This entry was posted on 2001-04-08
Tohoku and Tokyo
Well, I'm back in Tokyo.
This morning in Sendai it was cloudy and cold. As soon as I tried ordering breakfast and got a blank stare, I was glad to be getting the hell out of Sendai.
Karen's Japan travel tip of the day: go to Tohoku, it's beautiful. But avoid Sendai like the plague. Seriously, just skip the place. Stay on the Shinkansen and head toward Iwate-ken and Akita-ken. Go to Kakunodate. Visit the mountains of northern Tohoku. But when your Shinkansen pulls into Sendai-eki, stay put!
Ok, now that I got that out of my system...
The sakura here in Tokyo are beginning to wither away and die. I hope that they're still in bloom in Kyoto next weekend, or at least in the mountains of Kyoto. I have a feeling that Kyoto will be totally beautiful with sakura framing the shrines, temples, and wooden houses. I have never seen Kyoto's sakura. But now I have officially seen Tokyo's (I've never had the honor of being in Japan during the beginning of April before). So I wasn't too disappointed when I saw the dying sakura this morning.
Soon after arriving in Tokyo and getting my act together (i.e. putting my luggage down), I headed to Harajuku to see what my ex-host mother affectionately calls "the freak show." Every weekend, a lot of teenagers from the Tokyo area put on the most outrageous customs and hang out near Harajuku-eki. I swear, it's like Sailor Moon meets goth. There are always people dressed in wedding gowns, Marilyn Manson-esque rags, sailor suits, and anything and everything in between. Most of the kids are quite friendly and allow you to take pictures with them. Last time I was in Harajuku, I was with my host mother. So I didn't dare ask to have my photo taken. But this time it was different. I was alone and no one would think anything of it if I asked a group of dressed up teenagers to pose with me.
After I saw enough outrageously dressed teenagers, I took a walk in the park from Harajuku to Yoyogi. The park is beautiful and contains Meiji shrine, Tokyo's most famous shrine. It is the most popular shrine to go to on New Year's Eve to ring in the new year (the Japanese go to shrines on New Years Eve). However I skipped the shrine because I have been there a number of times. I also knew that there'd be plenty of tourists at that shrine on a Sunday afternoon, and I wanted to avoid them (I have nothing against tourists, but sometimes when I am in Japan, I get annoyed with them speaking very loudly in English. I also don't want to be mistaken for a non-Japanese speaking tourist who is only in Japan for a few days and is only interested in seeing the major sites.). I am glad that I stayed in the park because I got to witness a group of Shinto priests performing some kind of ritual. Near Yoyogi, I exited the park and walked back toward Harajuku on Meiji-dori (one of the main streets in Tokyo). But it was such a nice day I decided to walk all the way to Shibuya.
I loafed around in Shibuya for a while before I decided that i needed another good soak. I had heard about an onsen near Asakusa and I wanted to give it a try. I caught a JR train to Asakusa (I could've taken the subway all the way, but with a JR pass it didn't pay) figuring that I could just ask where the onsen is when I got to Asakusa.
The officers at the policebox were very helpful. They actually phoned the onsen to make sure that it was still open. I was glad that they did because it turns out that it closes early on Sundays. So they pointed me in the direction of a quasi-onsen (I think that some of the water is natural spring water and some is just regular tap water. I'm not sure. I didn't understand 100% of what I was told). The "onsen" was ok, but nothing like the ones in Hokkaido and the one in Kakunodate that I've been to. But I tried something new...the electric bath.
Yes, you read that correctly. Some Japanese sento (public bathhouses) have a denkifuro (electric bath). I'm not sure how they set it up so that it doesn't electrocute everybody, but they know how. After about 30 seconds in the denkifuro, I got out. I didn't like the electric vibrations. I felt really weird.
In fact, I think that the denkifuro made me a bit ill. I started feeling faint, dehydrated, and really tired. So I left the sento to go find something non-alcoholic to drink. The best money that I spent today was on a 100 yen box of apple juice. I downed that juice as if I had been in the desert for the past week and I couldn't find an oasis.
I felt better but still not awake enough to do anything exciting. So now I'm back here watching Japanese tv (what else is new?), eating noodle soup, and getting ready to crash.
I hope that I have something more exciting to talk about tomorrow. And I apologize that this entry was so poorly written. I am really too tired to write anything cleaver.
You can make me happy and encourage me to write well (hehe, bribery) by giving me clix and signing my guestbook. And if you're a Diaryland member, you can make me really happy by signing up for a gold membership and telling them that I (Japantravels) referred you. Come on, let's make Karen happy!
Mata ashita!