Fumbling around Japan for around 10 days

[The_bup]

So, in a little under a week (Sunday) I shall be whisked off with my family to Japan. I’ve tried to get information, and realised a lot of my thoughts where misconceptions brewed up by people who watched a bunch of anime and think they know how stuff works there. Im not giving any names… but… friends of friends. So, I’m leaving it so it’s a big surprise to me! Our grand tour will kick off with a…. 12 hour flight. I can already feel the air stagnating in my knees.

But not for long!

As then we touch down on Japanese soil, Tokyo, to be exact. We shall be staying there for Five days (and five nights, I think, but best case scenario robot bears aren’t involved). I’m not entirely sure, but I assume we will be faffing about in the more touristy side of the city, and if it’s anything like most tourist areas, I’ll be sure to tell you about any strange stuff I see. The ones in Spain are just downright weird.

Then, we proceed to a sacred land known as Fuji Q… we’re going all right. I’m quite exited for the twisty-gisty-spins-around-y one i totally forgot the name of, and I’m kind of relieved that Dododonpa is not there, because to be frank, my feeble heart can’t take it. After a day of getting strapped to a multi-million paint mixer, we will be spending two nights at a traditional hotel. Apparently, my plan says ‘at lake’. I’m not sure if that’s a place, or if the hotel is next to a large body of flowing water, but ITS A SURPRISE!!!

After all that extended dilly-dallying, we will go on a BULLET TRAIN. I have no idea why they decided to give the BULLET TRAIN as cool of a name as the BULLET TRAIN, but I’m guessing the BULLET in BULLET TRAIN is derived from the fact; it’s fast. It’s no Dododonpa, but it should be fun. After a whiz on the aptly named BULLET TRAIN, we will be spat out at Kyoto.


At Kyoto, we will be looking at temples. I’m quite exited for this, as I’ve heard they’re well looked after (and by that I mean proper upkeep, not primary coloured paint like one certain company does) and are very pretty buildings. And there’s no monkeys to poke away with bamboo sticks, like in some other places I’ve heard about. After this we look around Osaka, not really sure what happens there, I’ll be honest, but it has a cool name, so I’m looking forward to it.


Now… the best for last… we are going to Universal in Japan. I’m really looking forward to this, as they seem to have some great rides, and, I get to take my other half of the family on the living nightmare that is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Also, SUPER NINTENDO WORLD. I’m not a complete Nintendo suck up like some other people I know (the newer Super Mario Bros. Movie sucks, Simon, and for goodness sake, they shouldn’t be charging £60 for a port of a Wii game Oli!) but the land looks really well put together. I’ll buy a power up band, a Luigi one probably, because let’s get real I’m him and there probably isn’t a Wario one. Better still, a Waluigi one probably doesn’t exist either. The Mariokart ride looks sensational, and if I’m not incorrect, you get X-RAY FREAKIN’ GOGGLES, which I’m even more exited about than tech companies when they conjure the crappiest AI assistant known to man and put it on every single device they make. Yes, I know that the glasses are glasses, not goggles. I know they’re AR, and that if they were X-ray ,many a poor visitor would develop cancer, but I’m going to call them X-RAY FREAKIN’ GOGGLES, and if you question it later I will know you weren’t listening.

Then we fly home again.

So, big trip! Before I let you rest your retinas (probably in a casket because this damn thing is so long), I’m going to make a short list of things I’m head over heels for, and things I may be a bit hesitant on.

THINGS I AM QUITE EXITED FOR:

• Culture Shock! I love seeing how different people go about things, and I know I won’t get the full picture, hanging around the tourist areas and all. But we will feel it
• The parks! I’ve heard they’re both good, already talked about them, so I’ll quit wasting your time
• Godzilla

THINGS IM REALLY QUITE NERVOUS ABOUT

• People. We know the worst type of people are other people, and there are a lot of people in cities. Particularly in Japan. They scare me. I’d rather bask in the darkness of my mouldy room, but, I also want to see stuff. I’m going to have to suck it up.
• Heat. Oh my god. It’s going to be like Pompeii in this place, apparently it gets to 40 eye-watering degrees Celsius, so I am actually going to die. Nice knowing you all. Most of you all.
• Godzilla

So, with that post that is even chunkier than I am written, I’ll be off! I’m doing all this because I never take any photos on holiday, and with your eyes and possible disappointment bearing a huge weight on my shoulders, I shall do it in they end. Even if you don’t really care. I’ll probably do a de-briefing every evening (in Japanese time, of course) so you’ll be seeing that around midday for you. You can eat your lunch while i ramble! Ask anything, I’ll try to answer, but I don’t expect myself to, and I’m so sorry. With all that yip-yap done, you can all go to bed now.

I’ll see you all a little later…

 

[Tom]

Have a great time, it will no doubt be an amazing experience. Absorb as much culture - and food - as you can.

 

[The_bup]

Absorb as much culture - and food - as you can.

oh I am excellent at one of those things

 

[Shaggy_Dog_]

This sounds like it has all the makings of an all-time great epic trip report! Enjoy your spin on Eejanaika, that’s a bucket list coaster for sure.

 

[BarryZola]

I'm pretty sure the Japanese people are renowned for being courteous and non-confrontational so I think you'll be alright on that front. Yeah, they have the Yakuza but I doubt you'd ever find any trouble with them unless you went looking for it. Probably one of the safest places in the world to go I would imagine. Enjoy

 

[BSwiss]

My wife and I went to Tokyo and Kyoto a few years ago, and neither felt particularly crowded. We always found seats on subway trains and in bars/restaurants (especially the dinner and a show my wife accidentally booked a table of 12 for).

And if you want to escape the busier parts of Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi - I liked Ueno. It has a lovely park and some mad shops.

 

[Llama]

I spent two weeks in Japan and it was the best holiday I ever took. The BULLET TRAIN is an incredible experience by itself, get yourself a bento box (and a couple of beers if you're into that sort of thing) and enjoy your trip on the greatest transit system on the planet. And the people are, as mentioned, extremely nice and helpful. I didn't have a single negative experience with anybody there, even though I didn't speak any Japanese at the time.

 

[The_bup]

I have landed! I tried to sleep on the plane in Tokyo time a little, but it was very uncomfortable. After a swift train and monorail(?) ride, we found the flat we’re staying at. It’s a little flat, and what surprised me is that it’s really traditional. For a flat in some street somewhere, it’s got some paper walls, some wood plank walls, beds in the floor and bamboo rugs.

That being said, it’s 9:44 over here, and I still have a whole day ahead

 

[Bowser]

Have a great trip! I’ve been to Japan a lot but sounds like it’s a bit late to offer any tips. At least there is AC in most places for the sweltering humidity.

Let us know how Universal is! I’m there in a few weeks too. I heard it’s quite quiet this month as it’s too hot for most people to visit.

If you can get them to open Donkey Kong for me that would be great

 

[Matt.GC]

So jealous. Japan is number 1 on my bucket list.

 

[Zeock]

Eejanaika is a brilliant ride. I hope that you manage to do everything that you want to experience. It might be better to go to the theme parks on weekdays, because they are much quieter then, so you can get on more rides.

 

[The_bup]

So! A bit late, but my day was packed. After sleeping on the plane (kind of), we found our flat we’re staying in and then we went out to see some stuff. The first place we went to was basically your Piccadilly Circus - Times Square Deal. Except the video billboards shout at you. And that.
We walked out a bit farther and went to a park, where there where these bugs that made the loudest noise. It was a constant MMMMMMMMMMMMM it was really odd.

Now, this is the bit where I start to die. It is hot. Very hot. The sun beats down on you, and the wind is not cool, but like being blown in the face with a hairdryer on a high setting. And then, I see a person wearing arm warmers and a jacket just trot along, like nobody’s business. I would’ve died if it wasn’t for the adverts with cute anime boys giving me the raw strength to continue aircon at a McDonald’s (this is what dehydration does to a man) and eventually found a seat by strategically by sitting at a long table, and using the locals, seemingly endless pit, of kindness to our advantage.

We decided enough was enough and went home on the train (public transport wooooo!) and took a nap to help with the jet lag a touch.

Next place we went to was, more or less, the same place. However, replace anything with animie.

I can’t say I’m big on the whole front, I’ve heard some are good and should probably watch them (I basically pseudo-watched an entire one on the plane because the person in front of me was watching one). Some of the advertisements I was surprised were even up there! Even with the strategically placed text boxes it seemed a bit close to the sun… We saw some action figures, which I’ll admit, we’re pretty cool. They had one with this dude with chainsaws coming out of his head and arms.

Moving a bit further down, things got even weirder (and risky?) when there were all those women they get to stand outside subpar clubs and stuff. But anime looking.

So, after firmly squandering my chances of showning my family Howl’s Moving Castle, we decided to find a place to eat, and to meet up with some people we (my mother) knows who lives there.

We had good food, and good conversation. We even bought a bunch of interesting drinks (one they said is called “cow piss” which tasted like an orange flavoured actimel or yop, just watery) and talked to them for a bit at our flat. They were really sweet people! I’m looking forward to seeing them a bit later.

Anywho, that’s enough neon lights and anime women for today, I’m going to sleep

 

[BarryZola]

Loving the sun umbrellas. I think we need to bring that back into fashion over here.

 

[The_bup]

Our second day started with a firm doing of…. Absolutely nothing. We stayed in until about 1 in the afternoon. We were intending to go see this palace, and then we realised on the train you can’t actually go in and look around. We decided to instead head to the Tokyo Dome, which was right next to the train station we popped out of.

The Tokyo Dome, for those not in the know like I was, is a bit like a compacted Brighton. It had a lot of shops and restaurants, and some rides. But these weren’t any travelling rides, they had a pirate ship, a massive wheel, a scare maze, some 4D stuff and the big one; the hyper coaster called Thunder Dolphin.

We decided we should go on the interestingly named Intamin cable lift, and for four of us (two shy of the whole group) it came around £40. Sounds steep. We hopped in the horrendously slow moving cattlepen, and quickly realised that it was going to take too long, as we had a table booked at a restaurant. We got out and booked fasttrack for it later in the evening, which ran us another 40 quid. Ouch.

We then took a train up to the outskirts of the city to see the temple anyway. After a gruelling walk out in direct sunlight, we managed to make it to the palace without turning into a death screen from the original Fallout game. It was nice looking. Took a photo of us and went back, so it wasn’t entirely worth it, but oh well.



The restaurant that we went to was very unique. The most apparent fact was that there was a hole in the table. For some things, there is no rational explanation. But this one has an explanation. It’s a little grill of sorts. You don’t pay by what you order, you just get given an amount of time and a bunch of meat to cook on the grill. Sides like rice where also included, but luckily they came pre-cooked in a bowl, so we didn’t have to watch every grain fall through the grate as we would try to cook it. It was really good. For what was just beef, there was a great variety. Some crunched. Some chewed. All of them where really, and I mean really good.

After eating, we went back to the dome to go in this thing we spent a small bloody fortune on. After they checked our fasttrack, we were then putting our stuff away in a similar locker - metal detector combo that isn’t too foreign to anyone who’s been to Universal. On the station we made a profound discovery. One train ops.
That would explain why a maybe 20-30 minute long queue for a ride like Nemesis was 90 minutes here. On top of that, loading took an eternity. They checked your seatbelt (which went across your lap and didn’t attach to the lap bar) and they did t even trust you to pull your own restraint down. However, they do get everyone clapping in sync when a train leaves, which was pretty charming, as well as a round of applause when it came back.



The ride itself had a great vista of Tokyo at the top, however the rest of the ride was surprisingly forceless. More cruising at 80mph than anything terribly exiting. They even had a really small hill after a huge drop, which was disappointing, as again, somehow, no airtime! The first drop was pretty good though.

We had a look round the rest of the Tokyo Dome, and decided to call it a day and get the train to the flat. Good day.

I’m starting to get the sense Japan is very kind of right-wing ‘we like it how it already is’ place. I’ve heard some of media they consume can be progressive, so id hope that helps a bit. It’s very interesting, I’ve seen people on the internet, who otherwise would be very left wing and progressive, say that they wouldn’t mind living there. Stranger still they’d just ‘keep it to themselves’ or whatever. As if to ‘keep the peace’. Reminds me of Devon. Interesting.

Anywho, enough soft power politics for you, I do want to confirm that I am having a great time. I know I sound quite critical, I am a towerstreet user after all, but I do like it here overall. It’s very clean. I can buy a mister whippy from a convenience store, in plastic though. They.. really like plastic.

I’m tired now and I need to solidify a sleep schedule. I’ll see you all tomorrow! Have a good afternoon.

 

[Matt.GC]

I want to visit the Tomato convenience store in Dobuita (only @DistortAMG will likely get that reference).


I'd probably need a good 2 months out there to visit all the places I want to.

 

[The_bup]

I want to visit the Tomato convenience store in Dobuita (only @DistortAMG will likely get that reference).


I'd probably need a good 2 months out there to visit all the places I want to.

I don’t know if I can do you a tomato convenience, but I can give you a shocking amount of 7/11’s and Familymarts. My record is about 5 in one line of sight!

 

[The_bup]

Another day has rolled by, so now comes my extensive list on things that happened

We started by going to a little waffle shop, and ordered some… waffles. After eating our breakfast, we headed to the train station so we could get to our family friends house (remember? The same ones two days ago. Cool. Them). We met them at the station, and on the way we visited a so called ‘hobby shop’, which had rare card game cards, retro video games, fancy statues of characters and even some BB guns. You know, the works. It was especially odd seeing some Sylvanians up for a few thousand yen each. Had no idea they were a collectors thing now. We also visited a pet shop, which had birds, hamsters, a litter of constantly war-ing ferrets and strangest of all - one Meerkat. We caught up with them a bit more, and they showed us their grandmothers shop.

She sells these dress-like things called kimonos. First thing to note are: they are ridiculously expensive. We got to see some of the materials that they’re made of, and already the fabrics were worth thousands of pounds from the start. On top of being high quality, they also had precious metals like gold and silver worked into them too. Of course, on top of them being expensive they also have an awful lot of layers, so it probably isn’t too nice to wear in the 35 degree heat we’re getting here. Most people chose to rent them nowadays.

After this, we headed to see the Tokyo Sky Tree. This thing is massive. It’s like if they built a modern Blackpool Tower and added 500m+ on for good measure. It’s ridiculous. We went in and booked our timed tickets for later in the day, and saw the shops at the base. There were some themed shops, a samurai themed one, a Kirby café, a Pokémon shop that was rammed up the wazoo, a weird VR experience and a fake food shop. Yup, you could buy very expensive models of food. We decided to eat at a buffet, and then it was time to ascend the tree.

Taken from the foot. Big, isn’t it?

It was busier than a crabbing shop in the summer holidays. Shoulder to bloody shoulder

They scanned our tickets, and we entered a queue for the lifts. The lifts were huge, could fit maybe 20 people in them? They also absolutely shot up their tower; only taking 15 seconds to get 350ft up. Suspiciously similar to a certain Hollywood Hotel we know of.

One thing I picked up was that they have a bit of a superdry problem. They’ll walk around wearing T-shirts that say things in English that make absolutely no sense. Some funny ones I’ve seen so far are ones that contain such insightful tributes to the language, like ‘NEVER RUST’ or ‘PROFESSIONAL HOARDER’, which was accompanied by an image of a Hotel ‘No Vacancy sign. The cream of the crop was a shirt with Mickey Mouse flipping me off with both hands, with the tagline ‘As**uck!’. The man had two kids.

Once at the top, you are greeted to 360 panoramic views of Tokyo. You cannot see anything other than Tokyo. The city is that massive. Aided by the fact of virtually no skyscrapers, the city seemed to go on and on and on, until the air looked solid. I think this is also a good time to note Tokyo’s interesting design. Despite being so massive, everything is hugely space efficient. And average building will be maybe 4-7 stories high, and there will be different shops on each levels. Restaurants on the ground floor usually offer more seats underground. It’s very interesting. After a photo on a terrifying glass floor, we waited 20 minutes to catch a lift down.


Apparently, it’s three times the size of London

After getting back on the ground, we walked to see a temple. It has these huge lanterns, and very impressive buildings. One of the more interesting things there was getting a fortune. There were stalls that charged you ¥100 for a turn, there weren’t any staff, so the system runs on pure goodwill. After parting with my shrapnel, you must shake a cylinder, then flip it and see what stick comes out of a small hole in the corner. It has a number written on it (in Japanese, so we had to get one of our friends to translate it) and open the appropriate draw. Inside, there’s paper with your fortune. If you get anything good, you take it home. However, if you are a poor soul that is given a less than nice prophecy, you are to tie it on a rack and leave it. My fortune (in simple terms) said that if I have the right mind, my request will be granted later on. The person I want to arrive will arrive, just late. I guess I’ll become famous at 67? See you all then.


Huge lanterns, for some reason

The layers of roofs were to keep guards dry, and make it a nightmare to climb, so no enemy samurai could just put his harness on. Or that’s what our friends husband tells us.

this is where people give a little donation and pray to the Buddha. I didn’t do this, because I’m not a Buddhist, and respect

We then saw some other touristy areas, like this huge supermarket that spanned four floors. If had a funny penguin mascot that I absolutely loved, and sold about everything you could want. I also caved and spent £18 on some Pokémon figures. I bought these three because funny weed looking cat, another green cat doing a funny pose, and Mewtwo, just because he’s cool and the best one, okay?!

I caved, okay!

ok, this shop isn’t entirely relevant, but it’s pretty funny

After taking a walk down some shopping streets, we took a bus back, bought some food and parted ways with our friends. I hope we get to see them again, they were really sweet.

So, we’re back at the flat, and apparently we’re going to some immersive illusion type place, so I’m quite exited! That’s about it see ya.

 

[Bowser]

If had a funny penguin mascot that I absolutely loved,

Assuming that's he legendary Don Quijote!

Spent many a night buying things i don't need at 4am there. Although did get a portable dog water bowl before they were a thing in the UK.

 

[BarryZola]

The cream of the crop was a shirt with Mickey Mouse flipping me off with both hands, with the tagline ‘As**uck!’. The man had two kids.

 

[The_bup]

Keep on mind, flipping people off is VERY much a thing in Japan as well!