TOKYO Pt.2 - Dancing in the streets and running for the trains!

On the sunday, me and Siobhan were initially going to go to Osaka. Our plan was to go to Tokyo’s main station and look at prices….we discovered they were very expensive or very long journeys, so we gave Osaka a miss this time round! It definately wasn’t really worth it just for one day. That left us with the task of trying to sort out transport BACK to Yamagata. First we rang the night bus up - they were full up, and so we were left with no other option than the Shinkansen which I think is reasonably priced between Tokyo and Yamagata and only takes a mere two and a half hours (remember that the night bus we went on took seven!). We booked our tickets for the 20:38pm, the last train leaving Tokyo for my hometown of Akayu (you can see where this is going now eh?)…. After sorting out transportation (which took a good few hours - sorry Chrissy and JoeyD) we had a nice lunch at a very nice Italian restaurant (finally some proper international food!) and then we were on our way.

Akihabara!

First stop, Akihabara. Akihabara is a well known area in Tokyo for Electronics, Gadgetry, and now Japanese animation and allsorts of related quirky Japanese things you can think of. Similiar to the rest of Tokyo, it is a densly coloured and decorated metropolis of skyscrapers and concrete. It was very busy and there was shop after shop of electronics stores. Cameras, Computers, Games consoles, second hand, brand new - you name it it was all there. Typically most of the goods on offer were slightly cheaper than you would find them in England, but not neccesarily any cheaper than you could find them up in Yamagata - there was just more choice that’s all. Nevertheless it was a very cool place. What was cooler though, was the fact that they appear to close the big main road on Sundays. It’s quite the huge road. From the moment Emily dared Siobhan to lie in the middle of the road whilst she took a picture, there was no stopping us. We had so much fun lying in the middle of the road taking pictures, surround by so many Japanese people and the occaisional foreigners walking around us. Some Japanese girls found it great fun and so we asked them to join in for a photo or two!Then came the action shots - trying to jump in the middle of the road and catch the photo whilst you’re in mid-air. Needless to say that this caused more stares and strange looks from the passers-by! I hope we brought a little entertainment to their day!

Craziness on the streets

I bought a Nintendo DS from Akihabara too. After the Game Show I was feeling a little giddy for some new technology. And now I can say I bought it from the home of electronics in Tokyo. After Akihabara, we went on to Harajuku. I don’t think we saw it all but we walked down a very busy avenue lined with mainly fashion shops on either side. From there I bought some very cool trainers - prices were very good too. The only problem is that Japanese people tend to have very small shoe sizes. Whilst the shoes I bought fit me ok…a little snug, I checked after buying them that they were a size 9 and a half! I’m normally size 11! Owing to the fact that they are trainers exclusive to Japan (blue and purple Nike’s with pictures of Samurai on the insides) I figured they probably won’t need to make a lot of larger western sizes! Ah well, they’ll stretch!Finally, we made it to Shibuya, our last stop for the day.

Me and Siobhan had been before but you can surely never get tired of such a place. We went for a drink in the Starbucks that overlooks the centre of Shibuya. I must also say they run a very tight ship in that coffee shop! There aren’t that many staff but they had the customers running smoothly through the tills and they didn’t skimp on the smiles and polite Japanese phrases - very good service! Time was running out, and Emily pointed out we had an hour before our bullet train was to leave. I said ‘Plenty of time, we’ll make for Tokyo station in 30 minutes’ - after all, we wanted to make a stop at the huge Tower Records for some CD buying before we left. Tower Records in Shibuya has about 6 or 7 floors of music, books and games. An extensive choice and the perfect place to go to find the obscure Japanese artists that I like - sure enough I found loads of the CDs I wanted and more!

But time was running out…in a store as big as that it was easy to lose each other. Finally Me, Siobhan and Emily were ready to head to the station, saying goodbye to JoeyD and Chrissy who would take the night bus.We got to Shibuya station only to realise that it would take 22 minutes to get back to Tokyo station - where we needed to be. We were all convinced that Tokyo station was only a few stops away, that it would take us a few minutes to get to and we could calmly make our way up to the Shinkansen platform. We were quite anxious that we wouldn’t make it - time was ticking and the train had loads of stops to make. We worked it out that we were only going to have about 3 minutes to get to the Shinkansen before it set off. I also failed to remember that we had a locker in Tokyo station which we had to find and take out all of Siobhan and Emily’s stuff that had been stored there for the day!

We dashed out of the subway train, and dashed around looking for the locker. After a few minutes we found it, and I was sent to hunt down the Shinkansen and try and stall it for a few more minutes (which probably wouldn’t have happened - the Japanese system is so efficient it can be quite annoying!). I dashed up the stairs to the platform, almost tripping over my own feet in the process, only to find the Shinkansen slowly setting off for Yamagata. We were exhausted and we’d missed the last train to Yamagata for that day!

We could have stayed in Tokyo another night but we had our hopes set on relaxing back at home, so we managed to find another Shinkansen that was going TOWARDS Yamagata - the prefecture underneath, Fukushima. We made it there no problems, laughing about the whole situation in the end and amusing ourselves on the train. When we arrived at Fukushima’s train station, we asked the ticket officer if there were any more trains going to Yamagata - he said no. We then asked, how much do you think it will be from here to Yamagata by taxi. He responded by making his eyes wider, stepping a few paces back whilst gasping in disbelief. He replied with ‘many, many, many money!’. Well, there was nothing we could do - and if three of us were in the taxi, the individual cost would be divided.

In the end it wasn’t so bad between three people, although the taxi driver was a little….odd - perhaps annoyed that he had to drive as far as a different prefecture. We made it back safe and sound to my house, a little exhausted, but feeling proud that we hadn’t lost our cool and had thought on our heads to quickly devise a solution…with success!

The fantastic five go Tokyo!