Day 9: Tsukiji Fish Market and Odaiba

We went up quite late today so we actually missed the fish auctions in Tsukijishijo but we went to Odaiba instead. The train here is a little more expensive. It's a railway. The view is great though. Very nice to watch from the train since you go over the water to Odaiba. Shiodome (the place you tranfer to the train toward Odaiba) and Odaiba look really like a high class place. Very clean and alots of high beautiful shiny buildings. Also there were a very nice beach. Two shopping malls, indoor theme park and a muscle park with challenges.

After walking for a while in the malls we walked down to the beach. Grabbed some sand from it to a friend of mine because he collects sand from different countries. I wanted to wait until it gets darker to take some photos but it didn't look like Sparky wanted to stay so long. It got a little darker at least. Sitting there on the beach and just look around enjoying it just felt very comfortable. Don't really want to leave this country anymore xD

Oh, I filmed a little with my phone but later today I finally found my video recording function on my camera! xD

We are going to sleep a little earlier today. Hopefully... since it's 11 pm already and then head back to the fish market to see the auctions!

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Day 8: Yakiniku and hot springs!

This have been a slacker day today. I went up early (like 10am) to take a walk by myself around Kaminarimon. Bought the belts for the yukatas and some more bells. I also accidently got into a some kind of love hotel I guess... it said DVD and CD on the sign so I checked it out. Went up and saw some anime at the entrance. Further in there were only adult movies.. xD Went out and went upstairs to see if there were more. Up there the sign said, relaxing, tv, rooms etc. I walked in a saw alot of small rooms and adult posters so I realized that I've come to a wrong place.. xD

I went back to the hostel around 3pm and Sparky were still sleeping.. -___-" I woke him up and waited him to get ready. We headed out to eat some yakiniku. Yakiniku is AWESOME! It is really good. You should all try it! We will be going back one day before we leave Japan for sure. First we didn't knew how to order but next time. We will eat more xP

Around 20 - 21 pm somewhere. We went to try out the hotsprings. It was not a 'real' outdoors hotspring but indoors. It was really nice to relax a little. It were like sitting in a bubble pool.

So.. that was basically the day.. xD

Day 7: Harajuku bridge... Raining...? T__T

We went to the Harajuku Bridge today in search for some cool people with cool outfits but heh, it was raining today... Luckily there are umbrellas at the hostel :'D

We took another route to Harajuku. Got off in Yoyogi and walked. Took a wrong turn at first but we went back to the station and got it right after checking the map. Follow the Meiji street from Yoyogi to get to Harajuku. Not a long walk.

When we came to Harajuku. There were alot of umbrellas everywhere. Haha. Difficult to walk when there are tons of umbrellas. You don't want to poke someones eyes off.. xD The rain kept falling and falling non-stop until we were on our way home. The japanese have thought of everything. Plastic bags around you bags of clothes you've bought. Plastic bags for your umbrella outside every store. Even a machine helping you with the bag! Also a trash can next to it to throw the bag. Otherwise.. there are not so many trashcans in Japan. Mostly where the restaurant, food stand, outside convenience stores etc.
I spended quite alot of money today on clothes. A few for my sisters too. Hope they like them xD




So... on the way home. We kind of got lost again. Haha. We went to the train on another platform then ended up at another exit. Like out to an alley. So we started walking.
"Ah, I think it's that way"
After like 20 minutes or so (?) we asked a lady. She seem quite confused or scared xD But didn't really know where Edo Street where. She pointed at a direction which she thought it were. Headed that way. Found a map after 10 minutes and saw that we were heading back to Akibahara (Train from Harajuku -> Transfer in Yoyogi towards Chiba -> Akibahara is the station before Asakusa bashi were we went off) again. Haha. So we headed to Akibahara, took the JR Line to Asakusa bashi again and then headed back to the hostel. Quite an adventure. Haha :'D



http://tsukiya.bilddagboken.se/

... as you've probably seen, Fanta Grape is my new favourite. First drink in Japan and I love it! Not in Sweden though... T___T

Day 6: Back to Akibahara

Today we went back to Akibahara to check out more stores. Now much to write today actually but we did some shopping. The stores are bigger than it seems. They are often more than just one floor so you have to check them out too. Lots of stairs... haha xD
Wow, there are so many adult products. Almost in every store where they sell action figures and movies in fact. We also tried some crepes.It's like waffles with custard, chocolate sauce, strawberries, ice cream and other stuff in. You can choose the menu. It's was really tasty! Going to upload a photo of it later (tomorrow).

More walking then headed back to K's house around 8pm. We decided to raid the arcades near Kaminarimon. Sparky got 2 big Stitch:es. Some machines are really easy to win on and other is so hard. With some kind of glue paper on some and other have like a metal-thingy on the edge.

Urgh, not much left to write. What do you guys want to me to look up for you? Something special?

Going back to Harajuku tomorrow btw. To the Harajuku bridge.

Cheers!

Day 5 Harajuku and Shibuya

Today me and Sparky woke up quite early. We ate breakfast and got ready to Harajuku and Shibuya.
We took the JR Line from Asakusa Bashi to Yoyogi (towards Shinjuku, same JR Line. Yoyogi is the station before Shinjuku) then take the train to Harajuku and Shibuya (same platform as when you get off the train. Go to the other side). Harajuku is one stop away and Shibuya is the next. We got off at Harajuku but couldn't get pass the ticket control gate because we only paid for a ride to Yoyogi and transfered directly.
Now here is a good system. If you didn't pay enough and can't get pass the gate. There is something called "Fare adjustment". Is in fact just a machine that you can put you currently ticket in it and then it shows how much more you have to pay to get pass the gate. Do it and get a new ticket. Use it to get pass.
So basically from Asakusa Bashi to Yoyogi it costs 160yen. From Yoyogi to Harajuku it cost another 50yen. We paid 50yen in the fare adjustment in Harajuku. Easy isn't it?

In Harajuku, we first went to a popular street near the station called Takeshita Street. There are mainly street fashion stores here. Lots of girls stores. We didn't spend alot of time here yet since we wanted to look for another popular street called Cat Street but got really dissappointed. We were there according to the map but there were not many stores there.. after looking, looking and looking we couldn't find 'Cat Street'. At least if it was Cat Street, it wasn't worth the effort.

We started to walk to Shibuya after giving up on Cat Street. Feet hurts from walking miles everyday but you just have to keep walking. Wasn't far from Harajuku to Shibuya by walking. We didn't found alot of interest in Shibuya. Visisted Hachiko. Accidently went in to Shibuya 109 which was a 8 floor building wih only fashion clothes and accessories for girls! Alots of girls in there so we thought we went wrong.. xD There are basically alot of girls stores in Harajuku and Shibuya. Girls' paradise if you like shopping!
After leaving Shibuya 109, we finally found an intereting shopping place. HMV, music and movies store. I bought 4 cds and were happy. A collection box with Devil Beside You drama really wanted me to buy it but I will still consider it.. 30000yen is a lot of money.. xD

A few walk around Shibuya, visisted Tokyu Hands and some cloth stores then headed back to Harajuku. All hail these vending machines. Without them, we will probably be dead by now.

Now we raided almost every stores in Harajuku (mostly in Takeshita Street), ate at a pasta restaurant then went back home.

Now.. chilling.. tired.. spaghetti legs... :'D

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Day 4: Shinjuku

Changed plans today. We were planning to join the sushi roll event but it were canceled so we decided to make a fast trip to Shinjuku.
There are alot of high buildings there. Everywhere. So it's was difficult to find anything. We found alot of food, arcade halls, bars, strip clubs, fashion clothes (not street fashion though) and not much interesting. So many stuff but found nothing. Found one nice place though. Don Quijote. They had basically everything but we are probably going to come back later.

We lost each other for a while in Shinjuku. So hard to find each other. I think we ran around for 30 minutes before we found each other again. A car splitted us but I still saw Sparky but he didn't see me. I looked at the buildings and still saw him. Then reach for my camera, checked on hm again. But he was gone xD Just a few seconds.

After finding each other again we went to the arcades. In some arcades they kind of hand of a free ticket to the crane machines. Like that one when I got the cat paws. This time you had to pay for 1 round (or 3) to get an extra. I got a white tiger plushie in two tries for 100yen ^_^

I am not going to write much today nor upload any photos. Will do that tomorrow I guess. I fell asleep as soon as we came back to the hostel and then woke up a dew hours later. Now I can't sleep again. It's like 1 am or so.

Anyhow, we are going to Harajuku och Shibuya tomorrow. Hopefully we can go and do some nice shopping there ^_^

... and btw.. the concert tickets to Nana Mizuki were out of stock.. T___T

Day 3: Around Kaminarimon and Sengo-ji temple

We went back to places around Kaminarimon and Sengo-ji temple today since we overslept. We made a good choice since there were alot to see there too!

In Kaminarimon, we bought yukatas. I bought 5 in total and Sparky bought one. We realized that the belt wasn't included so we have to go back and buy them.

We found some more arcade halls there and a better place to play Taiko no tatsujin at. Alot cheaper. The first one we tried cost 200yen for 1 game but here it cost like 100yen for 4 songs.
We also played the crane games. I never play those in Sweden since it's so expensive but I had to try it. I got 2 big cat paws from them~ Some of the machines were so difficult to get anything. I should spend a little less money on arcades for now.


No so much more today actually. We found a nice park. Checked the movie theater and many more arcades xD

Went to the convenience store when we got back and bought some noodles and bread. The bread here is sooo taste! When you buy fast noodles, they also give you chopsticks and toothpick with it when you pay for the noodles.

... and that took the whole day. Relaxing and took a look in the hostel. Still like it alot!

Tomorrow we are just going to chill. The hostel have a sushi roll experience at 15 so we are going to try it. Will probably going to Shinjuku, Harajuk and Shibuya on friday!

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Day 2: Continuation: Akibahara and maids

The time is around 11 o'clock. It's Akihabara! The electric town. The town for geeks :'D We got out of the station and went out in a big, big world. The buildings is so high and I just felt that I got smaller... There are so many colors on them too! Flashing lights, big monitors and everything.


We went into the building straight infront of us. Oh, my, god.. there were trading card game, action figures, mangas, movies in LOTS! Sooo many. 4 floors with only that! Taking pitures is forbidden in most of them. So there won't be many but I managed to get some. It doesn't look like there are an adult area at all since everything is there. Hentai action figures, photos and photomodels. Everything in one... everywhere. After wandering a while in this building, I just thought: I don't know what I want to buy because there are so many of them. Almost got a little confused. Haha.



We decided to come back later and buy some stuff. When you come to the big main street of Akibahara. You can see alot of people. There were maids everywhere handing out flyers to promote their café and alots of japanese yelling / talking outside their shop to promote. I wonder how they can speak so much and so fast for so long. After like 10 minutes. We found the first arcade hall! Arcades on 5, 6 floors! We sat down and tried a few games. Wow, it was awesome. I also got whooped in Street Fighter 4... We visited alot of other arcades later. There are alot of games that you've never seen or knew about them before. Alot of arcades that you have to buy some sort of cards for it. Then you can put the card on the board and play the arcade game with the cards. Fighting, exchanging equipment, activating skills etc
.
Do you like gundam or mecha-series? They had a game that simulate that you were a pilot of a gundam and battled with it. You sat in a little capsule with a HUGE screen inside with levers and controls. It's a 2vs2 team battle of 6 players in each team.
How do you start?
You have to create / buy yourself a pilot card. With you name / nickname on it and then what side you want to play on and choose you own starter gundam. A pilot card costs 300 yen and then 500yen for each game. A game consists 2 rounds. You have to work with other pilots to win. After the game. You can check in with you pilot card to earn some points and money to buy and upgrade your gundam! Awesome isn't it?


There is one thing that I don't like about the arcades. Smoking there is allowed. Not very nice to smell the smoke on every floor you were on. There were always people smoking.

We walked around in Akibahara for hours and I manage to get some of these maid-café flyers... If you don't want them, avoid eye contact.. xD We also grabbed some food. Noodles. It was really good! 500yen and you can get alot of food! In that noodle bar we were at. You didn't have to order from the desk. There were vending machines at the entrance. Pay and choose what you want to eat and then hand that little receipt at the desk. Then you don't have to wait for long to get you food. 2 min max.


So around 19 o'clock we decided to get back to the hostel. When we arrived at Asakusa Bashi station. We kind of got lost. We didn't know which way to go. But we asked a kind lady and then got on the right track again. The feet hurted like hell. Have been walking all day long. Haha. But it's were damn worth it!

Today we plan to go to Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya but the clock is already very much right now and Sparky is still sleeping... Going to wake him up when I am done here ^_^

Photos:
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Day 2: Kaminarimon, Akibahara, Arcade Halls and maids

Can't sleep...Both of us woke up quite early. Around 4 am. Watched some tv and tried to learn some more japanese. Took a VERY NICE shower. Oh wow, it were really nice. I had to write it again =P It is so muggy here so it's difficult so make the hair as you want it since it will curl again >_< But we managed somehow I guess...

So we headed out to hunt some breakfast. We were suppose to go to a coffee and breakfast (?) shop for some breakfast but it were closed so we headed to a supermarket called Yamazaki. We had a little problem finding it since we were on the backside of the market but a lady came and helped us when we were reading the map.
We bought:
Milk
Soda
3 Rice balls
Some bread
and yogurt

Headed back and enjoyed some nice breakfast. It's my first time eating rice balls btw. The smell of seaweed were a little bit strong but eatable. Not sure what flavour it was...

After the yummy breakfast, we headed to Kaminarimon and Senso-ji temple. There were alots of shops on the way to the temple. Going to buy some kimono and yukata for me and my family there. The temple was really beautiful! There is a 100yen shop on the Kaminarimon street. We went in there and took a look. Wow, they had ALOT of bells there and big ones too. Have a hard time finding in Sweden. I bought 2 small ones but plan to buy some more later.

Oh yeah.. I don't know why but the heat has gone down a little. Were really hot in the morning. It's like living in a big greenhouse. The feeling when walking into the room at the hostel is undescribable since the room have a air conditioner :'D

Anyhow, let's keep writtng.. We kept walking down the Kaminarimon street for a while but then we decided to head back to the hostel and get ready to Akihabara.

Another thing. Before we left Sweden we decided to go and find some vending machines. Do you know what? You don't have to look for it. It's everywhere! Almost in every corner, shops and even in a small alley. Also, there are mountains of garbagebags everywhere waiting for the truck to pick it up. The japanese is cleaning outside their shops in the mornings then put them in the bags next to the street. That's what it looks like at least :3

So Akibahara. The staff at the hostel suggest we used the JR line from Asakusa Bashi to Akibahara. It were possible to walk from the hostel too but we decided to take the train. We bought the tickets but it seemed to be wrong. The guard gave us the money back and pointed upstairs. It was like he said: "Here is your money back. Try again" ^_^ Upstairs were the JR lines. 130yen for a short ride to Akibahara. Less than 5 minutes! ^_^

... I will write more tomorrow... getting late now.. I fell asleep when we got back to the hostel but woke up to write this. So.. more to come tomorrow! Don't forget to check some of the photos here. It's not all but I will upload more tomorrow. The connection here is slow.

Day 1: Mission accomplished!

So and we are finally here in Japan. Have to start writting to let you guys know that we are still in one piece. I am still quite fine but Sparky here is completely dead. So he plans to sleep right now while I am writting. Sparky's laptop is running out of battery and the charger does not fit. Haha. Have to look for another one tomorrow.

However, the day started like this:

I woke up early in the saturday morning and took a nice warm shower. Packed the last few things and breakfast and waited for Sparky and his mom to come and pick me up. Before they came, sisters challenged me to some Brawl matches. And of course... I won... ;P

First stage: Off to Nyköping
We left Katrineholm at around 9am to head for Nyköping. We had a ticket from Nyköping to Arlanda which is a little cheaper than Katrineholm - Arlanda. Well, at least if you can get a ride from Katrineholm. We got to the train station in time. But of course.. SJ is late as usually. It’s never in time when it's needed and always in time when you are late. Train arrived at 10.35 (original time: 10.13). So we went on…

Second stage: Train to Arlanda
Nice calm trip to Arlanda.

Third stage: Checking in at Arlanda
We had to check in so we queue in the luggage line but she told us to check in first. Our e-tickets didn’t work out very well on their computers there even though she used another method so we had to go to the check so the lady told us to queue again and let her help. It took awhile and it didn’t look like it would work when we looked at her face so we got a little worried. But after a few minutes we got our boarding passes and checked in our luggage. Since my travel bag had 3 long bands on it I had to check in at the special luggage place. That guy there were so pissed and looked like he could kill someone anytime..

Fourth stage: Pass control and boarding
Went through pass control without any trouble. Waited their for a little more than 2 hours. Played a little DS and got some snack. After that, we boarded the plane. Plane took off at 14.45.

Fifth stage: Flight to France. Paris Charles De Gualle
Hrm, were nothing special here actually. The plane heading to France, airport Paris Charles De Gualle. Sparky read his book and I tried to study some japanese. Landed at 17.25.

Sixth stage: At Paris CDG
Wow. Paris CDG is huge. We thought Terminal 2F were suppose to be near Terminal 2E. But no.. it were like a maze at the pass control but very linear. Haha. Went through smoothly until we got to the metal detector thing. I forgot to check in my brand new scissor to but my hair it and he asked around the staff but decided to say that it’s forbidden to go on with it. I could if I would check it in but meh, I abaddoned it.. T__T Oh well, can always buy a new one. A little more walking. Terminal 2E gate 39 ahead. Alots of asians here now. Sat down, went to the bathroom, did some kind of a survey then boarded the plane. Plane took off at 19.20.

Seventh stage: Flight to Japan. Narita International Airport
Really long fly time. Almost 12 hours. But wow. They’ve got a little monitor on the chair in the front of you. You can watch movies, listen to some music and they even have various type of games on it that you can play. Like chess, bejeweled, pacman etc etc. The most interesting game I found were a game called Berlitz World Traveler. There are 25 different languages there you can learn through four categories and a mini-game in the end of each one. I chose to learn japanese through english. The four categories were:
Numbers: Learn from 10 – 100 and higher. End game: Numbers Invasion. Were like Space Invaders in a very easy version. A japanese number pops up and you have to shot the right ship between three.
Dates: Learn the names of the days and what the months are called. Even morning, afternoon, evening and night. End game: ”Master on the Tower” which you have to save a princess to avoid the dragon to eat her. The dragon rises up while you have to pick up keys and unlock doors. 4 keys in 4 different colors and 4 doors. Pair right key with a japanese word to the right door.
Words: Learn some useful words. End game: ”Dungeon Treasure Hunt”. He reads a japanese word and you have to pick the right chest between 4.
Dialogs: Learn some dialogs. End game: ”Talking Tree”. You play as some little of little monster and you have to jump up on different platforms to reach 3 different words on the tree. You’ll see a sentence in Japanese with missing words that you have to fill with the words on the tree.

I cleared all of them but I don’t think I really remember everything now. Haha. But it were fun.
Lots of food. Yummy ones. But had a stomachace after that since I didn’t want to go out and disturb the other two passengers... I sat next to the window and Sparky sat on the other side of the plane. Not much talking to each other during that flight. I killed to time trying to watch movies. I started five but only watched one. Tried to sleep but it were so damn hot! Couldn’t sleep at all but I may have fallen asleep and slept a little. Around 2 hours in total I guess. Caught a little cold there but went over quite fast. I woke up when I were like 4 hours left of the flight. At that time, I felt so damn disgusting. No nice hair, dirty glasses and euuuahh. Just disgusting.

Landed in Tokyo at 14.25 japanese time.

Eighth stage: At Narita International Airport
When we went into the airport, it was like walking into a muggy wall. So hot! Not only in the airport but in the whole Japan. I don’t if it’s because of this rainy weather but hot it is. Mostly paperwork on the airport. Were people everywhere to help you if you needed some help. They were next to the stairs and outside trains. That’s cool. We got our luggage and tried to figure out how to buy tickets for the Keisei Line. We asked and got help ^_^

Ninth stage: On the train and subway
Were a little confused of this thing. Were unsure if it were right but we managed to get it right. Rode the train for a little more than one hour with one transfer to our destination,Kuramae station.

Last stage: Kuramae station and the walk to the hostel
Not difficult at all. We just followed the description. Backpackers Hostel K’s House Tokyo is a very nice hostel. Not bad at all! We are going to stay here for 14 days and costs like 3400yen per night. So a total of 47600yen. Sweet price ^_^

The room is really nice too. They gave us maps and told us where we can go and watch things. There are a lot of stores, restaurants, theaters around the hostel. Everything is near.

Anyhow, we’ve reached our destination!

We grabbed some food at McDonald’s just to try it. We said before we went there so order I Japanese but it didn’t went quite well… Haha. At least we managed to get our food.

Then we headed to a convenience store and bought some snack. Even if you try to speak japanese with them you won’t be able to hear what they are saying. Speaking soooo fast!

I wrote a lot today. Will probably be shorter the other days depending on what we are doing =P

Sparky is sleeping deeply…

Updated: Note! All photos can be found on a swedish site called picture diary. You will need an account or a guestpass to enter it. So if you want to see the pictures and do not want to create an account. Send me an email and I will give it to up!
tsukiya88@gmail.com

http://tsukiya.bilddagboken.se
http://sparky.bilddagboken.se : Sparky's picture diary. Written in swedish!

Grand opening!

First post in this blog following the journey to the Land of Rising Sun, Japan.

Checking system:
Testing, testing.
System fully working.
Can start blogging any minute.
All set!
Let's roll!

Countdown: 2 days left