Week 23 (July 31st to Aug 6th)
Sunday July 31st, We allowed ourselves the luxury of sleeping in a little today (by that I mean, sleeping until 9:30am!). By 11am, we were at the Imperial Palace grounds. I was a little disappointed with the Palace, because you don't get to actually see any of the palace at all; they just let you roam around the gardens. While the gardens were beautiful, I was actually expecting to see some buildings. After the palace grounds, we headed back up to Ueno Park to go to the National Museum. Ueno Park is huge, and there's a lot to do in it, like museums and boat ponds and zoos and shrines. I've been incredibly impressed at the amount of green space within Tokyo. For a city that's so crowded, they really seem to value the environment and the appreciation of nature seems high on the Japanese priority list. Unfortunately we didn't have the time or energy to really explore it, especially after the museum. The museum was huge and great-- lots of Japanese arts and crafts, as well as archeological findings from the ancient times to now. On our way back to the hostel, we stopped for some frivolous shopping. I bought a shirt, bag and hat-- all great finds that I probably could have found for cheaper in Korea, but oh well. It was kind of like shopping in Toronto. Steph bought a great one of a kind bag. For the evening, we went over to Harajuko. This is a neighbourhood mostly filled with younger people, all dressed in wonderfully quirky fashions. There are a lot of really cool clothing stores that sell very original and fun clothes, and a lot of fun bars. Unfortunately, we got over there a little too late, and most of the clothing stores were closed, but that's probably a blessing in disguise (at least as far as my bank account is concerned). Harajuko kind of reminds me of the Annex area in Toronto. In any case, we finally settled into a bar with cheap drinks and no cover, so I was happy for the night. We didn't make it to my new jazz musician friends' gig, but at least we got to check out another cool neighborhood in Tokyo.
Monday August 1st, Today we got up ridiculously early at 5am. Why? To go to the Tsukiji Fish Market. This market is famous all over the world for being huge and insanely busy. Every morning, there are tuna auctions from 5-8am. The tunas we saw were massive, and there were so many of them lying out on the ground surrounded by the fog of melting ice. Then there were millions of stalls where you could buy any kind of fish or seafood. There were people everywhere, and men with little carts would zoom by every few seconds. It was kind of like playing dodgeball. If you don't jump out of the way, they're certainly not going to stop! One of our tour books put it this way: anyone with galoshes has the right of way. And that statement was so true! I was kind of grossed out at times, because there was fish gut water all over the ground, and fish heads in buckets everywhere and what not, but it was still quite the experience. Again, the market was totally different than any other part of Tokyo. Tokyo is like a million different cities all jammed together. Every part of it is so distinct and unique, there's no way it could be mistaken for somewhere else. The best part of the fish market: getting sushi for breakfast afterwards. There are tons of sushi restaurants in that area, and all of them have the freshest fish imaginable. I don't think that I can ever eat sushi in Toronto again after tasting how incredible and fresh this sushi was! It was one of the best meals of my life. Of course, by this time, it was barely 9am, so we headed over to the Hama Gardens (right beside the fish market) to have tea at the famous teahous on the grounds). The teahouse is suspended in the middle of a pond, with little boardwalks leading to it. The cool thing about the gardens is that you see all this beautifully sculpted garden grounds with city scenery in the background. At the teahouse, we had matcha, which is a form of powdered green tea. It was the best green tea I've ever tasted. It was still really early, but we were exhausted from being up so early (I already had consumed 2 coffees and a cup of green tea). So we caught the first river boat for the day, all the way back up to Asakusa to go to our hostel. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't get three nights in a row at the same hostel, so we had to take our luggage and head down to Jinbocho, where our final hostel for the trip was located. So once again, I found myself lugging my stupid suitcase all over Tokyo, up and down escalators and stairs. I'm sure that I've developed muscles I never knew I had over the course of this trip! So back to a dorm again. We checked in and crashed hard. I napped for at least 2 hours. Then up and at it again. We didn't really plan anything for the afternoon, we just wanted to get some souvenirs for friends and family, and maybe shop a little for ourselves. So we headed to Ginza, which is a really famous area in Tokyo, known for having very top of the line expensive department stores. In Asia, department store means it's really expensive and high-quality, not like Sears or Wal-mart back home. The only thing that compares in Toronto is the Holt Renfrew Center. Now times Holt Renfrew by 100, and you basically have Ginza. Steph and I didn't find anything we were looking for, and certainly couldn't afford anything else, so it was kind of a bust as far as I'm concerned. All it did was wear me out even more. So far, the Ginza is the most Western-looking neighborhood. There were moments when I thought that I was at Bay and Bloor. I'm surprised at how many Western stores there are in Japan; it seems like way more than Japanese brands. In any case, we finally left the Ginza district with no bags in hand, only the reminder that we're way too poor to shop in this neighborhood! We had to crash again for awhile at the hostel, and then we decided to have our big night out for our last night in Japan. We headed to the Roppongi district, which is famous for being the biggest party district in Tokyo. There are also a lot of foreigners in that district, although we certainly didn't see many of them. There are big buildings that are just filled to the brim with bars, bars and more bars. I don't know how anyone ever chooses where to go! We walked around for awhile and finally settled on Gas Panic, because there was no cover charge, and the drinks were cheap. It turned out to be a pretty fun spot with good music being played over the sound system. We were only sitting down for about five minutes when a Japanese business man approached me and started talking with us. It was fun to try to talk to someone who doesn't speak much English, plus I wasn't minding the free drinks that a little small talk was getting for Steph and I! Plus, Japanese are a lot like Korean men, in that they're pretty harmless when it comes to picking up girls. The only bad part-- my Japanese friend and his friends kind of monopolized us for the entire night and we didn't get to meet anyone else. The subways in Tokyo close at midnight, and after our 20 dollar cab ride on our first day, Steph and I realized that we had to get on the subway fast, or we would end up spending a fortune on a cab. So we booted it out of there, and had a nightcap in the hostel's cafe. Once again, we found that ALL of our dormmates were already in bed (I'm so surprised that none of them weren't interested in going out or meeting people), so we tried to repack our bags for the morning as we gigggled quietly. By this point it was already about 2am, and since we had to leave for the airport by 6am, we had a quick crash for a couple of hours.
Tuesday August 2nd, Three hours later, we were dragging our bags out of our tiny dorm room, trying not to make too much noise (our dormmates must have hated us!). My suitcase was somewhat fuller than it was at the beginning of the trip, so dragging it all over Tokyo at the crack of dawn on three hours of sleep was really really fun. When we got to the train station, it turned out that there was only standing room left on the train to the airport, and since Steph's flight was leaving in three hours, we didn't have much choice but to take it. We ended up falling asleep on the (clean) floor in between the cars. At the airport we parted ways, Steph on her way to Hong Kong to visit her family and continue her tour of East Asia, and me, on my way back to Daegu. My flight was almost diverted to Fukuoka because the weather was so bad in Busan, but we managed to land, despite the buckets of rain that were pouring from the sky. It's funny being back in Korea, because it seems so stinky and loud and disorganized now, compared to Japan. I guess I understand now why Korea is still considered a second-world country. While there were times in Japan that I missed the craziness of Korea; now that I'm back, I'm having Japan withdrawal. I'm fascinated with Japan's ability to balance old tradition and new modernity. They really seem to have it all figured out. And I find that Japanese people are so respectful of everything and everyone-- despite the crazy busy-ness of Japan, they're still quiet and considerate and helpful, and they still know how to appreciate the beauty of simplicity, which is a pretty extraordinary trait. I guess I'm happy to be "home" in Daegu, but once you catch the backpacking bug, it's hard to stop. I can't wait to travel and see more countries and learn more about other parts of the world. I guess that's a large part of the reason that I ended up coming to Korea in the first place.
Wednesday August 3rd, Back to work today, and I'm not the least bit thrilled about it. I'm going through such Japan withdrawal! Imiss not having people stare me down all the time on the streets. I miss clean streets that don't smell like sewage. I miss sushi. I miss being a full-on tourist. I understand now why Korea is still considered a second-world country. The infrastructure just isn't in place yet. But Korea is developing very quickly, so I wonder what it will look like 20 years from now. It's been pointed out that Korea as an independent country is actually very young, since it has really only been free from Japan since the end of World War 2, which explains why some things seem so backwards here.
Saturday August 6th, All of a sudden, just as I was getting ready to head downtown today, it started pouring like I've never seen before. We were getting the weather from a typhoon that was sweeping through SouthEast Asia. There was so much rain that some streets were actually flooded, and I saw shop owners literally shoveling water out of their stores. I was in a cab as all of this was happening, and I was terrified because you could hardly see through the window with all the rain, and my driver was still speeding and answering his phone and driving through flooded streets! Only here. . .Amazingly the rain had cleared up by the time I had finished having dinner with Jamie, and most of the flood had already dried up, so we spent the better part of the afternoon exploring downtown and trying to figure out how to get around. We came across a store filled with (real) Miss Sixty clothes for really cheap prices! Miss Sixty is a clothing line that is really popular with twenty-somethings, but it's also pretty expensive, so I was thrilled to get a Miss Sixty shirt for ten dollars. Again, only in Korea . . .Drums is No" got another gig at Commune for next Saturday night. I was kind of frustrated at the last-minuteness of the gig, because Jamie and I had been planning on going to Seoul for the weekend since we have Monday off. So sucks for me, our trip has to be postponed for another weekend.
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1