Trip To Tokyo with Mike

Mike just left on Tuesday, after our 4 day trip to Tokyo last week. We managed to pack a lot in and actually saw most of the friends we wanted to see while there.

We arrived Wednesday night in Tokyo and stayed at my friend Maria’s house in Roppongi. The place is really swanky and nice, which made our stay really comfortable and affordable.

On Thursday, Mike and I decided to go to Dineyland Sea. We had been to Disneyland Europe when we were in France, so we thought we might as well visit another one. All the Disneylands are the same, but Disneyland Sea is completely different. It’s actually pretty cool and the rides were a lot of fun. First off there aren’t that many Disney characters and we barely saw any walking around. It’s pegged as a more adult theme park and in a way it really is.

The scope of the architecture is really amazing as the really went all out to design everything. It’s pretty amazing how real everything looks and the attention to detail.

We spent the morning and afternoon there and just went on as many rides as we could. What made it really easy was that there was no line-ups since we went on a Thursday so we were able to go on any ride with a five minute wait.

At night we met up with our friend Yasu in Shinjuku and went to dinner at a local ramen place and then a pub. We spent a few hours having a few beers and it was just fun chatting and eating until our last train home.

On Friday, Mike and I went to Aakiharbara in the morning and just walked around checking out the electronics. We decided that since we were there we might as well go to a maid café. So we walked around the main areas of Akihabara and decided on one that had four floors. After checking in and finding out that most of the top two floors were booked we just took an open slot that was available. Little did we know that it wasn’t a traditional maid café, but one where girls where kimonos.

The top floor actually had a dance area and everyone was full out on maid outfits. But in our floor….alas, we got a not so attractive maid. We decided to stick it out and we just ordered some desserts. It was a weird as they use real formal Japanese and it’s actually sort of uncomfortable. But, the kicker was one our maid gave us our food and proceed to close her eyes, put her hands together and pray to the gods to bless our dessert. Naturally, it surprised me and I tried not to laugh, but when Mike started cracking up a bit, I lost it and started giggling like a school girl. We felt real bad afterwards, as we just went into this girl’s workplace and laughed in her face while she was doing her job.

At night we might up with my friend Dice who moved to Tokyo about the same time I came to Japan. We met up with him at night and went to an Izakaya. After the Izakaya, we went to Shinjuku and walked a bit around Kabuki-cho hassling the locals who were trying to get us into their “naughty” establishments. We ended up going to a bunch of battling cages and had the winner buy beer. It was nice catching up with a friend from home and both Mike and I had a good time.

On Saturday, Maria spent the day with us and we went to Asakusa in the morning. This temple has the famous red lantern and a long street full of little shops and snacks. We spend a few hours grabbing lunch and visiting the main temple and checking out the shops.

At night, we went to a ninja restaurant. It’s a pretty famous restaurant in Asakasa and though the dinner is a bit steep at about a 100 dollars for a set course. The entrainment value makes it worth it. There are secret passages to enter and the inside looks just like a mini village. You also get ninja related dishes and ninjas serving your food. But perhaps the best part of the meal was our Ninja waiter.

The dude was so nervous and kept on making mistakes, which made the whole dinner even better. First off, he flipped our menu backwards while unrolling it from a scroll. He also ran into the door twice, almost set his arm on fire during a “ninja magic” dish, dropped our cutlery and at the end when we left, he unrolled the “come again sign” backwards again. Maria, Mike and I were cracking up the whole meal. He was actually a really nice waiter and made the entertainment value was off the charts.

At night, we met up with a few of Maria’s friends and went to a local club in Roppongi. Almost everyone there works in the financial district in Roppongi, so there were a lot of foreigners. It was a fun night as we mingled around in the club which had a real large bar. The best part of the evening was when we peeked into a window in one of the karaoke rooms and saw a man dancing with his shirt off. He then ushered us in and we had champagne with him and danced around with his girls for an hour. The dude was such a pimp and we think he’s probably a Yakuza as he had some tattoos and a few of his buddies did too.

On Sunday, we spent the morning visiting Roppongi Hills and saw the Spiderman exhibit there. It was really good as Mike and I had just watched the movie last week and the exhibit was pretty extensive. They had the actual costumes worn by both the red and back Spiderman, as well as Doc Ock and Sandman. Seeing the character’s life size models in full costume was pretty cool.

We spend the rest of the day walking around Harajuku before we took the bullet train home late afternoon. It was a great time and being in Tokyo, and it makes me really wanna live there for a bit.

Japanese Factoid#48- Gacha Gacha refers to the noise toy dispensing machines make in Japan. We have these in Canada, but not to the extent that exists in Japan. In smaller places you usually have a few or up to a dozen. But, if you head to Tokyo or Osaka and go to a big hobby store or electronics store, there are rows. At Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, they have 7 rows of machines in stacks of 4s. These machines have tons of different toys, from anime figures to key-chains and other novelties. It’s fun to just take out 10 dollars and pick from a few of the machines.