My next whirlwind adventure takes place in Japan, an Asian city I have so far managed to miss but have been increasingly excited to go to. Especially since a certain low cost carrier started flying there cheap and direct from Melbourne. One such sale from said airline allowed me to purchase tickets to tokyo with my then-partner who then became my ex-partner, and so I now have my big brother as my travel buddy. Not the worst option b!
We started just after midnight on our flight to Tokyo, both of us sleeping pretty much the whole way with our legs stretched out as we managed to get moved to the front emergency exit row in order to be seated together. Ho hum life is hard. I was already stiff as a brick from an intense day of roller derby and insufficient post-game stretching - add to that the somewhat limited positions available in a plane seat to sleep and my body was yelling at me for a good rubdown. Which comes later.
I had my first "classic Japan" experience at the airport toilets, where I discovered this eternally polite nation has gone so far as to design a toilet with a "privacy" button to emit a flushing sound as you do your business. And a cleaning service for both areas should you prefer this over regular toilet paper. My bro must have been wondering why I took so long as I marveled at all the gadgets then couldn't find the simple flush!
After checking into the hotel in Shinjuku, I saved some maps on my phone to find this bar we'd heard rave reviews about, Kagaya. Now I have traveled a lot, but this city possibly tops the list of hardest to navigate - purely because no one really speaks English. Not that I should expect them all to but usually there's some kind of verbal communication possible, like a bit of Spanglish or something, but there is really no language crossover between English and Japanese. Thankfully, this place is not only polite but super helpful and even with little to no English, this is a city where a businessman will say no to your request for help then come running after you with his Google maps to walk us 15 minutes in his opposite direction on what would have been now a rather long lunch break to ensure we got where we needed to be. And where another man who does speak English offers his assistance as a self-professed "genius" when it comes to directions. Unfortunately, we were heading to the wrong "kagaya" so we have still not made it.
On the flip side, he led us straight to Alice in Fantasy Book, a crafty little adaption of all things Alice in Wonderland that clearly dodges any copyright infringing. We tried to go in but it was closed and by that time we were ravenous so found a place to eat around the corner, which happened to be next to the Robot Restaurant we wanted to go to! Shinjuku has it all... So we ate the only meat products from body parts we were comfortable with (no rectum or uterus thanks) and headed over. Got a receipt for tickets for the next show and were told to come back to collect them a bit later. Went for a much-needed massage at a place questionably called "Asian Feeling" where the ladies wore open chested dresses and frilly white poking out. My Thai masseuse was possibly the best I've ever had. Went back to the Robot place but they'd sold our tickets (it's super popular) but by this stage, the Alice place should've been open so we went back there. Nothing much was happening so I tried to open the door and pushed the big red button.
Note: do not push the big red button.
It turns out it was an alarm and the girls coming down in the elevator hustled us back in all confused at the loud japanese instructions bellowing from the building. We snuck away pretending not to know what happened... In the meantime, we happened upon a Cat Cafe so thought we'd go and check it out. It was weird. People just sitting around patting and feeding cats. I think the cats were rescues so most of them just wanted food and nothing else, but I did love the squishy faced ones! Bless my bro, he's allergic but still went in with me... I got bored after a while so we went back for third time lucky at Robots but still not tickets, so third lucky at Alice. We were hustled in with no worry this time by the cute little waitress in the Alice costume (hello....) and given bunny ears as we sat at our table. It was novel, the food wa all themed and the menu popped up ("cute", the waitress explained, just in case we didn't realise). And everything we ate and drink "make you small!"
My phone was about to die and I was fading a bit so we headed back to the hotel. No, we didn't. We headed in every direction except for our hotel. Almost bought shoes I thought were $100 but we're closer to $800 after I actually worked out the currency... But they were so pretty and sparkly! We got back eventually and saved my bladder from bursting just in time. After some research and charging, we hopped back into a cab (which has automatic pop-out doors, for those who don't like handles) and headed to the Golden Gai quarter down the road, home to over 200 tiny bars over several cute little alleys. We popped into a few, only those without cover charges (cos, why?) and met some fun people along the way.
First day in Japan and I've seen some cool stuff! But you know the weirdest thing? No one has commented on my hair! This is the first Asian country, or country in general really, that hasn't been obsessed with my hair... And it feels weird but kinda nice not to be hassled. So thanks Japan, so very polite of you.
I had my first "classic Japan" experience at the airport toilets, where I discovered this eternally polite nation has gone so far as to design a toilet with a "privacy" button to emit a flushing sound as you do your business. And a cleaning service for both areas should you prefer this over regular toilet paper. My bro must have been wondering why I took so long as I marveled at all the gadgets then couldn't find the simple flush!
After checking into the hotel in Shinjuku, I saved some maps on my phone to find this bar we'd heard rave reviews about, Kagaya. Now I have traveled a lot, but this city possibly tops the list of hardest to navigate - purely because no one really speaks English. Not that I should expect them all to but usually there's some kind of verbal communication possible, like a bit of Spanglish or something, but there is really no language crossover between English and Japanese. Thankfully, this place is not only polite but super helpful and even with little to no English, this is a city where a businessman will say no to your request for help then come running after you with his Google maps to walk us 15 minutes in his opposite direction on what would have been now a rather long lunch break to ensure we got where we needed to be. And where another man who does speak English offers his assistance as a self-professed "genius" when it comes to directions. Unfortunately, we were heading to the wrong "kagaya" so we have still not made it.
On the flip side, he led us straight to Alice in Fantasy Book, a crafty little adaption of all things Alice in Wonderland that clearly dodges any copyright infringing. We tried to go in but it was closed and by that time we were ravenous so found a place to eat around the corner, which happened to be next to the Robot Restaurant we wanted to go to! Shinjuku has it all... So we ate the only meat products from body parts we were comfortable with (no rectum or uterus thanks) and headed over. Got a receipt for tickets for the next show and were told to come back to collect them a bit later. Went for a much-needed massage at a place questionably called "Asian Feeling" where the ladies wore open chested dresses and frilly white poking out. My Thai masseuse was possibly the best I've ever had. Went back to the Robot place but they'd sold our tickets (it's super popular) but by this stage, the Alice place should've been open so we went back there. Nothing much was happening so I tried to open the door and pushed the big red button.
Note: do not push the big red button.
It turns out it was an alarm and the girls coming down in the elevator hustled us back in all confused at the loud japanese instructions bellowing from the building. We snuck away pretending not to know what happened... In the meantime, we happened upon a Cat Cafe so thought we'd go and check it out. It was weird. People just sitting around patting and feeding cats. I think the cats were rescues so most of them just wanted food and nothing else, but I did love the squishy faced ones! Bless my bro, he's allergic but still went in with me... I got bored after a while so we went back for third time lucky at Robots but still not tickets, so third lucky at Alice. We were hustled in with no worry this time by the cute little waitress in the Alice costume (hello....) and given bunny ears as we sat at our table. It was novel, the food wa all themed and the menu popped up ("cute", the waitress explained, just in case we didn't realise). And everything we ate and drink "make you small!"
My phone was about to die and I was fading a bit so we headed back to the hotel. No, we didn't. We headed in every direction except for our hotel. Almost bought shoes I thought were $100 but we're closer to $800 after I actually worked out the currency... But they were so pretty and sparkly! We got back eventually and saved my bladder from bursting just in time. After some research and charging, we hopped back into a cab (which has automatic pop-out doors, for those who don't like handles) and headed to the Golden Gai quarter down the road, home to over 200 tiny bars over several cute little alleys. We popped into a few, only those without cover charges (cos, why?) and met some fun people along the way.
First day in Japan and I've seen some cool stuff! But you know the weirdest thing? No one has commented on my hair! This is the first Asian country, or country in general really, that hasn't been obsessed with my hair... And it feels weird but kinda nice not to be hassled. So thanks Japan, so very polite of you.
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