angethereader

We flew out of Chicago on March 14 and arrived at Narita on March 15. Finding which bus to take to our hotel turned out to be pretty easy. We arrived at 3:15 and we were at our hotel before 5:30. Customs and immigration were a snap.
We stayed at the Renaissance Tokyo Ginza. It was a beautiful hotel (I wouldn't have stayed there, too expensive, but we had points.) We met up with our son, Evan - he had traveled up from Hiroshima and spent the past couple of days with friends in Tokyo. My husband crashed, but I slept quite a bit on the plane and Evan was hungry so we walked around for a bit. Even that area, which is not know for it's Neon puts New York to shame (no comments please, I love New York).
We got up early the next day and walked to the Tsukiji fish market. It was amazing!!! We stopped at a little place nearby and THEY had sushi for breakfast. Me, at 7AM, no way.
Then we took the subway to Asakusa to see the Sensoji Temple and the shops on the Nakamise Dori. We ended up folding paper cranes with a very nice man who had a booth in the shrine area. It was one of those great moments that you can't plan.
I was starving by then, so we walked down the street until Evan said - "Oh, these places are good." So we stopped and had the rice with beef (I don't remember what it's called).
A comment here - you can get around without any Japanese, but there were quite a few times where having someone who spoke it well came VERY handy, especially in restaurants.
Then we took the subway to Uneo and went to the Tokyo National Museum. I was kind of pooped by then, but I happily sat and waited for the guys to finish their tour.
For dinner I wanted to try a department store, so we went to Matsuzakaya and ended up eating excellent pasta.
The next day we took the subway to the Tokyo-Edo museum, which was really cool. I did feel weird though when we were reading about the fire bombing of Tokyo.
We scratched the rest of our touring plans since we spent almose 4 hours there and we had some housekeeping to take care of - plotting our train trips, as we were leaving for Kyoto the next day, and getting our JR passes activated.
From where we were the easiest station was Uneo, so we went there. It went much more smoothly than I had expected. We stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe in the station because it was St. Patrick's day and Gerard had to have his pint of Guiness.
We ended up eating at a different restaurant at the Matsuzakaya department store. Then we took the subway to Shibuya- had to see that place at night. It was incredible!! We also stopped at an arcade there and did some picture club pictures. That was fun, and I have a set of those in my purse.

angethereader

One other note - as an American woman I am very average. A little short (5'3&quot and average weight (not telling). I have long curly medium brown hair. In Japan I felt like my hair was a flag, and I did not expect that - I'm not blond after all.
I am NOT used to getting stared at. It happened to me whenever I was not with the guys, and it was very blatant. After a few days I didn't even notice it. It did not happen to my husband or son, so I'm thinking Gaigin men are much more common in Japan?

emd

Oh, BRAVO! A trip report just in the nick of time before I leave on Friday! Thank you so much for taking time to do this.

You made great time getting through customs and getting to the hotel.

I think there is actually quite a bit of neon in Ginza, right? I didn't go there, but when I went to the top observation deck at Tokyo TOwer at night, all I could see in Ginza was a lot of really colorful neon.

Were you able to see much of the action at Tsukiji? I thought they had closed off at least the tuna auction part to the general public.

I know what you mean about those special moments. For me, it is much better to leave yourself open to having those moments rather than rushing place to place to see it all.

And I also had some feelings about the exhibit of the firebombing at the Edo museum. When I went to Hiroshima, I met a Japanese man in the cafe at the Peace Park museum there who I discussed those feelings with; he said to me, "we (meaning the U.S. and japan) both did some terrible things."

Sounds like a good time in Tokyo. can't wait to hear about Kyoto. It is so great that you got to meet up and travel w/your son. Maybe some day I will be doing the same thing. I took my son last spring, and he now is getting his second year of Japanese langauge in school under his belt. After high school he will have 5 years, and eventually wants to do something school or work-related in Japan.

emd

That's funny about the staring. My son was 6'3" at age 14 when we went last year and we were expecting him to get stared at, and I thought I might attract some attn. due to being somewhat blonde (after I've bene to the hairdressers for highlights anyway). But we didn't get stared at at all. Maybe we did and we just didn't notice it, we were pretty busy.

angethereader

The staring only happened when I was alone. Evan's girlfriend (she's Australian) said it happens to her too.
Evan did a year in Japan with a host family during high school. The scholarship he got that paid for it was through an organization called YFU (Youth for Understanding). His college scholarship is sponsored by the Japanese government, but was applied for at his college.
I think there was a lot of neon. It was fun to walk out of the hotel into the neon lit streets.
Re the fish market - You cannot see the auctions any more, but just walking around is incredible. We saw huge frozen tuna being sliced into steaks by power saws, live cuttlefish, you name it, we saw it. It was one of the most unique places I've ever seen and all of us think it was one of the best.

emd

I would like to go, but my daughter is a vegetarian for ethical/animal reasons so this would not be a good thing for her. So we will stick to the Buddhist vegetarian cuisine and tofu dishes on this trip - and Tokyo and Kyoto have some great organic veggie restaurants we will try out.

So when you get a chance, would love to hear about Kyoto and the rest! Thanks so much for this. People refer to these trip reports long long after they are posted for help in planning their trips.

angethereader

You're very welcome.
I'll try to get Kyoto up tomorrow. I have actually been writing a journal so I don't forget what we did. It's easy to take notes from that to post here.

KimJapan

Funny about the staring....we love to go to big cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya because we don't get stared at there (in our feeling). There are many foreigners in Japan, but most are in the big cities. In Kanazawa, there are many nowadays, but 11 years ago when we first arrived, there were very few. I remember riding my bicycle down the sidewalk, and a woman running across the street saw me and never looked away...when she reached the curb she didn't see it (b/c she was so busy loooking at me) and she tripped over it and ended up flat on her face.

angethereader

It wasn't threatening or anything - even the middle aged men - just weird. I had an old lady follow me to the bathroom in Tokyo Station - we're talking a 5 minute walk, and stand right next to me (I'm talking close enough that we were touching, and there was nobody else in line) staring up at my face. I didn't think it was THAT odd until the stall opened I and started to go in, and the woman turned and walked out of the bathroom!