Between Shinto shrines and Robot-toilets, my first trip to Japan

Tokyo at night

So as my first post I decided to blog about my trip to Japan last April. I think travel is going to be a big
 part of this blog since it is something I really enjoy doing and writing about. Discovering other cultures and learning new languages is one of my favorite things to do and also made me study translation and interpreting. I study English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian at college and am also learning Albanian for which I want to become an interpreter as well. But enough about that.

After visiting the States and the Caribbean the years before I thought it might be interesting to travel in the other direction this time, Asia that is.

I was playing with the thought of going to Manila and visit my cousin who lives there but decided against it because I only had ten days off and if you are in the Philippines you should take some time to travel around and discover the nature and Islands. So it had to be a city-trip.

Now what comes to your mind when you think of cool Asian mega-city? For me that was Tokyo!

Lucky me a travel partner was easily found since a former classmate of mine had always been very fond of Japanese culture and been talking of wanting to visit this city in like for ever.

Since we already booked in January we got some good offers on flights and a hotel and were ready to go!

Computer or toilet??

With the trip coming closer there was one thing that made me kind of  nervous before leaving: How to get to the city? And how are we supposed to find our hotel?

You keep hearing stereotypes about Japanese people not speaking English and that everything will be signposted in Kanji characters only.. well one of them is going to turn out true, but if you are planing on going to Japan don't ever worry about transport I promise it is the easiest thing ever.

Arriving at the airport we soon found the counter that sells bus tickets to the city. From what I saw on the internet our hotel was close one of the bigger hotels there and opposite of the city hall, a new billion dollar skyscraper that offered a view around the city, couldn’t be too hard to find, right? And lucky us this was one of the stops!

Trying to purchase a ticket I saw myself confronted with a little problem I was going to have this week more than once: the language. Although I think the lady at the counter understood what I wanted it was clear she did not like the fact she had to speak English at all. She was murmuring and I had to ask her three times what the price was but in the End we managed.

As soon as we got out of the airport we realized another huge difference to Europe: unattended bags.

Thefts are very rare in Japan and as we would be going to see soon you don't have to be afraid of pick-pockets. A man just left his whole luggage at the bus stop while going to the restroom. Then one day a woman left her open designer handbag with her wallet and everything in it open in a shop while she went to a fitting room to try on stuff in Harajuku.

I have to say this was a very nice thing, I had always had a backpack with me and not matter how stuffed the metro was I was never even worried about my cell or wallet being stolen.

At the hotel we decided to pay the TMGB ( Tokyo metropolitan Government building) a visit first to have a look of the city from above to actually realize how incredible big this megapolis is. Finding our way and the elevator that takes you up to the platform was easy because they guide you through everything and I mean really everything ( if you don't believe me take a look at the sign at the TMGB restroom).

The view there was breathtaking!

View from the TMGB

It was very different than in America though. If you go up the Empire State building and look down on Manhattan you have the skyscrapers of Midtown then it's getting flatter and then up again in downtown. But since it's an Island it's all very narrow and in a row. Not so in Tokyo. You have this huge area which goes further than the eye can see. There are flatter suburban parts and then the large skyscraper districts shooting up here and there and parks, a lot of parks. Tokyo is a very green city. I experienced the air there nothing to what you would expect from Asia, also there wasn't much traffic.

For those who might wonder how this works

Restrooms in Japan are one of a kind experiences. They have attendants that stand there the whole day and hand people towels and the TMGB offered every kind of toilet from Italian to Japanese. But the funniest was the instruction signs they had there and in general the fact that toilets there are more like computers than sanitary installations. After returning to the hotel we started making plans for the week. I'm only going to write about two sights
we visited because this would get too long and maybe boring though.

The first thing on our list was Harajuku the heartland of Japanese teenage fashion and underground scene. So how do we get there? Finding your way through a city like that can be hard and frustrating but not so in Tokyo! Our neighborhood there was connected via an underground system which was really very helpful. So what we basically did: We went over to that bigger hotel next to us, went down a couple steps and entered the underground and from there everything was signed ALSO in Latin script and you could easily find your way. After following the signs for about 12 minutes we reached Shinjuku station which is actually the busiest train station in the world with an average of 3.64 million people using it per day which is about the whole population of Puerto Rico!!

One thing that was not that easy though: understanding the ticket and price system. It took us some days to figure out how it works: At every station there is a map of the whole metro and the further your destination is the pricier it gets (still cheap compared to Graz especially cnsidering how far and fast you can go.. just saying)s. You buy the ticket at a price appropriate for your destination and at the put it into the slot at the turnstile. It will spit it out again and you take it with you. At your destination the turnstile will know where you entered and if you paid the right price.

But again Japanese people are very honest in that relation, you can actually sneak through easily when there's a lot of people and even if you are seen by securities they won't say anything ( I know because I had to do that once or twice when we still had no idea how it works but maybe that was because they knew we were just mere tourists trying to cope in the big city).

Once you figured out how to get around public transport in Japan is easy and very convenient.

Harajuku was just crazy and amazing at the same time!!

It was just like you would imagine it, very crowded by young people dressed up in the Lolita or punk

Harajuku girls

style. What would have been stared or even laughed at at home was normal here. The girls had big hair, make-up like anime characters and wore everything from Gothic to ballet dresses, hair colors ranged from pink to green and no one wore flat shoes not even the guys. And besides international chains like Zara and H&M you could also find the typical Harajuku underground shops which sell Japanese and international brands. After squeezing ourselves through the incredible crowded streets and shops we decided to have lunch at a Yakiniku restaurant something I had already planned on going at home. Yakiniku is a Japanese barbecue. You get all kinds of meat and the typical Yakiniku sauce and fry it yourself on the table.

This again was an adventure on it's own. Every table had a touchscreen computer that had the menu on it in Japanese but could be switched to English and after you have picked you press a button and the waiter comes to take your order.

Ordering in English sounds great, right? Well the problem was it was “English” and not English. Which means the menu was in Latin script but still in Japanese words.

I decided to have a package; salad, an ice tea and seven pieces of meat to fry.

Our waiter was pretty young so I had some hope he might speaks some English but also here: Wrong!

His English was even worse than the ladies at the airport. Being brave I just pointed at seven random things on the monitor and prayed it won't be rat meat or anything.

Well, till today I have no idea what I ate there but I can say it was delicious :)

The same day we also visited one of the largest shrines in Tokyo which was located in a huge park.

And this is what I like about this city: old and new coexists perfectly well and once you are in a park you forget about all the craziness of the city around you. We did the ritual of washing your face and hands, hung up prayer cards and even got to witness a Shinto wedding. So we did sightseeing, shopping and culture and had an exciting culinary experience and that all on day one!

Mos Burger, a Japanese fast food chain

Dragonball Z everywhere

I could list all the amazing things we saw on this trip but I think this entry would become way too long then. So I'll just say a little about another interesting spot: Akihabara our destination on day two, a mecca for Anime lovers. I don't watch it myself but I loved Dragon Ball Z as a kid so this was very fun for me too because this series is omnipresent there. Like there was a whole shop (four floors) that sold only DBZ action figures, there were people dressed up as the characters, even Kentucky Fried Chicken advertised with them. Another thing people come to Akihabara for other than Anime are the various play dens. Also multiple floor buildings that offer everything you can imagine from karaoke to pachinko. If you ask yourself what pachinko is let me tell you I played it and have no idea! The guy there tried to explain it to us but then again it's hard to understand if he only speaks Japanese.

You basically sit in front of a pokie and once you insert money there's ten balls circulating and you are supposed to make them drop into a slot by controlling the power of the wind that blows the balls through the machine and all that while some anime character is yelling at you in Japanese. Later in the game you also have to press some buttons and kind of shoot the characters on the screen but I never really figured out how that worked. But it's those oddities that make this city such a great place. I would really like to revisit soon, the people were just over the top friendly, it was safe, it was completely different from Europe and just very special in general. All in one I can say this was one of my favorite places I've visited so far, maybe even my favorite ( And I'm saying that as a really big New York fan) and I'm looking very forward to be going again!!

View of the city from the world trade center. I really recommend it it's less crowded that the TMGB!!

Here's a video I took at Starbucks. You can see Shibuya, the most filmed crossing in the world. It might look like total chaos with hundreds of people coming from every direction but it's really not. No one steps on anyones feet, everything just flows.