Arrival in Japan; Tokyo

First of all, to explain the name of this blog-- it's from a sign we saw in a bakery above cornbread. It amused my sister and I greatly. (And yes, it reads "a [space] corns," not "acorns.")

I arrived in Japan Tuesday afternoon (here-time). The flight went really well; I had the best airplane food I've ever had, and that includes the time I got moved to first class because they messed up my original flight plan. Also there were about 12 movies playing simultaneously, and you got to pick which one you wanted to see. I saw Horton Hears a Who! and Penelope (in which Christina Ricci has a pig's snout but James McAvoy loves her anyway, and it's all about self-acceptance), and I'd recommend seeing either. Oh, and I randomly ran into a girl I knew from IMSA at the Tokyo airport-- apparently she lives here now. How weird is that?

Then we got settled in the hotel. It's really fancy-- I feel kind of out of place. It has western style toilets but with all the mechanized options, such as different bidet settings and stuff. The first time I used one it kind of startled me, leading to this exchange:
Me: "Hey Becks, what does it mean when the toilet whirs?"
Rebecca: "Aw, it just wants to be your friend."
Me: "Yeah, but I am worried that its way of making friends is to shoot water up my [rear end]."
It wasn't, for the record. You have to ask nicely to get it to do that. :p

The first evening Rebecca and I went to Roppongi, which is the nightlife district. We had soba noodles and then did karaoke for a short time, then went home because I was very tired. The next day we had a tour in the morning. We went to Tokyo Tower, the Imperial gardens, and Asakusa Temple, a big important Buddhist temple. The ashes of the Buddha are supposedly interned there. They were all pretty neat, but I wish we could have spent more time strolling the gardens, even though only a small portion of them were open to the public. We had the afternoon to ourselves and we had some difficulty figuring out what to do. We finally went to Electric City, aka Akihabara, aka the place where all the nerds go. It's mostly electronics stores and anime/manga places. We saw two girls in maid outfits and cat ears handing out flyers for a maid cafe. I also had curry at the "normal" spice level, which was delicious even if my stomach hated me later.

Today was our free day, which we had more ideas for. We saw a traditional tea ceremony, which was really neat even if the tea was super strong and I had no idea what was going on for over half of it. We got to ride the train there (before we went everywhere on the subway), which I of course loved because it's like a more modern version of the El. Then we went to Harajuku, which is the super trendy area. I wish we could have gone on a weekend, when everyone dresses up ridiculously, in Gothic Lolita and other strange styles, and there are cosplay gangs. And everyone basically just wants to pose for tourists' pictures. Ah well. We strolled through a garden in the honor of Emperor Meiji and saw another temple/shrine, and then went shopping. We of course spent way too much money; everything is so expensive in Japan! I'm hoping once we leave Tokyo things will be a little better. I wish I could have spent more time in Harajuku but we were getting tired and my feet hurt, so we headed back after stopping at McDonald's. Which probably sounds pretty lame, but 1) it was really cheap and 2) they have teriyaki burgers, which are way better than anything at McD's in the states. (Although I kind of wish I'd gotten a Happy Meal so I could have gotten a little stuffed pokemon.)

Tomorrow we are off to see Mt. Fuji and Hakone, then Kyoto the day after!