7/20-7/26: Trip to Japan: IRASHAI!!!
*Here's a good visiting Japan resource guide*
Airlines we flew:
Upon arrival night @ Narita:
Japanese food:
SFO >LAX >NRT
Blah! I'm wiping out my orginal travelogue because I think it's too detailed and boring. i'm sure anyone who
reads it will fall asleep because i didn't incorporate much pictures. anyways, the reason it's taking me
forever to type it up and actually post it is because 1) i've been well procrastinating since July and it's September 2) I think my
writing makes people fall asleep. HA! Alright so here goes:
United Air My mom and I flew down to LAX from SFO.
Then from LAX to NRT on Singapore Airlines. The stewardess wore traditional thai outfits
which were similar to paisley prints. The flight took 10 hours. Each individual seats had it's own mointor that tracks the
duration of our flight. I watched a bunch of movies: Gosford Park, A walk to remember, some Asian flick in Cantonese, Monster's Ball,
Panic Room, and some other shows. I met two absolutely cool middle aged Canadian couple. He was Indian on a business trip
and she was a Cauasian on her way to Perth, Australia en route from Thailand. Then flying back from NRT to LAX it only took 9 hours. I think it has to do something with the spell of the wind current.
Food was semi good on SIA. We had a choice of American and Japanese meal. I think on our way back to the states, I opted
for American food because seeing Japanese food made me nauseous. [Read more about my experience with Japanese
food below.]
Once we passed customs line (everyone in line were so quiet and well mannered!), we took a shuttle to
Hilton Narita to stay for the night.
The hotel was really classy (lack of a grandiose word to describe it :p) and when we got into the room I said to my mom, "how come the
lights don't work in this room?". It turns out that the ID card needed to be inserted into side of the censor by the door! Doh! I
felt stupid. We freshen up, unpacked a little bit and headed downstairs for dinner.
Let me tell you now, Japanese food in America is NOTHING like what they serve in Japan. Everything
is really delicately made from the soup, to the main dish, to the dessert. I think I had more of an adoration looking at it.
I don't quite know how to sum up and describe the food I ate. it honestly wasn't palatable to my taste buds. I don't eat
sashimi (yeah yeah! you don't need to be the 95809584th person to tell me i'm missing out on great food :P). On other days
of the week, we went to this
Japanese sushi buffet in Ginza and the only stuff I ate inari, the egg sushi, wakame
roll is my favorite!, andIi also tried the tuna (as well as I think) and the salmon roll. One of the guys I talked to said the way to tell
if it's good sashimi or not is by looking at it's shiny texture and if the piece of raw fish sticks to the ball of rice.
i think i was overly hyper the first morning of breakfast! I tried everything from the fried anchovie fish, to the yellow beans in a styrofoam cup with the special sauce that makes the beans gooey. The fruits were absolutely delectable. See, in America, the fruit is sweet but it lacks the true essence taste behind the fruit. The true sweetness is basically masked in American fruits, hence I psychologically think it's artificially manufactured by plumping up the genetic growth of the seedlings. However, I must commend Japanese fruits because even though it is small and doesn't look well nourished. You can absolutely taste the real sweetness (lack of a better word!). Let me see, I ate tangerines, cantaloupe, melon, and watermelon.
If you didn't know before, I love eating tofu! I loved it so much I had it practically for 5 days in a row for breakast. I love dipping the tofu in soy sauce and adding the shreddings (what is it made from Sachi?) and scallions to it. I also love eating American tofu as well dipped in a variety of salad dressings.
I bought some neat apple juice to drink. The thing about drinks in Japan is that they don't load them up with sugar like America. On average, American fruit drinks has about 25 grams of sugar whereas Japanese drinks I checked out only has about 10 grams of sugar. Wow right?! The milk in cardboard boxes tasted even more 'mmmm'.
oh and let me tell you about the Starbucks in Japan! I bet you'll get a kick out of this! The prices for a tall latte is about equivalent to the states but Americans get more wired for their money. Japan Starbucks serve a tall latte in the size of a dixie cup! yup! it's so cute too. The package of sugar isn't squared shaped but straw shaped. *hee* yes, I get easily amused! :)
The only real meal I enjoyed besides the breakfasts was dinner at this Japanese restaurant called 3 zero 1? in Shinjuku. It was down the street from city hall. ( I believe it is a franchise, but here's the # 03-3354-3591, in case you might want to check it out). Maybe the reason it tasted good because it was catered to Americans. :X I saw a lot of foreigners in there. Since I speak no inkling of Japanese, I had to point to the plastic figurements at the door to show the waiter what I wanted. I got this yummy and spicy eggplant noodle udon.
Did I also mention that I'm addicted to drinking Japanese green tea too?
On some dinner meal nights, it was a disaster! I don't eat snails! The shrimp was steamed. So I had to gourge it down my throat. All I liked was the enoki mushrooms, udon noodle soup. I was craving for some sushi but they don't serve it there! Argh!
Oh and one last blurb about Japanese food: I went to this food court inside a mall, I think it's called, "Ginkago"? They have these guys with skewer sticks in there hands picking and turning each octopus fried ball on this griddle/lattice type of heated iron plate. Omigod, it is sooo good! It's egg battered with octopus, carrots, mushrooms, and scallions? It's served in a tray of 9 balls for about 500 yen.
Hoteling:
GUARANTEES
You are guarenteed to be treated really courteously with a lot of head bows whether it be in shopping stores, market,
restaurant, etc etc. I think the only bad service I encountered was at the airport restaurant in NRT. This girl was being a
real biatch. It reminds me sometimes of customer service I recieve here in the states. :P It's true but people are probably gonna say i'm stereotyping! Go to Japan to check it out yourselves!
TOUR SITES: ITINERARY:
BLURB ABOUT THE NEW AKAO HOTEL:
It's by the coastal line. We did some karaoking and watched a taiko drum performance.
I enjoyed my stay at this hotel the most because there's an indoor and outdoor hotsprings!
The hotspring was facing outside by the coast. I soaked in the warm hot spring salt water. After bathing, all the females and males will gather in separate
public bathing rooms! So while we were completely buck naked, we shampooed ourselves with charcoal shampoo which was dark black
and thick. Then we rubbed our bodies with salt exfoliator. There were little benches for each individual to sit on with
a bendable mirror. So literally, we sat there looking at ourselves while we showered. After that, we can go
to the hot pool along the bathing area and dip ourselves in this shallow pool. I think it's a unique concept because
I don't think any American hotels have this set up. I got the impression that Japanese people like
bathing in public??! In the morning, we went over to the men's side (each day, the woman and men's side
alternate) to use the bathtubs facing the bay. This time, each bathtub had it's own tea bag in it.
There was lavender, euclyptus, rosemary, etc, etc. This was so damn refreshing! Afterwards, in the lounge area, the hotel provided Shisedo products like face lotion, water, balence toner to soothe our skin. Shisedo is equalvalent to
Vaseline/Oil of Olay in the states I think.
Some other sight seeing places:
Thoughts on Infrastructure:
I think the roads are about 3/4 the size of American roads. The most lanes for a freeway was only 3. A lot of lanes are stacked one above the other. Of course, the driver drives on the opposite side unlike America. Our bus driver was really clean about his bus. He cleaned and tidy the bus every single time we got off. He was equipped with umbrellas, rain boots, clothes to wipe his bus. Oh and I noticed he switched into sandels when he drives his bus. Hehe. Overall speed of the drivers were slow. I rarely saw any American made cars. Haha. The Corollas, Camrys, and etc. all have different names unlike how they name the cars over here.
Shopping!
I only had 4 hours to shop? That was not enough for me! There were so many underground shopping, alley ways, sneakers wrapped
in plastic wrap. Literally, you can just pick up any street and start shopping because pratically all the shops are the same!
NEAT GADGETS:
Conclusion:
I think I have a lot more to say but as you can see due the intensity of finding all this information after 2 months, it rattles my brain a bit. I have tons of picture I want to post up but I'm too lazy due to 1: dial up service sucks 2: i have to many photos and not much storage space to hold on geocities.com 3: cherie offered me to store it at her site but no thanks because what if she suddenly decides one day not to have a site? i just want to avoid the headache 4: it's damn tedious and i'm ignorant to learn new programs to make my life probably 482938498 times easier :) 5: if you know me in person, just come over and i'll be more happy to show you my pictures with a hard copy!
