So since Japan was our last port I decided that it was absolutely necessary to go all out, balls to the walls, in Japan. And this is exactly what Megan and I did. I really don’t even know where to begin…I suppose I will start with our journeys in Tokyo since that is where we went first. Immediately after getting off of the ship Megan and I went to the train station, got a bunch of train tickets, and set off to Tokyo. We met my elementary school friend Saki (who goes to school in Japan) and her boyfriend there who showed us around Shibuya (a district in Tokyo). We wandered around, found some great stores, ate some delicious Japanese food, and of course karaoked. Celine Dion would have been proud. I did her “My Heart will go on” some serious justice. Hanson would be proud too…”MMM Bop” was another success. After our exhausting first day in Japan Megan and I were ready for bed. And since we were over paying $30 a night for a hostel, we decided, what the heck, lets sleep in the internet café (which is completely acceptable to do in Japan). You get your own little cubical for the evening for a mere $10. It comes fully equipped with a computer and high speed internet, a t.v., a dvd player and a library full of dvds, comic books to read, and reclining chair. The internet café also provided us with free drinks (tea, coffee, hot chocolate, juices, and other fun treats), showers, and warming toilet seats. Oh yes, this internet café was high quality. I wouldn’t have exchanged this place for a hostel any day. In fact, we stayed there on three occasions. Day two in Tokyo we went to Tokyo Disneyland and hung out with Mickey Mouse. Oh yes we did. It was fantastic. Day three we took a train down to Hiroshima with a little stop on the way down to see Fuji-San. We were to stop at Odawara (the place that the Japan guide indicated we should get off for Mt. Fuji) for about 30 minutes so we could take pictures and what not. As we approached the station we could see Mt. Fuji almost perfectly, but as we got closer and closer to the station another mountain slowly covered up Mt. Fuji. So, we ended up only seeing it from the train window and that was about it. But that is ok, because we still saw it. Then we continued on to Hiroshima to see the Peace Park, A- bomb Dome, and the Peace Museum. I definitely spent a good 2 and a half hours in the museum. It was so well done. The next day we made our way up to Kyoto, where we saw some amazing Shinto and Buddhist shrines and temples. At one temple there was even a Buddhist service going on that we watched for a bit. These were the main places that Megan and I were planning on visiting in Japan until our plans changed…
J-Indie Rules!
And this is why our plans changed…Megan and I had stumbled across a Tower Records in Tokyo and decided that it was necessary to check out the whole floor dedicated to Japanese indie rock (or J-Indie). We stayed there for a long time listening to some bands and rocking out and then finally made a few cd purchases. I decided to open up one of the cd’s, “Enie Meenie”, to look at the inside sleeve, and I realized that they had a concert that night. Recognizing that it was still possible to somehow get to this show, Megan and I looked at each other, smiled recognizing that we both had the same thoughts, and decided that it was absolutely necessary to go. We immediately began making plans on how to get there. Not knowing anything about anything, we showed the paper with the address on it to the lady at the ticket window at the train station, she gave us tickets to the city, which was about an hour and a half away, and we were on our way. We arrived in Shibuza and began wandering around asking people where the “Wave” (the concert venue) was. This was great fun since we speak no Japanese and there was definitely no English speaking in this suburbian town. So there was a lot of pointing and us trying to use our Japanese language book to our best ability. We eventually found out that we were in the wrong city. Great. Thank you lady at the train station for sending us to the wrong city. So we hurried back to the train station, got another ticket to another town about an hour away, and continued our adventure trying to find the Wave and Enie Meenie. Once we got to this new town we had to take a subway from the train station to get to the main part of the city. We then began wandering the streets for a second time asking people and pointing yet again to find out where the Wave was. After asking about 10 different people and walking around for an hour or so we finally found our destination, the Wave. So very exciting. We walked inside the tiny building with about 50 Japanese scene kids (you know, the tight pants, converse shoes, big/shaggy hair) and began rocking out to our Japanese indie rock bands. It was fantastic. I love my Japanese indie kids. It was well worth the half day of travel to get there. And to make the story even better, it was kind of late after the show and there were no trains back to Kobe. Thinking that we weren’t in the mood to sleep in the train station that evening and that we were almost already up to Tokyo, we decided that we would just get a ticket to Tokyo and go to our beautiful internet café just one more time. So we set off to Tokyo again. And that was that.
Check out enie meenie’s website→
www.eniemeenie.com
Listen to enie meenie→
www.purevolume.com/eniemeenie
p.s. the pictures are of Megan and I at Disneyland and of my home in Japan- my cubical in the internet cafe
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