Tokyo: Saturday

All right so here it is: the blog post about Tokyo. Finally, I've stopped being so lazy and I'm going to do this. Let's start, shall we?

So in Japan, there is a week that is rightfully known as Golden Week. No, it has nothing to do with King Midas, but it is actually their version of Spring Break.  In the US, we have a week off from school during spring known as Spring Break, but here in Japan, there is a chain of 3 days or so with nothing but holidays so school is out from Thursday-Sunday. Heck, we also got the Monday off too, so I only had school on Tuesday and Wednesday. This was the week starting on April 30th.

So I went to Tokyo with my friend Nikii from the Friday evening where we took the Overnight bus until Sunday evening when we took the bus back. So really it was only 2 long days of Tokyo shenanigans on Sat, May 5th and Sun, May 6th. Nikii actually arranged most of it since she wanted to go to the Dolpa (aka Dolls Party) on Sunday. I had never been much into dolls, but it ended up being really fun and interesting to see something new (for me) and to see how a convention is done in Japan. I DID book the hotel, which was actually a hostel of the Khaosan variety. It ended up being really cheap and a really nice accommodation to boot!

The overnight bus itself wasn't too bad, though it was kind of hard to sleep for me because I have such long legs and we were only on the standard bus, but it was all good in the end! It was cool to see Japanese highways and to see the city from a different perspective other than train.

So we get to Asakusa where our hostel is, and we drop off our things and start our sightseeing early on, though still a bit tired from the bus ride. We went to Kaminari-mon Gate and Sosenji Temple for sightseeing and shopping. The temple and gate were both really beautiful; the architecture is truly a sight to behold. The shopping was also really enjoyable, especially considering the variety of things to buy. I bought a really nice pair of jika-tabi for about 3000yen (almost $40), and they are really comfy and great for walking.

 After shopping though, the crowds were getting really crazy: a sign for us to LEAVE! Afterwards, we decided to head to anime otaku heaven a.k.a. Akihabara (or Akiba for short)! The crowds were big there, too. And rightly so:

Huge buildings with billboards like this EVERYWHERE. You can find pretty much ANYTHING anime/game/geek related things here. I did my fair share of shopping for sure, especially in the six floor Book Off =)

We also did a little cosplay, well Nikii did anyways. I just wore my yukata :3 We even did some cosplay karaoke, which was mostly a breather session but still lots of fun. There were a lot of maids in the streets advertising for their maid cafés, which are very common in Akiba.

Clearly, Akiba is one of those places in Tokyo you HAVE to go to at least once, even if you are not an anime otaku, just to see the geek culture and all the different walks of life, kind of like Harajuku, which will be discussed in the post about Sunday.

After tiring ourselves out from all the excitement from Akiba, we then went back to our room at the hostel to relax. Later, we met up with Nikii's friend from high school, Manami. She was incredibly nice and friendly, and she took us to Tokyo Tower. So all those handkerchiefs and knickknacks I see with the Eiffel Tower engraved on the outside....nope, it's actually Tokyo Tower, and it really does look like its French counterpart. However, Tokyo Tower definitely has its own charm, and the lights at night when we went were really spectacular. We went up to the observatory to see Tokyo from above, and the view was just unparalleled by anything I have seen.

A picture is worth a thousand words (like in Final Fantasy X-2) :P

Afterwards we were greeted by a new set of tower lights.

A great end to an amazing day ^_^

Are Japanese people afraid of pigeons?

Just a short thought kind of post before my longer post later.

So I was walking to the store, or as I like to say supermarché, today and on the way, I noticed these 2 girls like freaking out over this pigeon. Like they literally STOPPED and would not go a single step further until the pigeon was out of the walk way. I was sitting there thinking, "Wow really?? It's just a bird lol.", but then I thought about it, and that certainly wasn't the first time I have seen that.

So then, I thought why does it seem like more people (maybe mostly schoolgirls idk) in this country are afraid of pigeons than perhaps in my home country? I know I can't make sweeping statements about an entire population, but in my experience so far living in this country, I do see more people cringe in fright over this bird here than I usually do in the US. But why is that?

Well, here's my theory. When I came to Japan, what I noticed about this country, even in big cities, is how CLEAN it is. I don't know how they do it, but Japan is amazingly clean. Also, I noticed that even some of the people very much try to stay clean oriented, even the guys. When I heard how long some guys take here to get ready in the morning, I'm thinking "Wow, I'm sorry lol...", especially considering my at-most 20 minute routine to do, you know, the normal things to keep myself nice and fresh! Although, there are PLENTY of American men who take just as long in the morning à la Jersey Shore. But I think it really depends on the person, hands down, especially considering those times I go into Book Off and the shounen manga aisle smells RANK of B.O.  And the whole handkerchief thing: everyone here keeps one around because public restrooms usually won't have paper towels, but I just wipe my hands on my clothes. I don't really care either way! I'll talk about Paris Syndrome in another post, but it does go along with the whole cleanliness thing here.

So what does this have to pigeons? Well, inherently, pigeons are very dirty birds, and so maybe because Japan is seen as a very clean place (at least in my eyes), people freak out. Whereas, the reaction people have in the US is to either ignore it or chase it (if you're like me!).

Just want to say that hopefully none of my posts come across as offensive! I try to be really honest with my blog posts in order to convey how I actually feel and what I personally observe during my stay here. I love being here in Japan, and I'm sure my blog shows that, but sometimes it's fun just to blog about differences and cultural norms that I find funny and/or ridiculous. Love you all and stay tuned for more! =)