Tokyo Town backtrack

After a very long flight we (Lauren, Shannon and I) arrived in Narita International Airport in Japan. We took an express train to Itshburka where we proceeded to get lost trying to find our hotel. Why would we think that anything would be in English? We were looking for Sunshine Street, how difficult is that? Apparently for three American woman, very! We finally found our street and then our hotel. Talk about small. There were three twin size beds crammed in a small little cube of a room and the bathroom was compact to say the least - I wish I would have taken pictures to show.

Anyways we got settled, refreshed and decided to venture out and find some dinner. Ah dinner...starvation has set in, airplane food not so good. We wander from place to place staring at plastic pieces of food and finally decide on a small little corner joint that looked halfway decent. We walk in an are immediately greeted by this petite older woman saying "Konnichiwa". We get seated and are given these hot wet washcloth towels to clean our hands with followed by menus (which are all in Japanese). HA! The hostess woman speaks all of 5 English words none of which helped us order our dinner. Please take a moment and just imagine three American women miming what we would like to eat...and one of them making charades of "NO SEAFOOD" <---guess who that one was? We ended up with some egg dish (in one of the pictures)...oh and as you can see we had no problem ordering beer! And I somehow lucked out by getting some chicken noodle soup (in another picture). But the best part of the night was when we were leaving and the entire staff screams out "oyasumi nasai" meaning goodnight. It was at that moment when it hit me, Heidi you are not in Chicago anymore...you my dear are in Tokyo Japan...how fun!

The next morning since we are jet legged and awake at 5am we decide to head out to the Tsukiji fish market. This fish market is the largest in the world and in the '1000 places to see before you die book'. In order to get there we have to take the Tokyo subway system...lets just say "OYE"!!!! Fine we get there with minimal headaches. We weave in and out of the vendors and try to stay out of the way. Lauren and Shannon try free samples of fish. At one point they stopped and starred at this huge piece of tuna....from where I was standing it looked like a red raw piece of bloody fish. They both take bites and immediately tell me I have to try it. HA HA HA -guess they don't know me? Then Shannon has to say to me that "we are in the world's most famous fish market where this is the freshest fish in the world" dang you got me there. But um no. Just a tiny piece they protest and I cave. YES I gave in. I took the moment and seized it. Now it was a minuscule piece but it was raw tuna nonetheless...you can see from the picture how nervous I was to eat it. I thought I was going to gag! Perhaps its all mental and I will never eat it again but at least I tried raw tuna at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo Japan! 2 gold stars and a pat on the back for me!

From there we walk to the Hamarikyu Gardens...where you stroll through beautiful greenery and a sense of tranquility comes over you...that is until you go to the bathroom...umm it was a toilet in the ground. Now I would vote that I am an expert squatter from all those port-a-potty visits at festivals and my squatting during camping trips but this was just weird. But then back to the gorgeous scenery and the hole in the ground...what hole in the ground?

We continue on subway and all to Asakusa. A popular tourist spot. Where we walk through the Kaminari Gate, enter the Sensoji Temple, see the 5 story Pagoda, and walk the Nakamise shopping street. And guess what??? Its not even 1pm yet!!! We need a beer or two!

We make our way to a part of town called Shibuya and are in awe of the tide of people at 2 in the afternoon. This intersection has to be the busiest in the world, it was insane. We stand in amazement for a while watching the ebb and flow of this massive amount of people...where do they all come from? From Shibuya we head to Shinjuku for more walking, beer, sake and dinner. We walk, we drink, we ate...then we needed to sleep. We called it a night!

The next day we once again get up way too early and decide to walk around some more. We head back to Shinjuku and walk around during the daylight. We sneak up top of one of the "skyscrapers" to get an overview picture of Tokyo. I am not going to lie...I wanted to know if we could see Mt. Fuji from a tall building. But on this day the weather was too foggy and alas there was no sighting.

We head back to our hotel gather our belongings as we need to hightail it to the airport for our 2nd leg of this venture...the real reason we are out here...BANGKOK THAILAND!!! We get to the airport with time to spare. Lauren and Shannon want to head to a sushi restaurant one more time before we leave Tokyo...They order several kinds of sushi and once again try to convince me to try a piece. HA HA HA... okay fine the Narita rolls (conveniently named after the airport) has cucumber, wasabi, seaweed wrap, rice, little orange fish eggs, and shrimp. I agree to try it if they take out the shrimp...I dunk in soy sauce and eat. Once again I am not liking what I am eating. Look at that, twice in two days I tried raw something or another. And still I don't like it! But go me, A for effort!

Oh...p.s. Did you know that Tokyo is a candidate city for the 2016 Olympics just like Chicago?