Wow. Where do I even start? I guess I'll begin from the beginning.
To anyone who has flown all the way to Europe this year, I tip my hat to you, because our comparitively short 9 hour jetstar flight was INCREDIBLY BORING. Anyway, we finally touched down in Japan at 7pm on Monday night, extremely tired and excited. We were worried though, because I was bringing tonnes of medication into the country, that we'd have problems at customs. But no, all the people in customs were just super friendly, and this cute little woman waved us right through without checking our bags; all she seemed concerned about was if we had a friend to stay with and that we knew where we were going. Then, expecting to be completely overwhelmed and confused by Narita airport and Japan in general, we were pleasantly surprised: Japan's airport also made SO much more sense than any Australian airport we'd ever been to. Everything was labelled and structured properly and so helpful. Although, I was quite bewildered by the first high-tech Japanese toilet I went into - why anyone needs the option to play a flushing song while they flush their toilet is beyond me.
So on to Kichijoji. We stayed here with Luci's friend Hana and her boyfriend (Canadian) Dan for 2 days. It's an incredibly cute but busy little town with endless streets and backstreets of clothes shopping, Pachinko parlors, arcade games, incredible food places and the cutest little bars that we've ever been in. Our first bar experience was in a 6-person-maximum bar up the steepest staircase above the shops on this tiny backstreet. Luci and I were in awe, it was by far the coolest bar we'd ever been in. The owner was really lovely and got us to try all this traditional Japanese food, including raw onion with miso paste (which, Mum and Dad if you are reading this, I want ALL the time when I get back home). The shopping is just incredible as well, and so so CHEAP that I almost cried in the first few stores I went in. I bought lots of clothes and then we said goodbye to Hana and Dan (who, by the way, were completely lovely) and went on to our hostel in Asakusa.
We couldn't believe that anywhere could be as cool as Kichijoji, but Asakusa definitely proved us wrong. We spent the first night wandering night markets and ended up at a gorgeous Buddhist shrine. We then ate some Korean for dinner and Coconut Milk gelato. Our strategy so far with eating out is to just go into a place, point to some random item on the menu, and it's always been delicious. All the food here is just so amazing that every day we wonder why we don't eat these things in Australia. Ahhh well. The next day we went to Ueno, and explored the National Science Museum in Ueno park, and although it's more made for kids, it was still so cool. We went in this 360 degree movie room which played a movie about the Big Bang and the Universe and basically couldn't speak after we came out because it was so beautiful and well made, even though we couldn't understand much about it because it was all in Japanese. Then we went to the famous Ueno Amayayokocho (Black) Markets (not an illegal black market, it's just what it's called) underneath a train line. There were just SO many shops, and SO much crap the people were selling (good stuff too though), it was very overwhelming. You could spend WEEKS discovering all the markets and stores in that place.
Luci wants to write now so he's going to write about the next day after Ueno.
Hey everybody :) Tokyo is so amazing. you could literally explore it for the rest of your life. So many different suburbs each with their own unique character and crammed with so many amazing tucked away boutiques, bars, eateries and shrines. We are leaving out a lot in these blog posts because we couldn't possibly describe it all. I'm sure we will have so many fun and wacky stories when we get back.
The day after our trip the amazing Ueno were the chaos of the Ameyayokocho markets was amazingly juxtaposed with the peace and tranquility of Ueno park. (Tokyo's largest park) We headed to Shibuya.
Shibuya is a huge shopping district right in the middle of Tokyo where skyscrapers covered by neon signs and TV screens surround the world's busiest pedestrian crossing. After crossing over we went into the famous department store : Shibuya 109 and the into its brother building 109 men's. These two were an incredible, fun and overwhelming experience in the art of capitalism. A tiny tower each level crammed with super stylish ultra competitive Tokyo clothes stores, each one boasting super friendly ultra stylish shop girls and each one blasting a different mash up of the latest top 40 j-pop and western hits.
Next we went into Shibuya's famous tower records a mufti layered record store in a cool 60's building where i found a whole section devoted to visual kei. After buying a single and taking a stack of free posters while Annika discovered some great j-hip hop we headed out of Shibuya to the next suburb of Harajuku. In Harajuku we spent the night shopping on world famous Takeshita dori (dori meaning street). We both found some great stuff especially in the 390 yen store, think a 2 dollar shop but much more fashionable. We also tried to Japanese fusion food classics, Japanese pasta and Japanese crepes both of which were delicious. Harajuku is also famous for yoyogi park which we think we may return to on Sunday to see all the cos players posing on the bridge in their crazy outfits and explore another of Tokyo's beautiful parks. Although it seems like no park could top the happy tranquility of Kichijoji park.
Today we are off to another little suburb of Tokyo to see a gig of Hana's.
So many tiny things and huge things are totally different in Japan but i cant explain them all here our I will never get out of the hostel this morning! I Just cant wait to see you all and describe all Japan's crazy quirks and ingenious little differences.
Speak to you all soon, hope all is well is Aus.
Love Luci and Anni
To anyone who has flown all the way to Europe this year, I tip my hat to you, because our comparitively short 9 hour jetstar flight was INCREDIBLY BORING. Anyway, we finally touched down in Japan at 7pm on Monday night, extremely tired and excited. We were worried though, because I was bringing tonnes of medication into the country, that we'd have problems at customs. But no, all the people in customs were just super friendly, and this cute little woman waved us right through without checking our bags; all she seemed concerned about was if we had a friend to stay with and that we knew where we were going. Then, expecting to be completely overwhelmed and confused by Narita airport and Japan in general, we were pleasantly surprised: Japan's airport also made SO much more sense than any Australian airport we'd ever been to. Everything was labelled and structured properly and so helpful. Although, I was quite bewildered by the first high-tech Japanese toilet I went into - why anyone needs the option to play a flushing song while they flush their toilet is beyond me.
So on to Kichijoji. We stayed here with Luci's friend Hana and her boyfriend (Canadian) Dan for 2 days. It's an incredibly cute but busy little town with endless streets and backstreets of clothes shopping, Pachinko parlors, arcade games, incredible food places and the cutest little bars that we've ever been in. Our first bar experience was in a 6-person-maximum bar up the steepest staircase above the shops on this tiny backstreet. Luci and I were in awe, it was by far the coolest bar we'd ever been in. The owner was really lovely and got us to try all this traditional Japanese food, including raw onion with miso paste (which, Mum and Dad if you are reading this, I want ALL the time when I get back home). The shopping is just incredible as well, and so so CHEAP that I almost cried in the first few stores I went in. I bought lots of clothes and then we said goodbye to Hana and Dan (who, by the way, were completely lovely) and went on to our hostel in Asakusa.
We couldn't believe that anywhere could be as cool as Kichijoji, but Asakusa definitely proved us wrong. We spent the first night wandering night markets and ended up at a gorgeous Buddhist shrine. We then ate some Korean for dinner and Coconut Milk gelato. Our strategy so far with eating out is to just go into a place, point to some random item on the menu, and it's always been delicious. All the food here is just so amazing that every day we wonder why we don't eat these things in Australia. Ahhh well. The next day we went to Ueno, and explored the National Science Museum in Ueno park, and although it's more made for kids, it was still so cool. We went in this 360 degree movie room which played a movie about the Big Bang and the Universe and basically couldn't speak after we came out because it was so beautiful and well made, even though we couldn't understand much about it because it was all in Japanese. Then we went to the famous Ueno Amayayokocho (Black) Markets (not an illegal black market, it's just what it's called) underneath a train line. There were just SO many shops, and SO much crap the people were selling (good stuff too though), it was very overwhelming. You could spend WEEKS discovering all the markets and stores in that place.
Luci wants to write now so he's going to write about the next day after Ueno.
Hey everybody :) Tokyo is so amazing. you could literally explore it for the rest of your life. So many different suburbs each with their own unique character and crammed with so many amazing tucked away boutiques, bars, eateries and shrines. We are leaving out a lot in these blog posts because we couldn't possibly describe it all. I'm sure we will have so many fun and wacky stories when we get back.
The day after our trip the amazing Ueno were the chaos of the Ameyayokocho markets was amazingly juxtaposed with the peace and tranquility of Ueno park. (Tokyo's largest park) We headed to Shibuya.
Shibuya is a huge shopping district right in the middle of Tokyo where skyscrapers covered by neon signs and TV screens surround the world's busiest pedestrian crossing. After crossing over we went into the famous department store : Shibuya 109 and the into its brother building 109 men's. These two were an incredible, fun and overwhelming experience in the art of capitalism. A tiny tower each level crammed with super stylish ultra competitive Tokyo clothes stores, each one boasting super friendly ultra stylish shop girls and each one blasting a different mash up of the latest top 40 j-pop and western hits.
Next we went into Shibuya's famous tower records a mufti layered record store in a cool 60's building where i found a whole section devoted to visual kei. After buying a single and taking a stack of free posters while Annika discovered some great j-hip hop we headed out of Shibuya to the next suburb of Harajuku. In Harajuku we spent the night shopping on world famous Takeshita dori (dori meaning street). We both found some great stuff especially in the 390 yen store, think a 2 dollar shop but much more fashionable. We also tried to Japanese fusion food classics, Japanese pasta and Japanese crepes both of which were delicious. Harajuku is also famous for yoyogi park which we think we may return to on Sunday to see all the cos players posing on the bridge in their crazy outfits and explore another of Tokyo's beautiful parks. Although it seems like no park could top the happy tranquility of Kichijoji park.
Today we are off to another little suburb of Tokyo to see a gig of Hana's.
So many tiny things and huge things are totally different in Japan but i cant explain them all here our I will never get out of the hostel this morning! I Just cant wait to see you all and describe all Japan's crazy quirks and ingenious little differences.
Speak to you all soon, hope all is well is Aus.
Love Luci and Anni
Get ya detail on bro hehehe xoxo gg
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