Japan Day 10- Tokyo

 Bullet Train. The name just sounds cool doesn't it? (Maybe I'm biased with balltrain as a lifelong nickname). The big-time trains I've been on in Europe and now from Hiroshima to Tokyo are significantly more comfortable of an experience than an airplane flight. It doesn't seem like there is that much more space but I must be wrong about something because the seats are larger and of course the legroom much better. I'm truly surprised we don't have a more significant train system in the US (understood that big cities have subways and east coast does have some stuff). I looked it up and these run around 200 MPH at top speed. Super smooth. 

Our guides woke up early and were there to see us off at the hotel. We hit the Hiroshima train station and were officially on our own. The train from Hiroshima to Tokyo is ~4 hours so plenty of time to cozy up and finish my book. 

Tokyo Station- the chaos has arrived. Wow there are a ton of people. And I believe this wasn't even a busy day since it was a Sunday afternoon not a commuting workday. We stayed at the Tokyo Station Courtyard which was just a few blocks away from the train station. As we check in I am notified that I will have an upcharge for having a second guest with me even though the room I had reserved was a double bed. Apparently this is becoming a thing now where they are looking for accuracy on the "number of guests" in your room as well. Don't worry the room was a closet. Nice room but excluding the tatami mat lodging experiences it was the smallest room of our trip. 

We went back to the station to find ourselves some ramen for lunch. There is basically these large underground tunnels that function like malls is the best way I can explain it. We were in a restaurant tunnel and it had all types of food offerings and a ton of noodle/ramen offerings. It was a bit chaotic there are a ton of people, lots of lines, and we didn't know what we were supposed to do. Of course we're big kids we did figure it out. You purchase your meal at a vending machine (of course!). The machine prints out little tickets of what you've purchased. You then proceed to stand in a line and when tables open up the host seats you, takes your tickets, and delivers your food. We had to sit separated too busy of a restaurant. We were along a wall and just crammed in next to each other you could have a stranger basically bumping elbows while you're both trying to eat. They had a box of chopsticks, pitchers of waters and cups, everything re-usable. The ramen? Delicious! I got a spicy version which I was a bit nervous up front but figured the spice would bury the taste if I encountered anything I didn't like since I really didn't know what I had ordered. One item I noticed immediately is that the ramen noodles themselves are different than the noodles we buy here at home. They were thicker noodles. The other stuff like the sprouts, boiled egg, etc. I've had eating at ramen restaurants here at home. Fun experience. 

We found a tour bus nearby it was a Japanese based tour bus but we figured what the heck and they gave us an English translation recording. This recording proceeded to not really work for any of us so basically we rode around listening to the tour guide in Japanese and see the city. I admit this tour took us around. . . took about an hour. . . and I thought we had basically seen the major city points. I clearly had no concept of the magnitude of Tokyo until the next day. 

Our hotel/Tokyo station is located in what is called the "Ginza" District. This is the high end district of Tokyo. We went over to the Nike store (we were looking for "Nike Tokyo" style merchandise. . . I get most Japanese probably aren't looking to buy "Nike Tokyo" stuff but still surprised they didn't really have anything like that other than a couple t-shirts that I was too fat for). Really cool area and they shut down some of the major streets on Sundays to allow for all the extra walking traffic. 

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We passed by the Tag Heuer store. . . Mike has a Tag that I had been commenting on all trip. Super cool watch and is a smartwatch to boot so has all the smartwatch items (steps, heart rate, and swimming option are all I really care about. I don' t love notifications/texts popping up on my watch). I will admit I thought a nice watch like that would cost upwards of $1,000. I was in full "vacation Brandon" mode of course which is quite the detachment from normal life Brandon that goes to Maverik instead of Holiday for my daily soda because I can save 30 cents on my refill. Vacation Brandon has basically become "if the card clears, then whatever" and I blame having a wife and 4 kids for that. Well I learned the actual price of a Tag watch and "extreme normal life Brandon" mode came slamming back into clarity. I gave the salesman a nice English curse word and exited stage left. 

As we walked through this Ginza district we found a Kimono shop and walked in. Our gameplan all trip long had been to purchase Kimonos and wear them out for an evening of karaoke! We learned during the trip that what we were really looking for was a "yukata" which is a more casual kimono. Proper Kimono's are very ceremonial with extra nice fabric and other extravagances'. Anyway I have to laugh in retrospect this shop was super small and we clearly caught the owner and his worker (i imagine his son. . . guy in his ~60's with a guy in his ~30's) off guard even coming into their store. We were typically Americans combing through all their inventory trying to find colors we liked and sizes that fit. The worker guy was clearly unhappy. I think our thinking was "dude we're about to buy 6 outfits from you this should be a home run!" We had some cans/bottles (as per usual no garbages anywhere) and they refused to take them. All in all not a great customer service experience but we all found yukatas that we liked and got our full outfits. We needed them for this exact night so none of us really felt like we were going to go shop elsewhere. . . this was the shop. It worked out we were all commenting on it outside the store. 

We had made a reservation at an Indian restaurant this evening. Annam Indian we had our own little booth with curtains that closed it off. Super tight but kind of fun with complete privacy. The food was delicious. We had some rain this evening. Thinking back we really lucked out on our weather it was a nominal issue for the trip. Had we received major rain on some of those middle days it would've been a major inconvenience!

 

Karaoke in Japan is apparently a big deal. There are tons of locations and these Karaoke shops are not a big open bar with a single mic and stage (what I picture when I think of karaoke). They are individual rooms that serve all types of food and drinks while you sing your heart out but in the privacy of your own group. You honestly just have to accept in your soul that you're going all out. Walking down the halls of this place if you peeked in the doors you saw some other small groups like ours and we even saw just two people sitting at the table singing along to the songs. All the options are on the table. We started with I think the minimum-required 90 minute reservation to test the waters and see how it went. We ended up staying for like 3 1/2 hours the songs weren't going to sing themselves!

Lessons on karaoke. . . the key is to sing the song instead of trying to follow along to the prompts on the screen. The prompts on the screen are inevitably behind the actual timing of the song. The songs-at least at this karaoke bar- also had ALL the words on the screen- background lyrics, etc. so you had to distinguish what exactly you were singing. It's of course helpful to see the words- I think many of us think we know the words to songs until we're up on stage singing and suddenly the words become fuzzy and certainly the verses are harder to remember than when you're singing along in your car. Also there was no actual background singing of the song- you weren't singing along with the song you were the lone singer of the song so you had to keep the timing down. 

Started off strong with "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Rachel's choice for me to sing). The group ended up singing all types of songs. Footloose, Power of Love, an epic rendition of Gangsters Paradise by Rachetrain. Plenty of good 90's classic rap songs like Jermaine Dupri, Jay-Z, Eminem, and some country options to boot like Morgan Wallen. The catalog was pretty extensive I'd say for the most part if it's a recognized hit they had it in the catalog. The tempo of the song was generally a bit fast but it was there available to sing. The background to all the songs felt like 90's music videos. 

I had been thinking basically the entire trip leading up to this night if I had a song that could really bring the house down. That would generally mean something with an epic chorus but also had to be something that I really knew myself. Something that I sing along to in the car every time it comes on the radio. Of course the crew was expecting me to select a Britney song she is after all one of my favorites. But I knew I had a curveball. "Hit Me Baby One More Time" would've been too easy of a call. I was considering "I Was Born to Make You Happy" which is actually my personal favorite song off that first album. Within the Britney catalog there are probably at least 5 songs I think-with the help of karaoke leading the lyrics for me, especially the verses- I could pull off and keep timing on. But I knew one had the most catchy chorus because it's a bit of a tongue twister and you really have to stay on it. That song? "Womanizer". I snuck it into the queue and when I got up for my turn I sensed some general surprise since it was Britney but not the song they expected. It was better. Turn it on and sing along! I was honestly running out of breath trying to keep up on all the vocal overlays but nailed the timing! The best part is I can claim all I want about anything I caught everyone in a surprise such that nobody took any video. Don't worry I'm sure I was perfectly in tune for this song. 

Mic drop (not really). Boom. Exit stage left. Epic night I'll look forward to my next karaoke opportunity! 

Japan Day 9- Miyajima (Last Day with Nat Geo Tour Group)

 Started the morning with our final presentation from James our Nat Geo photographer. I really wish I would've taken more notes on these they were so fascinating but my memory is now failing me a bit. This entire trip feels like a dream at this point the details are starting to slip already! I want to say in today's lecture we saw these incredible pictures of the Japan countryside during winter as well as pictures of Antarctica. He described the Antarctica experience as basically visiting another planet. Also down there nationalities melt away you're all helping each other with survival needs whether you're Russian, Japanese, American, doesn't matter humanity and help is essential to survival. Great message there. A big takeaway from these is you can find so much human interest in developing countries and these people that take on the risks of visiting in person to share it to the world are incredible. 

We hopped on a short ferry just outside Hiroshima to an island called Miyajima and spent basically the entire day there. This island had one of the most stunning visuals of the trip with a large Torii Gate in the water leading up to the island that had the appearance with the tides of a "floating torii gate".  Behind the Torii Gate is the Itsukushima Shrine which was a Shinto Temple that was also cool to walk through. 

A unique thing getting off the ferry was they made this big announcement about deer and how you should keep a hold of your belongings because the deer would eat all your stuff. I didn't really register what they were saying it basically seemed like "oh some deer that are used to people will be somewhere on this island". No that is not what they meant. What they meant was a crap-ton of mini-deer are roaming around everywhere and they'll literally try to snatch crap out of your hand if you're not paying attention. They weren't really aggressive you could pet them (I didn't but plenty of people were petting them all over) but they'd certainly make a pass at trying to snag your food or even map/paper, etc. One of our group got snagged and had a tug of war with the deer on their map. They finally let the deer win. Our guide Junko-san proceeded to go after the deer and show that deer what's up! Haha she ripped it away. Understandably she commented it's bad for their stomachs. They were pretty small only a few feet tall. 

We had a couple hours of free time after the initial Torri Gate and Shrine so we walked up the hill which has several other shrines and temples. This Island in general was like a temple museum there were so many various temples and shrines. A couple in particular were pretty awesome. The one below was a room with rows of statues and a recording of monks chanting it was probably my favorite from this island. 

We walked down into the market along the beachfront and had lunch. The market had all types of offerings but we basically found some chicken nuggets on a kabob and a potato on a kabob and had that. We also found some little pastries that were like maple leaves but filled with custard. There was one flavored apple custard and it tasted like you were eating an apple flavored hi-chew. They were super delicious we bought a few rounds of those at lunch then in the afternoon before we left. 

We found a little store in the marketplace that sold chopsticks with engravings on them. We got these are one of our souvenirs for our kids they put their name on on stick and their Japanese character name on the other stick. Very cool! 

In the afternoon we walked back up the hill to a meeting point where we had a special Tea Ceremony. We entered into a tatami floor room and the presenter went through a very elaborate ritual it was quite impressive. Her partner went around the room saluting us all and we would bow. . .my understanding was this is based on old Samurai culture the men would bow with their hands on the floor as if they were clutching samurai sords and the women would place their hands in front of them flat as they bowed. You would accept the bowl of tea and turn the bowl a bit clockwise, hold it up and smell it and then sip it. You would then wipe off the front of the bowl to indicate you were finished when you placed it back on the mat and rotate the bowl back to its original position. It was very interesting and unique. The tea itself reminded me of terere in Paraguay here in Japan its called matcha. Basically pretend you've mashed up a bunch of grass and boiled it in water and that is what the tea tastes like to me. I bring up Paraguay because I recall down there I developed a taste for it and really liked it. Now not being used to it I admit it was basically dirt and grass tasting but I did love the ceremony and finished the tea. They had some Samurai warrior outfits and a nice 5-story pagoda tower right outside their window. Cool location. This was a beautiful island I really believe I'll be able to picture that huge red Torii Gate forever. 

We arrived back at our hotel. .  I wrote about this yesterday so insert my Gold's gym experience here! 😂. 

We then went to our final "Farewell Dinner" at a place called the Hanbe Garden Restaurant. The garden behind this restaurant felt like walking through a movie set or something. It was honestly incredible! There is a line in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves from Morgan Freeman where he says "In my dreams alone have I imagined such a place" and I'd say that about this garden. Pics unfortunately aren't doing it justice but it was immaculate. 

Fun evening and I think we all ate a little better knowing it was likely our final traditional Japanese style meal. The fish here was actually really good and the meal overall was great. We stayed a bit long taking pictures with everyone and saying our goodbyes. I think pretty much everyone on the group had either done Tokyo before the trip (most of the group) or were adding it on like our little group. 

Such an interesting experience you are thrown together with multiple strangers for 10 days straight and then suddenly say goodbye as well, quite possibly forever. Rachel and I have been on Truss trips before were we are getting to know people throughout the week and our little group of course got to know everybody else as well throughout this trip. Tons of fun people with distinct backgrounds from all across the US and even a couple from Australia. Sad to say goodbye at the end.