Tokyo and Singapore

The rest of my stay in Tokyo has been filled with a lot of walking, a lot of reading in parks, and a lot of eating delicious food. On my first outing in the big city I took the subway to Harajuku, an area full of "teeny bopper"and costume stores. I had the experience of riding the subway at rush hour (you literally get shoved onto the train and get closer to complete strangers that you ever thought possible). I had gotten up fairly early so most of the stores in Harajuku were closed so I made my way to the Meiji-jingu park home to the beautiful Meiji-jingu temple (left).



My next stop was to the the neighborhood of Ueno where I went to yet another park (I like my Japanese gardens) and visited the national museum of Tokyo. I saw some beautiful Asian art including paintings, ceramics, Kimono and of course samurai swords. To the right is a model used for acupuncture teachings from the 17th century!

The next day I spent in central Tokyo and to do central Tokyo right you have to get up early in order to get the fish market experience. This was no pikes place market. Once I surfaced from the subway I was told to just follow the scent of fish to find the market and boy did that work. I then walked through the hustle and bustle and tried not to get run over by men in rubber boots driving carts, trucks, and running from stall to stall. There were rows and rows of seafood a lot of which I had never seen before (including some of the largest tuna I had ever seen). Some of the fish/creatures were still moving in their styrofoam stalls. You will see in one of the pictures below some men cutting tuna with what looked to me like a really long sword, it was at least a two man job from what I observed.





After wandering through the market for about an hour I was ready for my breakfast...sushi. This is THE place to get sushi in Tokyo and my breakfast time of 7am was the time to get it because you get the freshest tuna possible since the sushi bar is right next to the fish market. I have never had sushi like this before, the tuna melted in my mouth it was so good!

With a full stomach of sushi I was ready to walk, and boy did I walk. The area of Ginza is known for it's shopping so I walked around there, went into the Sony building which was full of gadgets that I had never seen before. Then after lunch I went to the Kabuki theater (you know, Japanese theater where they wear a lot of make up and men play the role of women). Most plays are really long so I went for the standing room only ticket for one act. The costuming and set design was beautiful! The crowds enthusiasm was quite interesting as well. When ever one of the "super star" actors came onto stage the audience would yell out their name and clap. Fortunatley I was given an english translator which helped make sense of it all.

My last day in Tokyo I spent in the gardens of the Imperial Palace (see pictures above). As I said before I love my Japanese Gardens. That afternoon I checked out of my hostel and headed for the airport to catch my flight to Singapore.

So with my luck I was having trouble finding a hostel in Singapore due to the fact that it was hosting the Grand Prix formula one race that weekend. Since my flight got in at midnight I just decided to sleep at the airport and catch the subway into town that morning.

Before I left for Singapore my friend Carly put me in touch with one of her co-workers (Keryn) who was going to be in town. So once I checked in I gave her a call and we decided to meet up at her hotel which was conveniently walking distance from my hostel. Keryn had been to Singapore 6 months earlier so she was happy to show me around the places she enjoyed on her past visit.

We started out with getting her favorite fruit drink, soursop juice which was delicious. Then we walked through china town where we visited little shops, a Buddhist temple and a hindu temple as well. The interesting thing about Singapore is its melting pot of different cultures. You can get every kind of food and then find any kind of house of worship after if you like. In fact my hostel was just down the street from a mosque and a few blocks from a church. You can see my hostel on the left in the picture above, it's where the red umbrella's are. The picture of me was taken in a Chinese Buddhist Temple and I'm "posing" infront of the Buddha for my year of the rat (make jokes if you must).

After getting some lunch we headed back to her hotel which, thanks to Keryn's job, was a really nice place. So I took a little "vacation from my vacation" and lounged by the pool. After a surprisingly good Mexican dinner on the river (I told you you could get any kind of food here) we called it an early night and went to bed (to the sound of racing cars, they were really loud).

The next day I met up with Keryn for a "good bye breakfast" and then had to check out of my hostel to go to yet another hostel (damn you formula one racing!). I walked around the city some more and later in the afternoon got caught in my first tropical rainstorm and boy does it pour! I was completely soaked. On my way back to my hostel this 13 year old girl took pitty on my lack of an umbrella and offered to share hers. I could have cried I was so touched! I didn't want to explain to her that I kind of liked the experience of being in the rain when it's 80 degrees out so I took her up on the offer. I tried to get a picture of how soaked I was while trying to make my way home but the one below still doesn't really give my situation justice.

So here I am now, dry and showered and hungry. I think maybe tonight I'll have Indian food, no Chinese, no Mediterranean, no Australian, no Thai.....

My first meal

So I made it to Tokyo....obviously. Where to begin? Well I arrived Wednesday afternoon and after waiting in custom lines for a while finally made it out and got myself onto the keisei train headed for the Asakusa station in Tokyo.

Once I emerged from the subway I found myself in a surprisingly quiet ally crowded with bicyclists. The directions I downloaded off the internet to my hostel was like following a written treasure map. I had to go through some decorative arch ways which lead me through a market full of pastries, strange toys, and manikins dressed in kimono. Once I reached the end of that I found myself at the Senso-ji temple (see below). Then my directions had me follow the temple clockwise and cross a small foot bridge over a pond full of coie of course (also see below). Then after following the ammusment park on my right I finally found my hostel.








After settling into my room I went on a mission to find an Unagi restaurant my guide book recomended. For those who don't know, Unagi is my favorite Japanese dish so I was excited to see there was a restaurant close to my hostel that apparently had some of the best in Tokyo. Apparently when I got out on the street it was obvious I wasn't sure where exactly I was going and that's when a friendly Israeli by the name of Tom asked if I needed help. With our two heads combined and the little Japanese he spoke we finally found it at the end of an ally (there are a lot of ally's in Tokyo). Once we opened the door I was very happy I had arrived with someone who spoke a little Japanese. The place was the size of a normal sized kitchen in a house (and that's including their kitchen). It was clear they weren't used to foreigners so we got some confused looks but they made room for us at the counter and we took our seats. On the other side of the counter was an old Japanese man fanning the coals below some Unagi he was currently grilling. I was so excited by this image! This was exactly what I wanted. Then they told us (mainly with hand gestures) that the menu was behind us on the wall. Obviously I don't read Japanese and neither did Tom so we just sort of laughed follow by the rest of the people at the resaurant at our bewildered looks. Fortunately my guide book recomended what to order and with the help of some friendly counter neighbors who spoke a little english we communicated we wanted a medium sized portion of unagi over rice. Once our meal came we ordered some beer and I couldn't have been happier.


This was the perfect outing for the first day on my travels. I made a new friend, had what I thought to be an authentic Japanese culinary experience, and somehow went to bed at decent "going to bed" hour (with a 15 hour difference in time that's something to be very happy about).