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| JET Adventures 35 - Lou's Tokyo Birthday |
| Wednesday, January 25, 2006 |
Louise is undoubtedly my closest friend in Okinawa, but we couldn't be more different. She majored in English and Japanese and intends to become a published poet. Our tastes in everything from films to books to music to philosophy are polar opposites. Thankfully one thing stops us from hating each other - our mutual passion for ripping the piss out of everyone and everything around us. I was quite apprehensive that our trip to Tokyo would result in only one of us coming back alive, but we managed to bridge the void and have a blinding time.
Day 1 - Gyozaland and Harlem
So we'd been up since 5am to get the plane, but the plan for day 1 was to stuff our faces with gyoza (chinese grilled pork dumplings) and then hit up a Tokyo night club. The gyoza was necessary because we were going to stay up all night and get the first train back. We went to Gyoza Stadium in Shibuya where there were 8 gyoza restaurant all in one building. We managed to eat a plate of gyoza at 6 of them, which is 36 gyoza each! *flex*
Then we went back to our room (we had bunk beds!) and got as drunk as possible before venturing out to Harlem, supposedly one of Tokyo's best hiphop clubs. I'm not really into the music, but it was a good club and we were having a wicked time dancing before we realised that a) we were the only foreigners there and b) there was only a handful of girls there, so we stuck out quite a bit. We got tag-teamed by a few Japanese guys, two were taking off their shirts for me, and another one was dropping his pants for Louise but we managed to escape and find each other before running away!
Day 2 - Random park and snow
It snowed! After recovering from the night before we went to check out a park. Louise had never seen snow before(!!!) so she went a bit insane, touching snow, walking on snow and eating snow were all new and amazing things for her - "Walking on snow is like walking on clouds", etc.
Ah, it was pretty though - and ridiculously cold. Then we checked out Harujuku, like the Japanese version of Camden. We also went to Roppongi to watch Pride And Prejudice and to have Lou's birthday dinner at one of the posh restaurants there. I should also mention that it was Louise's first time to ever go on a subway (and her third time ever to go on a train), cue more excitement over ticket machines and heated seats :)
Day 3 - Disneyland
Monday was Disney-day. It was much less crowded than when I'd gone with Tim and the weather was better so more stupid Disney characters were running around. We did Space Mountain 3 times but the highlight of the day for me was getting to have my pic taken with my hero, Captain Hook.
Day 4 - Culture day and Onsenland
As you might have gathered by now, Louise had planned the entire trip down to the finest detail. Culture day involved 3 art galleries (one modern art, one contemporary art and one photography). The photography one was the best as Japanese modern art just seemed to be ripoffs of Western modern art. One of the photographers was a crazy man who made his family line up in random places (the desert, up a mountain, waist-deep in snow) while he photographed them looking pissed off, and there was a really gruelling exhibition with pictures from the Vietnam war.
Then we went off to Onsenland to relax - you get to pick out a yukatta to wear from a choice of 19 patterns, but really you spend all your time being naked. I'd heard about the 'electric bath' where you get electrocuted, but we managed to avoid that one and instead tried the indoor bath, the jacuzzi, the outdoor onsen, the sauna, the 'sand bath', and a shiatsu massage from this 200 year old dwarf who was incredibly brutal but a massage genius.
Back to school tomorrow - my teachers honestly can't believe I've been to Tokyo twice in as many weeks; they go once every few years! I'm quite tired though - I was supposed to be going up north for the cherry blossom festival and a friend's epic birthday party this weekend, but I think I'm just going to sleep and book my Australia tickets instead. |
posted by Alice @ 9:02 pm  |
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