Trip to Japan: Part 1

Ryokans and Department Stores!
During our week in Tokyo my friends and I stayed in a ryokan, or a hostel, in Asakusa, Tokyo. The name of the ryokan we stayed in is the Toukaisou (http://www.toukaisou.com), and if you’re planning a trip to Tokyo I definitely recommend this place. The staff speaks English and the location can’t be beat. You can choose to stay in the commons area, where there are bunk beds and a common kitchen and bathroom, or in a private room, where you get a private bathroom and roll out beds. We stayed in both during our trip and I preferred the private room over the commons area, but both are great places to stay.

Justin in front of the ryokan	Me eating in our room

 
Right down the street form the Toukaisou is a sushi place that is open 24/7 as well as a 24-hour grocery store. Behind the grocery store, which is the basement to a giant department store called ROX, is a soccer field, two arcades, and a great bar. We stopped by the famous Kaminarimon as well since it is located in Asakusa. The Kaminarimon has a history of being rebuilt and destroyed and the current version was built back in the 1960′s. Not only do you have historic destinations and entertainment at your disposal within a short walk, but the stations are easily accessible as well and no destination is too far from the stations in Asakusa.

Grocery shopping at ROX	Kaminarimon in Asakusa

 
On day three of our trip we made it to Akihabara. I’ll dedicate an entire post to the insanity and sensory-overload that is Akihabara soon, but for now I’m going to focus on the department store right across the street from Akihabara station called Yodobashi-Akiba. The first few floors are your generic electronics, with each floor having its contents clearly spelled out on the escalator ride up to the floor. Televisions, cameras, home applicances, video games, and toys are all here on dedicated floors. What I’ve only heard of and never seen I first came in contact with on the toy floor, rows and rows of capsule toy machines. In the USA a restaurant of business may have a few machines in the front selling candy or small toys, but the Japanese are light years ahead of us in the capsule toy department. Capsule toys aren’t just for kids in Japan, they’re for everyone and they’re actually fun to collect.

Yodobashi-Akiba entrance	Capsule toys!

 
I had to buy some capsule toys of course and I left Japan with several Street Fighter (Chun-Li, Sakura, Ibuki, and Cammy) and Evangelion (Shinji and Rei) capsule toys. These six now reside on my desk at work as a constant reminder that I need to go back for a second trip to Japan next year. The remainder of the toy floor houses things similar to those which you would expect to find here in the US: action figures, collectables, puzzles, board games, and more. Anyone into technology and Japanese entertainment like I am could easily spend an entire day in this department store alone, but we needed to get out and see the rest of Akihabara! On our way back to the escalators we found signs that pointed us up a few more floors to the food court and we headed there for lunch.

Lunch in the food court	Yodobashi-Akiba

 
As we approached the food court floor I had the thoughts of an American mall’s food court in my head. When we reached the food court it was obvious that things here were not just a little different, but completely different. The floor should have been called “Restaurants” because that is what it was, a floor full of restaurants. From the escalator we wandered to the back of the food court to a soba place that all of us agreed on. This soba restaurant was the first place we encountered that did not have an English version of the menu so we used Justin’s Japanese to English (and the other way around) translator to poke our way through the menu. I’m going to take a quick detour here and talk about the translator Justin owns. I don’t know the exact model, but Justin owns an older Seiko translator which came in handy several times throughout the trip. It was frustrating that many “common” kanji were beyond the Seiko’s scope, but it made things like menus and directions more accessible to us. Looking now, Seiko has several newer models of their Japanese<>English electronic dictionary and I can only assume that these newer models cover much more material than the version we had on our trip. Either way, one of these is a worthy investment if no one in your travel party is fluent in Japanese. Back on topic! The food was great, as was all of the food I ate during my stay in Japan, and lunch was just what we needed to give our feet a break and rest up for the rest of the day in Akihabara. I didn’t take any pictures of the food court so I don’t know the name of the restaurant we ate at. As far as I can remember, it was simply straight to the back from the escalator and was the only soba place at the back.

More pictures from the trip are in my Japan flickr set here.

Coming up soon – The rest of our day out in Akihabara!