Jū yon (Tokyo)

Saturday 18 July 2015

Accommodation: Hotel Listel Shinjuku booked on booking.com. ¥13,264 (about £100) for double room for two people for one night.

Lost again

Our last day in Japan and our plan for the day was to check into our hotel, pick up some gifts for people back home and then meet my old primary school friend in the evening.

We checked out of our capsule hotel and ventured across the city to our final hotel of our trip – Hotel Listel Shinjuku. Arriving at Shinjuku Sanchome metro station, we headed for the nearest exit and straight away realised we were lost.

In true Japanese style, we were instantly rescued and this was the best rescue mission yet! A whole group of teenagers with yellow t-shirt on which read ‘Need some help?’ appear and offered to help us! We showed them where wanted to go out and they offered to walk us to our hotel, which was about 10 minutes away. On the way there they chatted to us and asked us questions about our trip and where we had visited in Japan.

When we reached our hotel (which would have been very difficult to find without their help), we took a group photo with our new friends. They were all university students in Tokyo and volunteered as helpers to tourists. Their Facebook group is called Osekkai Japan and our group photo is on there! They post photos of everyone that they help with a comment of what happened. The comment beside our photo is:

When we walked near Bikkuro (Bigcamera × Uniqlo), found a couple with a big baggage looking at the map on the smartphone. We talked to them, “May I help you?”. They didn’t know how to get to their hotel. We heard hostel’s name and searched the address with our smartphone. It was little far from there, so we decided to go together. They were from Scotland, and this is first time to come to Japan. They had stayed in Japan for 2 weeks for sightseeing, and back to home country on next day. They had been to Mt. Fuji, Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo. It was hard when they climbed Mt. Fuji, because of the typhoon. The two of them like Japanese food, specially Ramen (noodles) and Sushi. And she studies Japanese in the university in Scotland. They enjoyed feeling the difference between Western society and Japanese one. Finally we safely got to the hostel, and they said we are so helpful 🙂

So lovely!

So many times during our trip I said to David “Japanese people are SO lovely!!” This was another one of those times and we both had a big smile on our faces as we waved them off and went to check in.

Although pretty small (as the majority of Tokyo hotel rooms are) our room was nice and had a big corner window of views over Tokyo. I’d seen in TripAdvisor reviews to request a corner window.

Souvenir shopping

I had a look online for good souvenir shops and came across Oriental Bazaar in Shibuya which promised a huge selection of souvenirs at moderate prices. After dumping our luggage at the hotel, we headed back to the metro station. As it was our last day in Japan, we had to eat as much delicious food as possible so stopped for ramen on our way! We each got ramen and ordered some gyozas to share which came in a big circle as they had been cooked together in a pan.

We got the metro to Shibuya and walked to Oriental Bazaar. The shop was over three levels and sold everything from antiques to bento lunch boxes and kimonos. We picked up some souvenirs including lovely Japanese robes, t-shirts and little PJs with cherry blossom pattern for my niece.

Robot Restaurant

We went back to the hotel to get ready and then walked to meet my friend Saori in Shibuya. The walk took about 15 minutes and we met Saori outside of the Robot Restaurant. I know Saori from when she moved to Scotland with her family for a couple of years. I remember her joining my class at primary school when she was about nine and spoke no English. A few years later, and fluent in English, she moved back to Japan. I had met her once again in Edinburgh since then but we hadn’t seen each other for about 13 years. It was very nice to see her again!

We had booked the tickets for the 5.15pm Robot Restaurant show in advance (as it sells out) and didn’t really know what to expect. I’d seen some YouTube videos and it looked crazy. Saori hadn’t been before and said it was generally something tourists do but she was happy to go along. Tickets were ¥8,000 each (about £60 – wow the exchange rate is much worse now than when we were there!!) but there are lots of vouchers around. We got vouchers from maps of Shinjuku/Shibuya which we picked up at a metro station and paid ¥7,000 each. We went inside and waited in the bar with some drinks. The bar itself was eccentrically designed with very bright colours and mirrors everywhere. We sat at a table and watched the band, dressed as robots!

After a while, we were invited through to the show. The set up was much smaller than I expected with three rows of about 20 people on either side of a long stage. You could order meals with your ticket (for ¥1,000) but I’d seen from reviews that these were pretty average so we’d decided against it. There were girls selling beer and other drinks which we ordered.

The show started and it was insane and hilarious in equal measures! I think that the storyline was something along the lines of a place being invaded and people protecting it. There were dancers, people riding ginormous robots, huge cows galloping in, a girl riding a giant spider, a fire breathing dragon and a big pink rabbit playing the drums. It was completely and utterly mad, so entertaining and I’d 100% recommend it!

As the room is so small, you are so close to the actors and dancers who have so much enthusiasm that it’s contagious. The dancers and taiko drummers are so talented, clearly don’t take themselves too seriously and looked like they were having fun.

Watami

After the show, the three of us went to eat at Watami which Saori had suggested. (I couldn’t remember the name of this place and have spent ages walking around as the little Google maps man until I found it!) It was upstairs from the street and we had a booth. We asked Saori to pick food for us to share and we had a delicious selection of seafood, gyoza and skewers.

We chatted to Saori and learnt about her life in Tokyo, including her job and fiancé who she was officially marrying in Japan only a few days later and then with family and friend in Hawaii in October. She had brought us a lovely bag of gifts to take home including things like green tea Kit-Kats and a magic pen with an eraser.

After dinner we waved Saori off to get the train home and we walked back to our hotel to attempt to pack. Not an easy task given the amount of souvenirs we acquired during our trip!

Leaving Japan

The next morning, we sat on our suitcases to shut them and headed to Haneda Airport (via metro and monorail) to catch our flight back to the UK. David had bought a replica samurai sword in Osaka and we went to the check in desk to attempt to get it home. The lady on the desk called another member of staff for advice and soon there were three members of staff plus a policeman discussing the sword!

After taking David’s passport details, we were allowed to check in the sword and waved it off wondering if it would make it home. We went through security and found our last meal of delicious Japanese sushi.

I was so sad to leave Japan. We both had very high expectations of the country before going and it totally exceeded them. As expected, the food was amazing (if sometimes a little odd!) and we saw so many amazing and beautiful places. We did so many fun and interesting things, from learning to be Samurai warriors in Kyoto, to watching a Buddhist monks’ fire service in Koyasan to bathing naked with strangers in the onsens of Kinosaki (still proud of myself for that!) to getting engaged up Mount Fuji during a typhoon!

Without a doubt, it was the biggest adventure that we had both been on but what made our time in Japan particularly special was the fantastic people who had been so helpful and welcoming during our trip. From the girl, Yumiko, on Facebook months before we left who went out of her way to help us book accommodation and sea kayaking in Takeno, to the Japanese air hostess who chased us for about 10 minutes after we landed back in Heathrow to return the hats we had accidentally left on the plane. From the lady who tapped us on the shoulder on the train from Hiroshima to give us origami cranes she had made, to the older lady in Tokyo who ran with us following behind to the cat cafe after I couldn’t understand her Japanese instructions. From the Shinkansen conductor who spent ages working out which carriage I should go to so that I could jump off the train, into a shop and back on when the train stopped at the station, to the group of students who helped us find our way and Saori giving us a big bag of gifts on our last day. We found the Japanese to be such lovely people and, even if they couldn’t speak English, they always went out of their way to help two Scottish gaijin!

Less than three weeks after we arrived in Japan, we returned back to Edinburgh with so many fantastic memories, stories to tell and….a Samurai sword which appeared on the luggage carousel at Edinburgh Airport!

Arigatou gozaimasu Nippon. You were fabulous and we will definitely return one day.