Japan is such a cultural-rich and wonderful place to visit. The second half of my trip certainly did not disappoint. I visited temples, the Yokohama Sankeien Garden, and the Cup Noodle Museum, which displays tons of instant noodles and instant noodle art. I also had the pleasure of visiting Shibuya, which is really techy and most comparable to an Asian Times Square. Here I got to see live Mario Kart!!
5/11/2017
Today we were led by our tour guide Mickey. Never have I ever met someone as sweet and high on life as her. The whole entire day she had the biggest smile on her face. Additionally, she ended all of her comments, and responded to all of ours, with “thank you so much” and a bow.
First, Mickey took us to the Yokohama Sankeien Garden. I really enjoyed our time there as it consisted of beautiful Japanese architecture and outside trails. We got to see turtles, which made me really happy, and I thought it was cool to see bamboo in the woods in real life. There was a house that was dark and old and could be entered if you took your shoes off. The steps to the second level were super steep, and a guy even said that he was happy that I was going up first.
We got to participate in a mini traditional Japanese tea ceremony. I really enjoyed this experience because in Japan, drinking tea is an art with many steps involved and the woman was trying to explain it to me completely in Japanese.
Out of all the fun activities that we got to do at the gardens, my favorite was probably seeing the three-tiered building and taking jumping pictures in front of it with Kaitlin and Dr. Peng.
Our next bus ride took us to the Red Brick Warehouse. We didn’t have much time here, but I was able to get some amazing fries and guava juice with bubbles from Kua’aina and look around the shops a little. When we left there was an amazing sunset.
I was excited to go to the Cup Noodle Museum because I ate a lot of Ramen noodles as a child. I only ever tried chicken and beef (maybe shrimp once), so it was cool to see the huge variety of flavors. After watching the video and looking around at the modern, creative exhibits, I went downstairs to the gift shop and bought three packs of Japanese instant noodles.
When shopping in mall-like environments I noticed that the stores are very close together, each playing different music. It’s kind of funny because when standing in one spot you can hear up to three or four different pop stations at one time.
Another observation was that in some metro bathrooms there is no soap and everyone uses the sink to rinse their mouths and hands with water. In a certain one I went into, this was the case; however, there was a huge area where multiple women were fixing their make-up and hair. Let’s just say I’ve gone through a lot of hand sanitizer on this trip.
That’s all for now! FitBit step count: 14,122
5/12/2017
Today is our last day in Tokyo! 🙁 Our itinerary said we were supposed to go to the Kanda Festival parade after breakfast; but due to the rain, we were allowed to go off on our own if we wanted to. Kaitlin and I decided to visit Shibuya, a ward of Tokyo known for its lights, shopping, and business.
Upon arriving around 9 AM, we discovered that most of the stores didn’t open until 10 or 11 AM. First, we went to Starbucks where I got a Caramel Macchiato.
It was only beginning to rain, so we decided to walk around and see what was around. We saw Zara, Adidas, Under Armour, Forever 21, Lush, Burger King, Wendy’s, and a mall. To kill time, we decided to get food. I went to Burger King and Kaitlin went to Wendy’s. I got a Whopper with avocado (do not recommend), and we ended up eating in the bottom of Wendy’s, which was very clean.
At exactly 10 AM, a line of us were let into the mall. We took the escalators the whole way to the top floor (5F) and worked our way down to the very bottom (B2). I discovered a make-up place and was drawn in by the sheet masks by the entrance. I talked to the lady for a while and ended up buying an overnight gel-like, strawberry moisturizer that has little “tapioca” beads in it. I also snagged a few masks for myself and my friends!
Enjoy this video of real-life Mario Kart in Shibuya!!
When we left the mall, it was raining pretty hard. Kaitlin and I found our way back to the station, got on the train, and went back to Mushashi-Kosugi, where our hotel is located. We stopped at the little convenience store between the station and our hotel to get snacks in order to use up the rest of our coins as they won’t convert. I got four bags of apple tea and a pack of gum.
At the hotel, we waited for everyone to get back so we could go to the train station to get to the airport for our flight to Taipei. Our train ended up getting delayed an hour, so we had to make some accommodations. We took a few metro trains before we ended up able to get on our real train that had a reserved seat for each of us. I sat by Ryan and we both took naps.
From there it got crazy. We had a little over an hour until our flight was scheduled to take off, so everyone had to run up flights of escalators (and even one staircase) to get to the airport. We all weighed our bags and shifted around luggage as necessary to meet the 23 kg limit. Once we were all in line, we waited for a really long time and people were getting pretty upset as we hadn’t even reached security and were scheduled to board. When we finally checked our bags, we ran like Olympic athletes to catch the bus that would take us to our plane.
There were so many of us, that the plane actually waited for everyone! We are now in the air and I am working on catching up on my blog posts. Not many of us had the chance to eat due to the rush. I am looking forward to settling into our new hotel and getting dinner once we touch down. This plane has tvs that show the outside when taking off and landing and displays the route during the flight. There was minor turbulence on the flight, but overall it was smooth sailing and fairly quick!
At the airport, we were greeted with bubble tea, a specialty of Taiwan. We then got on a train that you weren’t allowed to eat and drink on or you would be fined. Once we checked into the Taipei M Hotel, Kaitlin and I went to a really sketchy 7-Eleven by our hotel and I got Meiji chocolate (which I loved) and a soft garlic baguette. Once we got back, we didn’t waste any time showering and getting to bed.
Fitbit step count: 21,430
