Home Sweet Home

I'm back home, which, unsurprisingly, hasn't really changed much. Although mum has seen fit to rearrange my room =P

This isn't going to be a very final post. Just a summary of what I've been doing - I'll leave pictures and other comments to come over the next couple of days/weeks.

So, my last post was from Kamakura, which was a fairly nice place. I stayed in the New Kamakura Hotel btw, and I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who happens to be in Kamakura looking for accommodation which is relatively cheap.

So Kamakura is a fairly nice place, but I took a train back to Tokyo on Friday. Dropped my stuff off at the Capsule Hotel I was staying and, and then made a trip to the Sumo Stadium to have a look at the tri-annual (or whatever three times a year is) sumo tournament. I expected it to be sold out, but there were still a fair few seats left, so I bought mine for $36 (ouch) and got a seat three rows from the back. Wasn't that great a seat, but it was good enough for me to check out the sumos.

It was pretty cool. Lots of tradition involved, and yet you could tell that they were seasoned professionals. It's weird, in these tournaments, each wrestler gets one match a day (the tournaments last 15 days), and that's it. The matches are often over in 10-20 seconds. There's a lot of psyching out going on - usually far longer than the match itself. There's lots of salt-throwing (it 'purifies' the ring), which some of the wrestlers do aggressively - something the crowd definitely appreciates.

But yeah, definitely a good experience.

Friday night I stayed in a capsule hotel. I've got to say, that I was a little disappointed. I stayed in the Capsule Inn Akihabara (I think that's what it was called), and although I did get a capsule, it wasn't nearly as techy as I'd imagined. Private tv and radio - but both pretty old. It was ok, but nothing spectacular - I think there were better ones out there (but were more expensive).

The capsule was more expensive than the hostel, but I wanted to stay in one, so it was worth it. And it's a good experience, although if anyone is wanting to stay at this particular one (I'm not sure if its the same for other ones), I suggest you take a shower at night unless walking naked into a room full of naked men is your thing (there were far more people there in the morning).

Saturday I went to Disneyland, which was kinda cool. Got there at 7:15 (the park opened at 8:30) to meet Kaori and line up for a while. We went on most of the rides, and stayed there until an hour or so before closing time. It was Disneyland *shrugs* I was more impressed by the Hong Kong one, because they had a few more extra 'details' (the bins were more themed, etc) but it is newer, so I guess that's to be expected.

The fireworks were a bit of a disappointment though - I think it was a shortened version because it was too windy. As was not knowing what they were saying in half the rides. It's weird that they choose to do maybe 75% Japanese and 25% English on all the stuff.

It seems to be a thing in Japan. There's a fair bit of English around places, but (of course) a lot more Japanese. One weird things is a lot of the signs have English headings, and Japanese bodies. So I know that the sign was "Information," but had no idea what it actually said. It makes you wonder who that actually benefits...

Anyways, Sunday I went to Harajuku, and looked at a bunch of cosplay people on a bridge. Lonely Planet made it out to be a fair bit bigger than it actually was, but it was still kinda cool, and very Japanese. Lots of girls in particular dressing up, a kinda weird man that just wanted attention I guess, and a little 'magic' puppet thing that you could buy which "magically" responded to your commands such as "Jump" or "Lie Down." I walked through a garden and a temple (it was definitely the wrong season for garden-going), and browsed around a fair bit.

Speaking of the Lonely Planet Guide - it was probably the best purchase I made all trip. I didn't but the big "Japan" one, only a small one called "Tokyo Encounter" which had heaps of things to do in and around Tokyo. It didn't include accommodation, and the restaurants were all a bit of out of my league, but it was great for finding things to do in the area.

Anyways, the other cool thing which happens on Sundays was in a park right next door. Yoyogi-Koen is a massive park, where people gather to do things. What kind of things? Well, a lot of punk-rock garage kinda bands. A LOT of them. They set up on a footpath, or just off it, next to the road. They bring full drum kits, speaker sets, microphones, and a generator to power it all, and just perform there on the sidewalk. They've got people walking infront of them, and cars driving behind them. They're not busking or asking for money (some had merchandise and CDs for sale, but that's it), and they just performed.

It was really cool. There were also other things inside the park, martial arts people, people in a circle dancing and singing, conga drums, tap dancers, jugglers and other circus acts, as well as the normal things in a park, lots of dogs, ball games and stuff. It was really cool. Definitely a must-do while you're in Japan on a Sunday.

And then I walked down to some shops, which were kinda cool, but just shops in the end (Jean's gonna kill me) and not really that much else.

Monday I planned to go to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, and then to the Toyota Amlux thing, but both were closed. As was the Imperial Palace East Gardens (the only part open to the public at all). So I ended up walking up and down Ginza (spiffy shopping mall) and Akihabara - which is the electronics centre.

It's a really Japanese (or what I perceive to be Japanese) kinda place. Lots and lots and lots of manga around. Lots of girls outside dressed as maids inviting you to cafes which have waitresses dressed as maids (at least I think that's what they were... from reading Lonely Planet). It was disturbing the amount of Hentai which was so openly displayed though. They have hentai absolutely everywhere. They have, of course, the books and the movies, then they've got models/figurines which can be divided up into softcore and hardcore varieties.

The strangest thing I thought though, was the trading cards. Who would trade them? Do you think 20-40 year old men get together once a week in a basement somewhere and trade the cards? What use are they? They were everywhere though. Kinda disturbing.

There's also a heap of electronics places around. Lots of cameras, laptops, phones for sale. Heaps and heaps of stuff. The prices were reasonable, but not heaps better than other places - stuff in the US was actually cheaper.

I bought a cool webcam which I've just set up. It follows your faces around on its little stand. It's really cool but completely unnecessary. =P

Tuesday I woke up at 5am to get to the Fish Markets. There was a lot of dead fish, and it was pretty cool - absolutely huge, I spent over an hour just looking at all the fish and stuff. I also had a $21 sushi breakfast near the markets, which was 7 pieces of sushi and 2 small rolls. It was good though - although I wasn't really full afterwards. It was, however, the cheapest sushi breakfast in the area.

I also did the things I planned to do on Monday. Edo-Tokyo was pretty good - learnt a lot about stuff. The displays had plenty of English on them - although there were a lot of spelling mistakes and typos, as well as bad grammar and stuff everywhere. The Toyota thing was just a showroom really, with a couple of virtual reality things thrown in - nothing special.

And Wednesday was the day I left. Visited the Imperial Palace East Gardens in the morning - which were quite impressive but again, just gardens. Then I went shopping again - along Ginza and to Akihabara (where I bought that webcam). Then I did my trek back to the hostel to pick up my baggage, and then to the airport. Spent a while at the airport, etc. The flights were pretty good, even though I missed my flight out of Sydney due to a change of schedule and a stupidly long customs line.

And that's the end of my trip. It was definitely most awesome. I shall post more about it later though =)