c9 | Tokyo Day 2

Day two, once we finally woke up - not too hungover, luckily - was going to be a wandering day. We'd heard that the neighbourhoods of Harajuku and Shibuya were worth seeing, and judging from the map it seemed easily walkable.

At left, a vending machine right near out hotel. Very busy-looking, but at heart just a pop machine. 150 yen ($1.80 CAD) for a tiny Coke, and several other drinks we didn't recognize.

There was also a pet shop just beside our hotel, with many excessively-cute cats and dogs stored in excessvely-small glass cages. They were very happy looking, but I wanted to rescue them all. 108,000 yen (or more) for a pet that we couldn't get home easily was a bit much though. We brought home a ceramic cat instead.

Vin and I were awake long before Tyler & Kristopher, so we went out and got some food across the street first. There was a cute little ramen noodle place, and we just gathered our courage and walked in. They had pictures on the menu, so we managed to do just fine. More on this place later.

We joined up with the guys and got them fed at a sushi place near the hotel: very cheap! Low quality, but that's OK. The woman running the place would count the plates we removed from the conveyor belt and that would be how our bill was tallied (each colour plate has a different price). She delighted in counting them in Japanese and then in English for us: "Three, three, one, one!".

Time to begin our walk. It was nothing too exciting, but we did see a nice little park, lots of regular locals just going about their day, and lots of little convenience stores. We stopped at one and Vin bought Protein Water. It tasted like really sweet water, but it looked like milk. At the train station earlier, he had purchased something called Pocari Sweat, which (SPOILER, hghlight to read) is just like gatorade.

In Japan, they drive on the left, not on the right, and they also walk on the left. This was constantly messing us up when walking on the sidewalk, partly because we'd forget and partly because there were so many people who didn't care. Kind like here I guess. But that was fun too.

Also along our walk, we spotted lots of banners and signs for various things. Lots of rules in Japan! In Shinjuku, there's no smoking on the sidewalk for example. You can smoke indoors basically anywhere, but not outside except in specially designated areas. We eventually figured out how to find them: look for the cloud of blue smoke where people's heads would normally be. :)

There's also a lot of concern about drugs. The op-ed in my head suggests this may be related to all the young westerners showing up during/after college/uni and being up for anything, but I have no evidence. At left, a little hard to read:

"No, Absolutely No!"
to Drug Abuse

We of course saw all sorts of examples of Engrish, bad translations, and awkward phrasings, but I decided pretty early that the memories of those would stay with us without too much photographic evidence. But you'll see a few in our photos.

In the photo album for day two you'll spot photos from our visit to Harajuku and Shibuya, which were really neat to see. The walk along the main drag to get there was quite quiet, but we turned a corner and suddenly were in a sea of people and shops, all with unusual stuff/clothes/food.

Once we reached Shibuya Crossing -- the famous billboard-covered intersection featured in Lost In Translation (which I recommend, btw) -- it wasn't quite dark yet, so supper came first. At right, the vending machine inside the restaurant we went to. You put money in, hit the buttons to get little vouchers, then turned around and handed them to the staff. No chance of dine-and-dash here!

After supper, a quick visit to the facilities. I had heard that Japanese toilets could be interesting, and we did see many types - ranging from hole-in-the-floor-and-that's-it to can-also-launch-the-space-shuttle. Here's the one from the restaurant. I was surprised it had no internet access, or at least, none I could find.

Once we finished supper we headed back to the main intersection and amused ourselves watching the "scramble" pedestrian crosswalk -- that's where everyone can cross in all directions at once, even diagonally. Toronto has a couple and is getting more, but they're very common in the touristy sections of Tokyo, and the sheer volume of people is nuts.

Here's a night-ish shot of Shibuya. The entire building at right is TV screens, and every building was lit up and moving - quite distracting and fun.

We headed back to our hotel's neighbourhood by metro - our first time on it! We had a guidebook with a subway map so it was pretty simple, but still a little tricky. Mostly it seems to be tricky because even though there's tons of signs explaining (in English) how to get places and where the exits are, there's also a flood of people walking by and making you feel like you can't stop anywhere. Like Union Station at rush hour, for those who've had the pleasure. We couldn't find the right exit from the station this time - owing to the fact it was subway, not regional train - and we ended up walking around the station outdoors to get back to somewhere we recognized. Much easier once we'd done it once though.

This night we started at Advocates again, met some new people again, but then continued on to Annex, a different bar in the same neighbourhood. They had some sort of special on green beer (shown at left, nothing to do with St Patrick's Day), and an American we met had an iPhone so I was able to send him my email and look up the answer to something we were talking about, I forget what now.

We also ended up at Arty Farty next this night, a little more inebriated than the previous night, but this time no cops followed us. The first night, a couple cops were a little worried about our drunkest group member, and just watched to ensure we got where we were going.

Here's a photo from inside... Arty Farty I think. Maybe Annex. Photos inside bars are always too bright and bad or too dark and bad. Shame, really.

Facebook album for day two, with many more photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=308521&id=610245592&l=6a037dc512