Joshua van Aalst’s blog

I am about a day behind in my blogging. I have already started taking pictures of MIT for you all and will get them up soon. For the moment I have some more pictures for everyone from Donna and my final days in Tokyo. We went to an amazing restaurant Alcatraz ER, Atom nightclub and re-visited Harijuku to spend our last money. Here are some pics. You can find even more in the gallery by clicking this link: http://www.joshandfriends.com.au/forums/members/joshua-van-aalst-albums-japan-holiday.html

Cool rocker outside Atom nightclub

 Alcatraz ER restaurant

Alcatraz ER restaurant

Alcatraz ER restaurant

Alcatraz ER restaurant

 Airplane in a store in Harajuku

Harijuku with Meadows, Yukari and Miu

Another cool store in Harijuku

 Miu!

 Not nice store of puppys being sold at midnight in a store in Rupungi

No photos!

A really odd observation, being a tourist in Tokyo, is that you cannot take photos. I am not joking. Almost every cool store, interesting café and the like is littered with signs saying “NO PHOTOS”. One really fantastic Gothic store in Harajuku has a sign outside saying, in English, “NO PHOTOS, FUCK OFF!”. Perhaps Japanese are so desperate to take photos, that when they visit Australia they go camera crazy!

Sleeping on trains.

I had been warned that Japanese tend to sleep on trains. I am not sure what it is, but I would say about 50% of people who were on trains with us were asleep! It is an amazing phenomenon. A girl sitting next to me fell asleep on me! What surprised me even more is that as soon as they arrived at their train station they would magically wake up. I think this may have been to do with the trains playing different music every time the doors opened. At one station, the doors opened to a musical fanfare!

Animals in store windows.

I’ve seen fish in shop windows before but never mammals. In Akehabara, there is a takeaway store that has real penguins in the window. Not the small variety either, 5 big penguins. Their enclosure was tiny, it must have been extremely un-comfortable for them.

The worst though was a dog store in Rapungi that appears to be open all night. The store walls are covered with tiny Perspex boxes of little puppies that you can buy. We were there in summer and it was boiling hot. The water dispensers in each enclosure were similar to those for pet mice. A suspended bottle with an upside down straw. Needless to say, half the puppies had no idea how to get the water out and were throwing themselves at the bottle in a desperate attempt to get the water. It was extremely unpleasant to watch. Donna and I requested, many times, that the store assistants give them a bowl of water. They said that they would take a bowl of water around shortly.

Fuji Q highland is a massive theme park at the base of Mount Fuji. With the promise of some of the world’s best roller coasters, Donna was very keen to head there. We headed to the bus stop only to find that a traffic jam had turned the journey to the park into a 6 hour marathon. So we decided to catch the trains instead. 4 trains and 3 hours later we walked into the park. The park did indeed have some amazing rollercoaster’s BUT all of them had signs up stating a 3 to 3.5 hour wait per ride! This park should have been called “Q Highland”. After waiting in line for 3 hours in the burning sun for the biggest roller coaster we were so tired we just wanted to head home. The roller coaster was fantastic though, when we finally had our turn. It was absolutely massive. I believe the 3^rd biggest in the world. Superb views of My Fuji too. Anyway, 3 more rides later (averaging another 1.5 hours waiting) we decided to head back. Another 1.5 hours of express trains and we were back in Tokyo. So all up, not quite sure if the 4.5 hours of travelling and 6 hours of queuing and $100 US each was worth the 4 rides.

Nikko was fantastic. It is a traditional holiday get away in Japan. It is located very high up in the mountains and is situated between a massive lake and series of waterfalls and rivers. It was also the location of many lark temples. It was truly stunning. I really didn’t think I would like the more traditional aspect and scenery of Japan as much as I did, but I was totally blown away. Also, be prepared, if you visit Nikko, it is an extremely steep bus trip up the side of several mountains. You will be scared out of your brains as the bus driver makes some incredibly daring turns.

If you visit Japan, head out of Tokyo and visit Nikko!

Above is the massive lake in the mountains of Nikko

Above is a river flowing through Nikko and a Meadows

Above is one of the waterfalls at Nikko

Café – At Home is a chain of café’s in Tokyo where beautiful Japanese girls dressed as maid’s serve you. We visited the one in Akihabara. Now when I say the girls are dressed as maid’s, I am not talking about your stereotypical maid’s outfit hired from a costume shop. I am talking about a maid’s outfit in Lolita/Harajuku style. These girls were as dressed up as you could imagine. It was a fun café, and also a bit weird with the maids encouraging guests to participate in various cute activities, like making love hearts with your fingers. The guests sat on one side of a row of benches and the maids who were serving were on the other side. On the maid’s side, the floor was lowered so that the maid’s were always beneath you. Needless to say, if you are an avid feminist, this is not the place for you! We were also warned on entrance that you must not attempt to solicit the girls in any way. Evidently, they have had problems in the past.

Above is a picture of the what the maid’s look like. Our ones were a bit more dressed up, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside the cafe.

Shibuya was great. Very similar to Harjuku, except instead of plenty of individual stores at ground level, it was mainly big department buildings with individual stores in them. Building, 901 (women’s) and 901 2 (men’s) were great. I loved 901 2. Plenty of stores with all kinds of fashion and accessories. There was a store that only sold gold bling. Generally the guys clothing was heavily Goth based, which suited me perfectly. Chains, zips, rips. Most pieces appeared to be of a high quality.

We travelled to Rupongi looking for interesting bars to have a drink at. They are very hard to find! In Tokyo, very little is at street level. Most buildings have 7 floors or more. You have to travel to each floor  to find which bars are worth visiting. What makes this complex is that many floors contain hostess clubs, massage parlors or brothels. We did eventually find a couple of cool places like bar Sheesha, which has big hooker pipes for people to smoke a wide range of flavored tobacco. Overall the area has a real Kings Cross feel, there are plenty of people on the street trying to get you into their venue. You really have to know where to go to get the most out of it. Luckily, when we visited the area a 2^nd time, we had Donna’s friend as a guide.

Akihabara is famous the world over for having the coolest and latest gadgets. It was interesting, but not what I expected. I thought I’d find numerous concept stores showcasing the latest models, similar to those found in New York. Instead I found store after store, selling the exact same laptops, mobiles, computer accessories e.t.c. Although some had items that I hadn’t seen before, primarily for computer gamers. Most items were identical to what is available in Sydney. The only store I thought was unique was a robot hobby store for people who built advanced robots. These robots had full sensors and were skilled at playing soccer. Price wise, I did not notice a major difference, perhaps 10% less in Akihabara for computers and 30% less for accessories. If you are an international tourist, you should also be able to reap an additional 5% off for duty free. Be aware that everything is in Japanese, so don’t expect to read about the items in the store if you can’t read Japanese!

Above is  a special computer gaming controller.  It is shaped precisely to the users hand and provides all the important gaming keys!

Harajuku is the cool clothing centre of Tokyo. From the train station you’ll find the main shopping street directly across the road. It is a village of individual stores at ground level. If you’re interested in unique fashion that will stand out, then this is the place. The passes buy were dressed in incredible outfits especially Lolita, Candy and Goth. The clothes were very reasonably priced and were simply incredible. You might find one or two stores with such clothing in Sydney. In Harjuka there were hundreds!! Being into Goth and Sci fi clothing, this was definitely my favorite place.

After spending almost 9 days in Tokyo and Japan, I finally have a moment (whilst on a train to Nikko and also back in the hotel room) to sit down and write about the trip thus far.

Unlike Donna and my trip to the USA last year. This time we allocated a day to each place we visited, in order to take in and enjoy each location. I’ve really felt that i’ve had a good chance to discover the different locations. Of course another week would help

The next couple of blog entries are a break down of where we have visited.