Tokyo and goodbyes

Hello everyone! I hope the weather's been lovely, wherever you may be. Snow came very recently in Japan, which is pretty fun, but I'm sure that the novelty will wear off pretty soon. Luckily it's just a dinky little ground layer that'll melt as soon as the sun hits it right.

As promised, today I'll talk about my trip to Tokyo, which was amazing! Except for the bus rides. Those were pretty....not amazing.

The day before we arrived in Tokyo, the other Australians and I all met in Wakayama city, at the bus station. It was close to around 8:50 at night, so we were all still pretty energetic. Then we took an 8 hour bus ride, and after that everyone was significantly less energetic. I'm pretty sure that Jaida didn't sleep at all, so by the time 6:50 in the morning rolled around, she was wrecked. It's not that the seats were uncomfortable; they were just not at all conducive to sleep. I personally got around four hours.

The nerds have arrived.

Our guide took us to go buy some coffee, though, and that seemed to tide us over for the rest of the day. 

First stop was the tallest building in Tokyo, SkyTree! Actually four years before, SkyTree wasn't the tallest; that title was original claimed by Tokyo Tower. I think SkyTree was finished around three years ago, and is around 600 meters tall. Usually lines are pretty long, but our guide, Tom, got us reservations beforehand, so we were able to bypass that. 

 

Just a side note--Ronen, the boy in the middle, brought his skateboard because he wanted to skate in Tokyo. He did a few tricks near SkyTree and got yelled at. Heh.

The view was really nice, though we didn't go to the top. That would've required more money and a wait in a really long line. I think that the viewing deck was alright, though. It was certainly tall enough for me. 

Fujisan~

A view straight down--yikes!

After SkyTree, we were joined by Tom's family, his nephew, and his nephew's friend, who was an exchange student from Vietnam. Our party grew to be the size of ten, which started to get really difficult to keep track of, especially in the middle of Tokyo, when the crowds are enormous. There were times when the only thing that kept me from getting lost was the sight of Jaida's bright orange hair. You have to go there to really understand how tightly packed everything is in Tokyo. Anyway, the next thing we did was take a boat to Shibuya! And let me tell you, just the boat itself was worth the trip, because that thing looked so cool. 

I'm not sure why it was designed this way, but whatever. It was neat.

From left to right: Fuum (I'm not sure if that's how her name is spelled, but that's what it sounded like, so apologies), Jaida, and me. 

The Rainbow bridge. Which does in fact turn into a "Rainbow" Bridge at night. I didn't get to see it though. 

Too fabulous.

At Shibuya, we did some shopping, and also got to see the giant robot that was built there! Apparently there's some famous anime called Gundam, which is where the robot comes from. I'll probably see it at some point. Is it just me, or do a lot of anime utilize giant robots?

After we saw the giant robot, Ronen and Dimitri were dying to go to the anime store in Harajuku, so we caught a train over. Harajuku's enormous, and Tom told us that it's considered to have some of the best shopping in Tokyo. I can believe it. 

Ronen and Luffy, at the anime store. Best friends for life.

Looking back on this trip, we fit so much into one day. I have the strong desire to stop using literary terminology like, "Then,", "Next", and "After". 

Anyway, next we headed over to Shinjuku, where the shopping was still...okay, but less classy and more very strange. Tom let us loose on a famous shopping street, and I wandered for an hour, and some of the stuff I saw was really farfetched. I ended up buying a tuna salad sandwich crepe, because it looked awesome. When everyone else saw my street crepe, they all wanted street crepes too, and filled them with things like chocolate and cheesecake and stuff. (I did end up buying a second crepe, filled with chocolate cake).

Then Ronen decided that he really wanted to go skating in Tokyo, so we all found a skate park and hung out there for a while. At that point it was getting pretty late, so Tom's family decided to go back home. Here's a picture of us, Tom, his two boys, Yuuka, and Fuum. 

Eugh, bad lighting. 

Also at this point, our lack of sleep caught up with us, so we decided to head back to the bus station. It was about that time, anyway. We thanked Tom and said our goodbyes, and then left Tokyo. 

On another eight hour bus ride (which Jaida again slept through none of), but that's neither here nor there.

My opinion of Tokyo: it is enormous. It's so huge, I don't think there is any possible way to visit everything in one day. This being said: thanks to our excellent guide, we saw quite a bit, and the parts we did see were amazing. It's a bustling, beautiful city, and way cleaner than I expected; I highly recommend that anyone who wants to should visit. 

Just...do yourselves a favor and don't take the bus. 

This post is also titled 'goodbyes' because, a week ago, the Australians finally left for home. I was very sad of course (don't tell them), and will miss them dearly. I was lucky to have such awesome friends for the first four months of my stay! 

Jaida, Ronen and Dimitri, if any of you are reading this: I'm glad you all made it back safely. Come visit America when you have the time. 

(I was going to talk about my Hiroshima trip too, but that would've taken too long I think. I'll post about Hiroshima in the next week or so.)