I arrived Thursday afternoon and started off the trip with two problems: 1. I left the wonderfully useful Japanese dictionary/phrasebook on the train on the way to the airport, and thus had no way to communicate, at all, and 2. Visa thought it would be funny to disregard the note on my account that said I would be traveling around Asia for at least a year, so they froze my account the second I tried to use my card at Narita Airport to exchange money. So I had to use my emergency cash to get enough yen to call Visa's 800 number so I could remove the hold on my account. I accomplished this task after a 600 yen phone call, and was then able to get the cash I needed. After those two early setbacks, everything else was great. I got a nice subway and city map, arrived at my hostel in the late afternoon, and then spent five or six hours wandering around. It was the first time I'd just wandered through a metropolis with no plan and no real direction. I really just wanted to take in the sights and watch the people and see what would happen, so I ended up doing just that. I witnessed Japanese pop culture, observed eating habits, explored entertainment districts, rode endless subway lines, and basically just absorbed everything I could. It was mentally exhausting and overwhelming, and I felt some strong culture shock for the first time. It was like I wasn't really there, instead I was just observing this alien city. No one talked to me, and I spoke to no one. It's a quiet city, too, for the most part. It seems like in Korea people are always out until after midnight, and the streets of Daegu are rarely empty, but in Tokyo, with the exception of a few special areas, the whole city is indoors and quiet after 10pm.
Friday I embarked on my plans to see some major tourist sites. I first walked to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where I must have been one of only 100 visitors that day. I learned lots about the history of the exchange and it's switch from a "call out" system like on Wall Street and instead to a fully computerized one about 10 years ago. As a result, inside the Stock Exchange you can only see a large glass cylinder where a handful of workers monitor the Exchange to make sure there aren't any crashes or problems.
From there I went to the Imperial Palace where the crown prince lives. It's only open on two days during the year, so the visitors can only see the outside moats and walls of the fortress. I left there after just a few minutes and ambled off towards the subway station, but on the way I caught a glimpse of Tokyo Tower, a knock-off of the Eiffel Tower that stands a few meters taller than its Parisian counterpart, so I headed towards it. Along the way I bought some food at a street stand, saw a random shrine, and climbed a thousand stairs. From the Tower you can see all of Tokyo and even Mount Fuji which is 50 or so miles away.
My next goal was a famous Meiji Shrine. The Meiji Emperor took over in the latter half of the 1860s and was critical in Japanese history because he opened up the country to Westernization (see Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai for a slightly ahistorical representation of the period). Tons of foreigners were around this site as it was also close to a popular shopping district called the 'Champs-Elysee' of Tokyo. The shrine itself wasn't all that interesting, and I wanted to kick myself for going while knowing that there wouldn't be much to see. It's just like seeing the Eiffel Tower or Times Square: you don't actually need to do anything there, but you just should go because you are in the city and it's a well-known place. Whatever. I went shopping from here and found a massive English bookstore with lots of good books, but the prices were three times higher than American stores, so I didn't buy anything. I then went to the hostel and crashed...
No comments:
Post a Comment