Wanderlust V2 - Japan & Beyond

I guess I should continue with my story. Basically we left off at the airport. We bought our Suicas, without NEX tickets( the NEX wasn’t running when we got there). Suicas are cards for the train, subway, some buses, vending machines, and some stores. They are extremely seductive in that you could waste all your traveling fare on vending machines alone. If you thought a credit card was bad, you can simply chose and swipe and your item pops out! Anyways we took the Keisei and the Yamanote toward Ueno, which is close to Iriya. There we found our little haven called Toco Hertiage Hostel. I wrote a little about it, basically 3 friends renovated a 90yr old house to be a hostel. It’s complete with creaky wooden floor boards, veranda that overlooks a garden with a mini hill ( with rocks from Mt.Fuji), and my beloved little butoh (pig) mosquito repellent holder. I squealed with delight, in which Aoi got confused and assured me there were not mosquitoes at this time. I had to explain that I loved that little holder because it was very ‘Japanese.’ He looked surprised but understood then. For some reason it’s not really kimonos or things like that, but ceramic bells, butoh repellent holders, old style paper doors, and plants that roam odd walls and street corners. J was surprised in our many walks through the neighborhoods at the odd little surprises you could find. Fish in plant potters and all the plants within the city.




Anyways I digress! I love Toco because it’s like getting a kind of Ryokan experience but less orderly. We also got breakfast from the den mother of Toco for 300 yen. It was warm and tastey, mostly consisting of miso soup, rice ball, onigiri, and hot green tea. I loved Toco. I feel like if I go again I want to stay there the whole time. Not to say I didn’t enjoy T-tower guesthouse. T-tower was cheaper for 2 people to stay, besides a 10000 yen deposit.

I can’t remember den mother’s name. She’s actually a gentle young soul who sports an almost art bohemian style with scarfs around her head and flowy earth colored dresses that grace her ankles. She is one of the 3 friends who made Toco. I liked instantly and talked with her a few times. We talked about the Earthquake, with a capital “E.” Also about the nuclear plant. She was kind of surprised that people wouldn’t come to Tokyo because it wasn’t happening there. I liked that she was a very grounded person about this stuff. I think people were quite divided on what they felt and believed. I met another Japanese lady and she was quite afraid of the nuclear happenings.. So I think there is just general caution. Also some foreigners said that they felt the city was oppressed and serious. While others felt it was fine as they could be in moving on. I felt that Japanese are pretty amazing and pretty much continue as normally as possible… Even with lights turned off or escalators not running, I didn’t feel an oppressed atmosphere… I think at one point people understand we are at the mercy of nature. And that to survive and to have survived, we developed a skill to deal with what problems come our way. The less adapative a person is, the more likely they are not going to survive when bad things happen to them. Something like that.



Well more about Toco! It’s pretty artsy and quiet. It’s in Taito-ku, which is a blue collared area and often touted to have lots of homeless. Honestly last trip and this I stayed in Taito-ku. I had seen maybe 2-3 total in both trips. They never bothered me and I didn’t feel fearful of them. It could be that I’m used to our homeless, whom would attack people and make being homeless a career choice. Also we left our unsecured belongings in our room and nothing gotten messed with or taken. Japan is pretty safe in this manner. And you’ll find a lot of people still out and about late at night. I would mention that there are paper walls in Toco, so sometimes it felt like we were sleeping with the people next door since they sounded so very close to us! J had ear plugs and I had my hard sleeping manner, so we didn’t suffer too much. J did have a problem with sleeping on the floor, even after Den mother brought her an extra mat. I did like the bedding at Toco, huge lovely comforters and fairly fluffly futons, as well as extra warming blankets. I was quite comfortable since I have floor sleeping experience. I used to have a hard buckwheat pillow that was a cylindrical shape. My dad swears it has dented my head.

Toco also had a few of the nubby tailed cats and 3 koi in a tiny pond. Their toilets are modern and superb. And they have shower rooms. I think it was a good idea not just because of space but because I’ve seen Japanese style baths shut down because foreigners tend not to take a shower before getting in, and pretty much making a mess of baths that aren’t monitored. Not saying all foreigners, but it’s been enough that the baths in smaller places get shut down ( not sentos).

I digress way too much haha. Well we had the twin room, which was sandwiched between the triple and the mixed dorm. It was fairly empty due to so many cancellations. I suggest trying to reserve a month ahead time, maybe more? Their website has a calendar to see what rooms are open, so I’d check that out. At first we could only get 2 days and then after earthquake, we could get the twin privated for more than 2 days. We already made plans at T-towers so we had to stop our stay at 2 days.

At the Combini near Toco!!

Our first day we just cooled our heals because it was already late afternoon, heading into evening. We left our door wide open so we could enjoy the lovely garden view and check our email/contact family. I met Cosette for the first time and Clover. Cosette is my doll that J helped me get and Clover is J’s doll. Its funny, lots of things I may not have liked before, I’m oddly getting into now. I’m not such a big doll person, I always loved horses and such. But Cosette is something special. She is Korea in Origin and ball jointed. Even her torso moves. She is hand sculpted and customizeable. She is unusually tiny but detailed and not baby doll like at all. That’s the short of it. She’s really a work of art and made of resin. I adore her. Well that’s all for now! I think our first adventure starts with Akihabara.. more next time!

So I noticed there were issues with commenting, a few people said. I fixed it with this simple template. I like how pretty the last layout was, but it wasn't worth not getting any feedback or knowing anyone got anything out of what I posted. So I parred it down and this one appears to be working as far as comments.. I'll be changing it up. But I'll make sure comments work. Please let me know if anything else ends up not working.. :) Thanks!

Appears to be up and running. Plus I added a few of my own touches, the cherry blossoms added were photoed on my trip and the pig mosquito repellent holder was from Toco :) BUTOH ( PIG) teehee

So we left off with pre-trip planning! Well of course you know we decided to go... After much debating after the smaller earthquake aftershock, we took the leap. Our planes left around 3-4 am on Tuesday April 29th prospectively. I had checked my seat assignments and every time, the digital schematic assured me I had both seats to myself on the long flight. From Tucson to Texas, it was a short fast jaunt in which my mind blanked out ( possibly napped) and I raced to my next flight. Amazingly I only had about 20 mins to get to the next plane. The airport map made the airport look like a hop-skip and a jump. Truthfully I began running and like a hallway in a nightmare, I found myself never getting any closer to my destination. I thougth I would surely miss the flight and leave J in a panic when I didn't show up at our appointed times ( mine being about 50 mins ahead in arrival). This spurred me to be more hasty. I actually managed to stop my panic long enough to ask if I was nearing my gate. Answer: not even close! I need to take the airport tram and it would be 10-12mins. Before the airport volunteer finished giving me directions, my feet began to propel me, barely letting me say a hasty " Thank you."

I did manage to make it to my flight all in a hot mess. Unfortunately the empty seat next to me.. was filled to max capacity by a rather robust gentleman, who took several minutes to disengage from his seat to allow me into my seat by the window. To his credit he was kindly and proceeded to explain he was with his church group was bringing supplies to Sendai. Unfortunately it did nothing to ease the  discomfort of the trip. I reflected that the painfully thin people in the 3 rows behind me had the row to themselves, while the two full sized folk were smashed together. I had to admit was some kind of horrible irony. This would all of been more bearable if my companion also hadn't had some strangeness to himself. One being wearing sunglasses even in the dark ( so I couldn't tell if I was waking him or not) and the other being that he drank enough to water a herd of elephants but never seem to need to use the facilities. I waited until my eyes began to water before I finally bothered him to use the facilities myself. Each time I asked he started the whole process of disengagement from the seat and I felt terribly guilty causing such inconvenience. Not to mention he always sat down during the wait and I had to watch the getting out of seat process twice for one break( and didn't get a chance to stretch because he'd start getting out of the seat as I got out of the restroom). All that aside he was a very congenial fellow who gave me his bread and salad because he disliked 'rabbit food.' And was never plaintive when I did need to use the restroom. I think I manage to par my restroom breaks for a 12-13 hours to 2-3.

The flight left me nauseous in general. I'm not going to blame it on my row mate. Could of been the close quarters, the food, motion sickness.. who knows.. I luckily did not feel it on the way back. That's another story though. I nearly skipped out of the airplane in happiness not to be trapped in my seat anymore! My flights were all booked on American Airlines. They didn't do a bad job. Their planes for long trips are equipped with personal entertainment systems on the back of every seat, that have a touch screen that requires a bit of a jab. The only complaint is probably that the movies are the same on the way there and back. I ended up watching Burlesque probably about 3 times? I love the dancing and such of it... I definitely need to see at least one real burlesque show one day, not to be confused with a two bit strip club. I want the singing and dancing and a real show!

So I waited in the common area where everyone was waiting for arrivals at. I had thought of staying near the carousels where I got my baggage but felt this would illicit questions and suspicion. After quite a bit of waiting I realized I should double check arrivals in case her plane was delayed.. and upon that I discovered that Air China was not even in my terminal but in terminal 1 with all the domestic flights! I raced to Terminal 1 by calmly ( though my insides were teeming) getting on a bus that took me to that terminal. I stood instead of sitting and was facing a bank of seats that were filled with a Japanese family. When we turned a particularly sharp corner, the baggage facing that row of seats, threaten to jump the rail, in which we all shouted in alarm. It was for nothing because the baggage were safely corralled by good design. We all giggled, even the gentleman, suddenly bonded by our near baggage stampede experience. I remember this because there need not be words exchanged to know what everyone had thought in that moment.

In Terminal 1 I wandered about and saw that J's flight arrived early. I was still before it, so I made myself comfortable to wait. After a fashion, I didn't see one foreigner come through that was blonde and blue eyed. A small trill of panic weeded itself into my stomach. I wandered back and forth to get every angle of the arrivals, which was punctuated by a large square pillar. Finally I walked over to the info desk to call J on the intercom. I saw one girl that didn't really look like J but looked similar but way too tall & oddly dressed ( for the sheer fact I couldn't imagine J wearing those clothes really. I decided to hold back and see if she wandered back my way. Then finally J actually appeared and I recognized her right away. I was glad for some odd reason that the other girl had not been her and I promptly blathered away about how happy I was to have caught her, as well as having sense enough to come back to the right terminal!  We hugged happily and began our journey onward to Tokyo. First stop would be Taito-ku, where Toco Heritage Hostel awaited us.

Incidentally J was tickled pink after navigating her trolley by insistence of the escalator helper lady. She was afraid at first and was trying to remove her baggage to get on the escalator, but the helper lady slid the trolley right onto the escalator. Realizing it's ingenious design, J was in sheer delight! I thought it was rather smart too and wondered why it wasn't something that spread about? Like escalators for shopping carts in Korea. Oh well! Till next time!

Again I pretty much came up lacking on recoding my trip in an interesting fashion, instead I splashed some photos and cryptic messages. I tend to get distracted on trips or lazy. I’m not sure which. Even J stared at me in shock as I squirreled away my hundreds of photos without sharing any at all. I did manage to put some on facebook, but facebook is definitely not as poignant as a journal or blog. It might be something with pc/back lit screens. It’s direly hard for me not to be ADD when staring at a computer screen and being a mere click away from the teeming internet. My mind wanders when trying to read on monitors as well. I notice I have no issues with my kindle, unfortunately it’s not primed for long-term typing. And just to let you know it works superbly in Japan .


Anyways, I’m putting forth effort to try and recreate my trip and share the experience with random daily posts interjected in between. Never quite the same as recording it in real time, but it wil have to do for now. Also I could never really make a food blog for japan because I tend not to be very hungry in Japan yet I get 30x more exercise than at home. I lost 7lbs alone for two weeks of stairs and walking, that’s even after resting a lot & finding shortcuts due to J’s feet issues.

I do have to say Japan feels like a dream now. Even as I keep in touch with Percy who is there, working. It’s like I’m clinging to a faded dream. I really had to mention this so you know how strange it is to reach back in time to write entries about my trip. The memories are moist and slippery like the ocean. I had remarked to Tony that it was like taking a trip to the beach. I would come home tired and still feeling phantom waves. Arizona feels eerily real, dry, and extremely solid. Japan was moist and by the last week of my trip, constantly shaking, swaying from earthquake aftershock.



PRETRIP: I’ll start with fleshing out some of the strange outbursts I posted before my trip.


I started out planning my trip last year. Oddly after my last trip I thought I was spoiled on Japan due to getting terribly ill. Kind of like getting food poisoning and never eating that food again or for years to come. Moist climates tend to turn me into a quivering mess of infected sinuses and being sick. Last year I visited in April, checked the weather religiously in Tokyo. It was supposed to be mild and sunny, when I got there it had been freezing and raining 80% of the time. I got extremely ill and sprained my knee as well. I was croaking and hobbling around like an injured frog halfway through my trip!


When I returned to the states I was hospitalized. At that time I found out my gallbladder was a poisonous time bomb and ready to explode. Finally the myster was solved after years of wrong diagnosis and pain and meals of the mildest foods such as plain oatmeal. I got surgery and spent 3 weeks of dizziness + wretching + not eating due to my infections. At that point, I said I would not ever be going back to Japan again…


Flash forward a few months. I can’t tell you the exact moment or even the ballpark of that moment.. but suddenly I was planning to go to Japan again. My mind probed that thought like a sore tooth, testing it to see if it might fall out. Money had been the root of my evil since I live paycheck to paycheck with no credit card to my name, and a host of bill collectors chasing my tail. I started checking airplane ticket prices on Vayama and other travel booking sites… I met J at some point and began talking about it with her. At some point we talked about going together. I suggested September, a nice amount of time away in hopes of saving and T graduating + getting a nice job. I ended up pushing the trip into March/April using my tax return. Kinda dumb of me since our cars needed to be repaired, bills needed to be paid, and even my computer is on death row, having days of blanks screens or burning out my video cards… Also at this point both our family members were low on cash and immediately assumed we must have extra money since I was going on an expensive trip. Indeed it was quite the opposite since I was spending any extra monies on the trip itself. As well as that the week before I was leaving, a couple of my utility companies picked up the scent of money like chum in the water and threatened imminent shut down of said utilities if certain amounts of money were not coughed up. I manage to pay the minimum they would allow, but it nicked my funds considerably and I had no back up to speak of.


Well as you already know, the month we were leaving, Japan was ravaged with a huge earthquake that resulted in a devastating tsunami. Then the nuclear plant had problems. I began haunting NHK world, cnn, and bbc news, as well as Japan travel forums. I also doggedly tried to find out info from my acquaintances in Tokyo at the time as well. I was obsessed with Japan’s well being. I had a weird familiar feeling. My dad later commented we had a lot of drills in Korea, mainly air raid drills. In Korea we lived in Pusan right next to the ocean and all it’s tribulations.. So I could sympathize.


So for weeks I checked information and first hand accounts. I hadn’t canceled my trip as of yet, neither did J on the basis that I was still attempting to go even if we had to go south to Kyoto. I decided to go about half a week before the plane dates. Even then another earthquake 6.5 off the coast of Sendai happened. Knowing the intensity of it in Tokyo and that the plant had not gotten anymore worse than it had been. We went to Japan in agreement we could handle anymore aftershocks. This became a story in itself because our first big aftershock in Tokyo caused J to panick and for me to feel a bit weird because I was very calm about the whole thing… To J’s credit, she began accepting the aftershocks more after that but I think never fully.






Well more later! I’m feeling like I might of started rushing things in an attempt to write faster so I will stop for now 

Thought I'd put up some Sakura trees! These are in a small neighborhood away from the main areas. We have watched every day as these got fuller and fuller, now the petals line the small water way below. So gorgeous! I feel so lucky to see it this time!

Decided to do a lazy picture post type of day haha :) Just posting pictures now!!

Train is busy as ever!

This was in Harajuku!

View from Ferris Wheel of Mt. Fuji @ Fuji-q

Advertisers.. LOVE THE DOG :) haha

Haha, I had to start it with that. Days go like a blur and it doesn't help that Japan is one day ahead of the states! I think after Harajuku we hit Ueno zoo with enormous lines to see the pandas! They were new and we had come on the second day of the viewing. Unfortunately it was just too long to wait and see them. We had a lovely time and we went out the back exit, near the shrine ( or temple). There was a tiny street of vendors that extended over water. They had various foods, traditional Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. I bought Dango. J had a taste from mine. She thought it was meat when I first bought it and didn't want it. But I explained it was heated rice cake with a sauce on it. In which after a taste, she started really mauwing it down :) Must of been good! Tastey!!

I wanted to buy everything there!! So tastey, but my funds are readily draining!
We also went to Fuji-Q. Expensive venture but very fun. I loved the haunted hospital because it was really scary!! We took the highway bus and used the Fuji-q pack. It's an 1hr and 40mins ride. You can see Mt. Fuji majestically in the distance. It's really lovely! We went to Evagelion world first. Then the Haunted Hospital, Gundam Crisis game, Carosel, Ferris Wheel, and a few side games. :) I'll post more pictures soon!!