Sayonara!

Well we got up this morning for the fish market! Hooray!! We actually did it. However, I think I would have rather stayed in bed. It's a definite tourist hot bed but the fish market in Seoul was a ton cooler. The only unique about this one is that they have HUGE tuna fishes everywhere which is Japan's favorite fish. It's definitely not so tourist friendly though and you can tell they're doing serious business of packing and shipping fresh fish and would rather tourists get out of the way. Anyways, we saw the big huge tuna fish, check! Then we did what everyone does, we had sushi for breakfast. The sushi we had there was good, the salmon was especially fresh tasting, but other than that, it wasn't soooooo spectacularly better than sushi you could get at a good place at home. Now we are all showered and packed up and ready to leave for the airport.

We have enjoyed Tokyo a lot and in general, loved Asia and our honeymoon. However, we are ready to go home. We're lucky that we love our everyday life together so much that our honeymoon being over isn't soo bad. We get to have a honeymoon kind of life every day together!! We are excited to sleep in our own bed, drive in cars and not be sweaty all day, and eat some non-Asian food for a while! Sayonara Tokyo! Arigato!

Rollercoasters, Climbing Mt. Fuji, & Roppongi

So this is going to be a long post but I'm going to try to make it quick because Will & I have gotten very little sleep in the past two days and it's catching up to us!

Anyways, yesterday we started the day by taking a bus ride about 2 hours away to the Fuji area where we went to an amusement park called Fuji-Q. It's pretty small and has only like 4 major rides but they were awesome! Seriously, the ride called "The Fourth Dimension" may be one of my favorite rollercoasters EVER. It has (maybe had, not sure) the record for the most inversions, 14 in total! It was awesome. Our favorite random thing about this place is they had a "chicken way" for people who decided they were too scared to ride the ride and wanted to exit the line. Luckily, this place wasn't too big because we needed to save some of our energy to climb Mt. Fuji.

So we left the amusement park and took another bus to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji is divided up into 10 stations and the highest you can get to by car or bus is the 5th so most climbers start at the 5th. The trail we took to the top is called the Yoshida trail. We made sure we brought lots of water and snacks and we both got a hiking stick. Most people bring hiking sticks or poles to help with the climb but the cool part about the stick is that you can get a stamp burned or etched onto your stick at the summit. At this time it was pretty warm so we started our hike in shorts and a t-shirt and took off on the trail at around 6:20pm.

Throughout the trail, it was really beautiful being above the clouds. The weather was cool but we were sweating from all the hiking and doing awesome on time. We were passing people up like crazy and were hiking at a record pace. We were feeling good!

Now there's really two ways to approach Mt. Fuji: 1) You start at about 10pm and hike through the night and get to the summit by 4:50pm to catch the sunrise OR 2) You start the hike early like 12pm-3pm in the day and stop and spend the night at one of the mountain huts on the 7th or 8th station and then wake up at about 1am to climb the rest of the way. Well we kinda had bad timing because of going to Fuji-Q. We didn't start our climb until after 6pm and while we were doing awesome on time, we didn't know when to stop. If we went straight to the top, we'd be up there freezing wake too early and we weren't sure if there was anything up at the top like a shelter to keep warm but at the same time, we weren't too tired from hiking that we wanted to keep going. Well our stomachs did the deciding for us because we decided to stop at a mountain hut on the 8th station at around 9:30pm because we were hungry for dinner. Now these mountain huts aren't fancy by any means. They are literally small huts with rooms with two huge, long bunk beds. On each bunk bed they have rows and rows of sleeping bags and pillows and that's where you sleep! It's not cheap either but what do you expect for accommodations on top of a mountain?? I seriously don't know how they get supplies up there! As for food, they have hugely overpriced drinks, snacks, and ramen noodles. You also have to pay to go to the bathroom since it must be a pain in the ass to take anything up the mountain and to keep things clean while taking care of conserving the mountain. Anyways, we ate $10 Cup Noodles and went to bed. The problem was that there would only be about 3-4 hours of sleeping time until we'd have to wake up to make the rest of the trek. We knew that it was probably a bad idea to get a tease of a good night's rest but oh well. I couldn't sleep a wink anyways and at 1am, we got up to make the rest of the journey! Also, please note the awesome head lamp on my head! I gave Will a hard time about buying these but they were the best thing ever! I don't think we could have down the hike without them and everyone wears them. The trail isn't lit at all and although we brought flashlights, the path is pretty steep and at times so rocky, you're practically crawling up the rocks on your hands and knees so having the light on our head was awesome!

Now once we woke up and starting to make the final ascension, Will & I weren't doing so hot. We were so sleepy from me not getting any sleep and Will getting about 2 hours. It was also FREEZING and we had all of our clothes on. I even had my scarf and snow hat on. I think we were also both really hungry too because we were both starting to feel nauseous and had to take frequent breaks. Everyone was trying to get to the top for the sunrise as well so at this point the trail was PACKED. When we initially went up, we were kind of in an in between time where no one was on the trail but now we were like ants going up. It was kind of scary because it's really steep near the top and if anyone misstepped or tripped on a rock, it would have been an avalanche of hikers.

But finally, we made it to the top!!! 3, 776 meters above sea level!! WAHOO!!

As for the sunrise, it was beautiful! It was really awesome and we made it right on time! However after taking a few pictures we were FREEZING and ready to find some food and shelter. There's a tiny little makeshift town up there with just a few food stands, a bathroom, and even a post office! We bought a postcard to send ourselves from the top and then we forgot to send it!! WOMP WOMP! As for our sickness, I think my nausea was from hunger because once I got to the top and ate a snack, I felt fine. Will, however, had an awful migraine and thinks he might of gotten altitude sickness. A lot of people get altitude sickness and even buy these silly $15 oxygen tanks (looks like spray cans) but we didn't do that. Instead, Will sucked it up till we got to the top and rested at one of the shelters where they sell food.

Then it was time to climb down. The climb down SUCKED! It is super steep and REALLY rocky lava. Sometimes it's tiny rocks like gravel and your feet sink in and other times it's big rocks like the size of a plum but either way it's hard to walk without tripping and sliding. It gets really painful on your knees and at the end I thought my toes were going to fall off from being pushed down into the toebox of my sneaker. The climb down took forever too because you had to go so slow because it was so rocky. At the very end, it started to rain and we saw hikers who were on their way up as we were exiting. We were grateful that we had good weather because I think I would've called a quits and stayed in the mountain hut if it was freezing AND raining!

All in all, after 6 hours of hiking up and 3 1/2 hours of hiking down, Will & I decided we were really glad we climbed Mt. Fuji but we would never want to do it again!

________________

Once we got to the bottom, we jumped on a 2 hour bus ride home and then we started today!
The first thing we wanted to do was shower since we were sweaty, rained on, and had lava dust all over our shoes and clothes. We then just wanted to relax today since we were exhausted so we decided to go to the movies and hang out in a neighborhood called Roppongi. Roppongi is apparently where most of the Western tourists go because that's the only place we've really seen any of them. The movies here are usually expensive but I lucked out because today was "ladies' night" and so my ticket was super cheap! We saw Salt and I like the Japanese theatres because they sell caramel corn popcorn, have huge screens, always do reserved seating, and the seats are lower and my feet touch the ground. : ) Then we had a yummy dinner, walked around Roppongi and went home! Tomorrow is our last chance to go to the Fish Market if we can wake up early enough (50/50 that we'll make it with our recent sleep deprivation!). Then it'll be time to head home!

Akihabara & Seeking Familiar Foods..

So today was a fun day although nothing super eventful. We will be in Fuji tomorrow and Wednesday and we leave Thursday so today was our last full day in Tokyo. We have seen everything we'd planned on seeing so today we revisited some of our favorite spots like Shibuya, Ueno, and Shinjuku. This morning we were supposed to go to Tsukiji Fish Market but you have to be there by 5-6am and despite our best efforts to set alarms, we overslept AGAIN! We are 0-2 for making it to the fish market. We are determined to go on Thursday morning before we leave though! We had not had sushi at this point because we wanted to get the best sushi at the fish market but the wait had been too much for me so we got sushi anyways. We went to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Shibuya which works great for us because we can just grab food and not have to worry about ordering in Japanese! The sushi was tasty and actually quite affordable! There's a 7 dish minimum per person and you only have 30 mins! They do a lot of time limits at restaurants here. We had no problem with the 7 dish minimum though and lunch cost less than $20!

Next we went to Akihabara. We saw flying cars and robots that would clean your house. Just kidding! We saw high tech but small washing machines and fridges and lots of other random technical parts and equipment that I have no use for.

Later while we were walking around Ueno we saw some "love hotels" which basically charge by the hour, or in this case, two hours. This is where young Tokyoites go since apartments are so small and everyone lives with their parents before they're married. It's is "Le Chic."

We also saw a capsule hotel which is where Japanese businessmen often go to sleep in a coffin size capsule. Japanese men often sleep there after they've stayed too late at work or lost track of time playing crane games or going to Soap Land.

Then we went back to Ginza because I wanted to go to the Ice Bar which is one of 4 Ice Bars around the world run by the Ice Hotel. The Ice Bar is a bar made entirely out of ice. The walls are made out of ice, the stools, tables, cups, and everything is made out of ice! I've really been wanting to go here because when else will I get the chance?!?! Anyways, we went all the way there and I decided not to go. It looked really tiny and not that cool inside and so it made the $40/person entrance fee not worth it. I still really want to go but I was annoyed with how expensive it was and decide it was stupid to pay $40 to sit on an ice cube and drink a shot sized soda. Also, even though the entrance fee included the warm coat rental, I was in my crocs and decided that maybe being in -5* temperatures was probably not a good idea the day I was supposed to go climb Mt. Fuji. There's a location in London so I made Will promise me that we will go to that location which looks cooler than the Japanese one anyways (they change the ice designs every 4 months and the different locations' design reflects the location's culture.. Japanese design = simple and understated). And I always have Wednesday night if I change my mind and decide to go back. Hmm... what do you think? Should we bite the bullet and pay $80 to each have a drink in an igloo?? Here's a picture of me outside the bar and a picture of melting ice cups.

Now it is dinner time and we are both starving! We combed through Shinjuku's bunches of restaurants and were getting frustrated. As much as we both like Asian food, we are kind of sick of looking for places with menus in English or with pictures and both just want a dinner we KNOW will be tasty. I'm all for trying stuff but sometimes you just want certainty that your meal is going to be tasty. It is also complicated b/c while Tokyoites eat a lot of Chicken, they'll eat weird parts like Chicken heart and tongue and when it's grilled and covered with sauce, the picture looks like chicken breast pieces on a skewer!! We are also really craving beef and I got excited about one yummy looking beef picture on a menu to later find out it was horse sashimi! I'm glad I didn't order that. Anyways, we finally got sick of looking for English friendly places so we settled in on a Japanese restaurant where the staff was willing to be play gestures with us to determine we weren't eating anything weird. We ended up having a very yummy dinner of french fries, chicken skewers (thigh meat as motioned by the cook), and grilled beef. We then finished up with crepes with ice cream for dessert!

Tomorrow night, we will not be posting. During the day, we will be going to Fuji-Q which is an amusement park in the Hakone area. We will be riding roller coasters with Mt. Fuji in the landscape! Then we will be making the long climb to the top of the mountain in time to watch the sunrise. It's going to be great!! That is... until we have to make the climb back down.... booooo!

Ghibili Museum & A Taste of Home (Sort of)

So today was a fun but sort of lazy Sunday. We started by going to the Ghibili museum. For those of you that don't know, Ghibli is the studio that made the movies Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and many others. The founder, Hayao Miyazaki, is the Japanese Walt Disney and makes beautiful, award winning animated films. Anyways, this museum is awesome!! You have to buy tickets in advance (we bought them in the States) because they limit the number of visitors each day. I am not typically into animated stuff at all (I'm not a big Disney fan) but this museum was stinking awesome!! Seriously, I can't believe I'm using this word but the place can not be described in any other way other than magical. We even got to see a never released short film that was made for the museum. You aren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum unfortunately but you'll just have to trust me that it's cool. It's designed like an old-school dollhouse with all of these different rooms with spiral staircases everywhere. It was really neat. The following two pictures were what we were able to take outside the entrance or on the rooftop deck.

Afterward, we headed to the neighborhood called Ikebukuro. It's another happening area with lots going on. We headed over to a building called Sunshine City which stands on the former site of Sugamo Prison. Anyways, we went there with the intention to kill some time before meeting up with Isaac and his wife again and decided to check out Namco Namjatown. I have no idea how to describe Namjatown. For those of you that don't know, Namco is a arcade-game company and they invented Will's beloved "Flamin' Finger" game. Anyways, this place is this weird mix of games (but not regular video games) plus a major scavenger hunt. Basically, the kids and adults (more so than kids surprisingly) get these weird technical devices and roam all over the place playing games and completing puzzles to open secret doors and passage ways and get clues to finish a scavenger hunt. The entire thing is in Japanese so we couldn't play. Not to worry though because there was still tons of excitement to be had for us!

Inside Namjatown is a a place called Ice Cream City that has an Ice Cup (ice cream) museum! This place was out of control. They sold ice cream in over 100 different flavors from the traditional to the odd to the plain disgusting. Some of the most memorable flavors were fish sauce, shrimp, squid ink, octopus, chicken wing, egg, eel, wasabi, tomato, etc. We didn't try any of the weird ones because we found a delicious ice cream shop instead that served MILK TEA flavored soft serve. It was absolutely delicious and it made me wish I got my own instead of sharing with Will.

In this picture I'm holding tomato and shrimp ice cream!

Before we left this weird place, Will & I decided to play a strange game. Basically the point of the game is to capture 6 live mini-lobsters with this weird device (shown below). There's no time limit and basically you have to pick them up by capturing them from the back of their tail and balancing their body on the picker upper until you get them in the bowl. This is tricky b/c they are difficult to balance due to their uneven body weight distribution and they try to swim away. The hard part is that one part of the tool is connected to the handle with a thin piece of paper so while there's no time limit, eventually the paper part will get so soggy that the tool breaks and becomes useless. Needless to say, the paper broke after only getting one lobster! It was pretty hilarious though and just totally random.

Afterwards we met up with Isaac and his wife, Melissa, again. They took us to the top of the Sunshine 60 building to the observation deck. It is 60 floors and is one of Japan's tallest buildings. It also has the world's second fastest elevator and whisked up to the top so fast! There's a speedometer and at it's peak it was going 600 meters per minute! You definitely could feel your ears pop! Anyways, it was a really beautiful indoor and outdoor observatory and you could get beautiful 360* views of Tokyo.

Afterward, we went to dinner with them to a Denny's! We wanted to check out the Denny's because the food is nothing like the Denny's we have at home. The only thing in common is that it is open all night and looks like a Denny's and they have french toast. Other than that, they have Japanese-American fusion and homestyle Japanese food. It was actually really tasty and a funny experience!

Tomorrow: We finally get sushi! Will it be worth the wait?!?

Harajuku & Shinjuku

So today was a busy day! We actually slept in for once and then started the day by hitting up Harajuku. Harajuku is definitely a unique fashion experience and is famous for its funkiness which is why Gwen Stefani even make a clothing line inspired by it!
Harajuku is where trends get made and are showcased. The cool thing about Tokyo is it is totally acceptable to be unique and different and no one bats an eye. Not at all like the US. In general, people in Tokyo are well dressed in name brands and girls are always rocking heels (much like Seoul). However, there's also a bunch of people who still wear Kimonos and the wooden flip flops everywhere, even in this humid heat. Then there's all the others who buy their wardrobes in Harajuku. You'll see people dressed just plain goofy like they raided a kid's playclothes chest, super goth kids in leather and platforms, urban streetwear (like William), girls in full Victoria dresses complete with petticoats and umbrellas, body piercings under the skin to make bump formations on people's face, dreads, etc. There's really no rhyme or reason, it's kind of anything goes and it's funny seeing all the fashions mixed up on the subway.

Here are some examples of the weird fashions. There were definitely stranger outfits but Will felt weird taking people's pictures without asking as they were walking down the street.

We stopped for a quick lunch while we were there and both had yummy tempura and udon.

Then it was major shopping time for Will! There are a TON of streetwear and sneaker stores in Harajuku and they are all really close together in the same neighborhood so that was really convenient! Some of the brands are Japanese brands that are only sold in Japan and so that was neat for Will to be able to get some stuff. Also, many of the brands that Will can find back home in the US sell specific items that are exclusive to Japan so Will was able to get some new clothes that also doubled as souvenirs! Here's just a few of the stores Will visited! He was a happy kid today. On a random note, Japanese people are really nice. Will saw some teenagers holding a bag from a store he wanted to go to but wasn't sure where it was located. When we asked them where it was, they didn't know enough English to explain how to get there so they told us to follow them. They walked us all the way to the store which was a good 20min walk! I thought that was the nicest thing!!

Another random thing we saw today was a place called Soap Land that our friend Isaac told us about. It is a "massage parlor" where boys get naked and then a naked girl gets on top covered in soap and massages you with her breasts. This is totally legal though because no sex is involved and it is just a massage. The Japanese are total perverts. I couldn't find Will for a little while when I was looking into some shops and then I turned around and saw him coming out of this place.

Just kidding! : )

Later, we random into this coke promotion thing going on where you had to put this sword into the ice can (in the picture behind Will, to the right) and see if this coke thing popped out. If it did, you won a prize. Of course, Will always has the best luck and won! He won a huge Coke can with Coca-Cola flip flops inside! I guess I shouldn't tell you about this in case someone gets it as a souvenir re-gift...

After dropping our purchases at the hotel, we were off to see a Jewels fighting event in Shinjuku. As many of you know, Will & I are really into MMA fighting. If you don't know what MMA is, then maybe you've heard of the UFC. The UFC is the MMA promotion in the United States. Lots of people get bad impressions of MMA fighting because of the UFC but MMA is actually really huge in other countries and way more awesome. Japan has really great MMA promotions and so Will definitely wanted to see a fight while we were in town. Unfortunately, the only thing going on while we were here in Tokyo was a Jewels Event. Jewels is unique because it is a female MMA promotion. So while female MMA fighting isn't of particular interest to us, we still wanted to watch a fight! Anyways, we got tickets (with the help of Isaac) and went tonight and it was awesome!! It was kinda weird because it was in a really small venue. It felt like we were in some underground Fight Club like in the movie. However, the fights were great and we had an awesome time!

On the way home, Will & I were starving and had a late dinner. It has been my favorite meal so far in Tokyo! They're called Oishii noodles and it was at a restaurant called Kamakura. They were so freaking yummy!!!!! They don't look like much but they are so tasty and apparently a lot of celebrities eat there even though it's very casual. They're noodles with roast pork in the most delicious broth. I've never tasted anything like it but I'm assuming it's a pork broth which I've never had before but is apparently a genius idea! My dad would LOVE them! Will & I just might have to make a return trip before we leave.

Ginza, Ueno, & Seeing an Old Friend

So yesterday we began more exploring of Tokyo. First we decided to head into Ginza which is basically the very posh, upscale area of Tokyo. They weren't kidding. This town is REALLY into name brand stuff and luxury and general. I have never seen so many Louis Vuitton stores in my life. There's more here than I remember seeing in Paris and I have already counted 6 locations I've passed just in Tokyo! It's a very fancy which is a good way to describe Tokyoites which I'll explain more about that later. But overall: Tokyo has cool stuff, like really cool stuff. They have awesome design and aesthetics and everything is really unique but also expensive. Example: I found the coolest tea towels. Random, I know but even little things like tea towels are awesome here and super unique and $40. Needless to say, I'm not getting any tea towels for our kitchen.

Anyways, the main reason we went to Ginza was because we were on the search for a restaurant called Sakata. Our Lonely Planet book said if you were going to eat out at one restaurant the entire time you were in Tokyo, this was the place to go. At this point, we have mastered Tokyo's insanely huge and complicated public transit system but now it was time to use our Atlas! Tokyo's streets are designed really odd like they are in Seoul and so it is literally impossible to find anything with an address. You really should just walk around and hope to run into things because no one knows where any streets are and they aren't labeled! The few Japanese people we found that spoke English were amazed when they saw our Atlas because even they are in the dark with city streets. Anyways, we looked around for this restaurant for over an hour and no one, not even locals using our Atlas could find the place. Finally we found the location but decided the restaurant must have shut down. Sakata: FAIL!

At this point we were starving so we found a random restaurant with picture menus (since really no one speaks English well) that ended up being pretty tasty! We both got yummy bento
boxes!

From there we went to the Taito area, specifically Ueno Park. Will found a few sneaker stores and so he was a happy boy. This area is weird because it looks like an outdoor market. Half of the merchandise is on racks that litter the alleys and so it looks like everything would be cheap but of course, since we're in Tokyo, they're not. It looks like a cheap market except the backpacks are name brand and $150 and shoes are in the $200 range. It's totally weird. We did find some good deals though and a fun little present for our friends back in VA. *let the suspense begin*

Afterward we walked over to Ueno Park. It's a really beautiful huge park in the middle of Tokyo similar to Central Park in NYC. It's huge and has museums inside, a zoo, a temple, and is just beautiful! On the left is a picture of a temple in the park and on the right is a picture of us in front of all the lily pads. It's actually pretty cool because in the park, there's a HUGE lake that is covered in lily pads and there's tons of beautiful water lilies with koi swimming around.

In the evening, we met an old friend of Will's for dinner. His name is Isaac and they were friends in elementary school. Isaac (who is Japanese) now lives in Tokyo with his wife and so he's been an awesome resource to us as we've planned our trip. Isaac is super detail oriented like Will and has given us amazing directions & suggestions and even booked tickets for us for a fight we wanted to watch! Anyways, we met him, his wife Melissa, and their Japanese friend Ai for dinner. Dinner was yummy although there were a couple weird things we tried like animal intestine (still not sure what animal) and some type of eel jelly. We had a great time with them which is why we were at the restaurant for 4 hours!!

Here are some random things we learned about Japan from our Japanese friends:

1. The Japanese rarely climb Mt. Fuji (which we are going to do), but Ai highly recommends the theme park at the base which are planning on hitting up.
2. There is little crime in Japan and murders are EXTREMELY rare although there are about 35,000 suicides every year. Yikes!
3. Tokyo is seriously expensive and no, they don't make a ton of money to compensate. They just deal with it.
4. Tokyoites are obsessed with labels and specifically quality. If you want to buy a cantaloupe, there's a huge range. There will be one that is $6 that you'd take home for yourself. Then there will be another cantaloupe that is over $100. It costs more because it is perfectly ripe, perfectly round, and without blemish. You'd never buy this for yourself but you'd take it to someone as a gift!!!! This explains the $65 Durian I saw!
5. Even though things are expensive, Tokyo is a totally cash based economy. Few places accept credit and because of this, few people are in debt. That's one plus side!