttle to the airport.
That is my 24 hours in Japan. The next time I’m there for 24 hours, I know what I’m going to do and know what not to do.
Do: Eat ramen. Eat more sushi. Go to electronic district and stay up all night (get a taxi to drive me back… maybe).
Don’t: Get lost on the subway.