Alisa and I "negotiated" a ride to the airport. Firstly, there are two airports in Bangkok, so there was a little early excitement as to if the driver actually knew where we were going. Secondly, we had our money replenished from the cash deposit we got back from our keys and towels at the hostel, so I was in no push to negotiate over a couple of dollars. Previously, we've had to pay tolls to get to the airport, and I had no idea if that was included in the price or not. The driver avoided the tolls, and so we avoided that question.
With the cab ride over, the $10 of baht that we had left went to an incredibly delicious personal pan pizza for me. Hey, I was getting used to Eastern time - 6am in Thailand is 6pm at home. That's dinnertime to me!
No issues on the 8-hour flight to Tokyo. I attempted sleep, then watched some miscellaneous movies. We arrived, went through a couple customs lines, then met Deanne!
Thankfully, our visit was a weekend, so she was able to travel down by night bus, and meet us for our whirlwind half day. Which started with an hour-long train ride into a Tokyo itself (with our giant bags) and a transfer to their metro and a couple block walk to our guesthouse.
We left our bags in "storage" (under a table in the common room) and only took our necessary stuff up the four flights of stairs. I was convinced we were going to come back exhausted (pretty true), so convinced everyone to set up our beds.
There were written instructions with pictures, but I'm still not sure any of us really set up our futon-type beds correctly. (Possibly because the sheets didn't match the comforter we were supposed to stick in them.)
It was a bit chilly in Tokyo - around 50 degrees, so ramen was our first meal. We used a rented WIFI hotspot to get to a great restaurant. There were some mishaps with ordering (we wanted two bowls of ramen that we were going to split between the three, but they only started by giving us one), but having a speaker of Japanese with us helped when we wanted an extra bowl to share. We got some weird fermented roe stuff on rice - that was less pleasant, but interesting.
It was the best ramen I've ever had. And, it was the most confusing toilet I've ever used. The Japanese are doing things with their technology that are making lives better - such as heated toilet seats. I was convinced one of the buttons for the seat would flush the toilet. Three minutes and a lot of button pressing later, I found the handle - where it typically is, on the tank. I'm sorry whoever sat down next - I probably inadvertently set it to be like 100 degrees and vibrate when they get on it.
Our first restaurant down, we headed to the Government Building for our touristy bit. There were Christmas lights around - so it felt very festive (and a lot more appropriate, given the weather, than the trees and lights in Thailand). The city just continued on and on into the distance.
Our next Google maps search took us to a shopping section looking for a sushi bar. We spent some time wandering in a craft shop, and became obsessed when we heard a card with cats meowing to Jingle Bells. The card section was four rows, and hundreds of cards! We could read where it said to push to get the music, so just picture two (Deanne was off buying her own thing) white girls with their ears to the stacks of cards trying to determine where this sometimes-playing cat jingle is coming from. It was only when Deanne found us again, and the employees tried to get us to leave because they were closing, that we had Deanne ask where to find the card. We cycles through a couple employees (and Deanne was using some sign language for a scratching cat), but we found it. Alisa skipped up to the register, and we were escorted from the premises.
After that delightful shopping interlude, it was time to find that raw fish. The small restaurant was located on the 14th floor of a building - ok, this will be interesting.
A curtain covered the door, so we thought they might be closed, but the host ushered us in and sat us at the bar - right by the sushi chef and the rows of fish on ice.
It turns out, Deanne and her student budget have really only been to conveyor belt sushi places. On top of that, her choices are usually baked or vegetarian rolls, so this was much more of an experience for her than I expected.
We were given an English-Japanese menu with very few prices on it. But hey, we were celebrating Deanne's birthday a couple days early! And, we were only in Tokyo for a night, so bring it on!
We started with salmon, fatty tuna, and Alisa and Deanne had some sweet shrimp. The touch of wasabi as well as the rawness was really testing Deanne's taste buds - and her face showed it. Next, we had some whelk and some salmon roe. Alisa and I were in heaven, and Deanne was keeping up like a champ. Another round of the salmon and we were on our way. (Thankfully, they took card. Happy birthday, Deanne!)
Our next search was for karaoke, and it led us to a bright, bustling area a few blocks away.
This is the Tokyo I think about - similar to the Vegas Strip or Times Square with its neon brightness. (They even had an area with a sign that said Times Square!)
On the way to the karaoke place, we stumbled upon a crepe place. This is one of the two things Deanne wanted us to try. (The other being parfaits, but we ran out of energy for those.) I stuck with Nutella and banana, and Deanne and Alisa had similar rifts of that.
Fully sugared up, we went and rented a room for half an hour for karaoke. Karaoke in Japan is not done one by one on stage as it is in America - you get a room, a couple mikes, and a waiter. I somehow managed to communicate to our waiter that the drinks we were ordering should have sparklers in them. Fun fact - sparklers don't work like birthday candles. You will fail if you attempt to blow them out.
Our now slightly smoky room had a TV and microphones. I had figured that my 20-turning-21-year-old sister could drink in Japan, but she attempted to explain some complicated rules about the drinking age where there's a "social" age and a grocery store age. Whatever they were, no one was checking ids and we got our mojitos.
The cold that I had begun to harbor yesterday was only aggravated by the enthusiastic renderings of Ke$ha, Taylor Swift, Journey, and Rihanna. The sore throat had taken it's hold, but not before our half hour had stretched into an hour and all of us were slightly hoarse.
The opportunity to sleep horizontally and not on a plane was a welcome one - we let a slightly sick, slightly sleepy Deanne just hug us goodbye in the morning instead of escorting us to Narita and the airport. We made some mistakes along the way (we didn't have cash to buy tickets at the first station, so they just let us go a few stops for free, then we couldn't understand why we had to buy two tickets to get on the one train to take us to Narita, so probably ended up paying twice what we should have because the kiosk was unclear, and then we didn't use our passports to get the foreign discount). But, safely to the airport, it was a single, twelve hour flight back to DC.
It is exciting leaving at 10am in the morning and getting to DC at 11am. Thank goodness we didn't take our final two flights back to back. After a few hours, I was going stir crazy, and even Emma Stone was having a hard time keeping my attention.
My wonderful, generous grandparents coordinated picking us up from the airport. My dog Ellie had been staying with them, so I got a wet, happy welcome home from her when we walked through the door. She and my grandpa had bonded, and my grandma sent along this picture (which I showed to our roommates in Bangkok, a nice woman with poodle earrings who was on our fight to DC, and the pet picture mailing list at my company).
Apparently, he would put the leg rest up partway so she could scramble up and into his lap. I think he was a little off-put when I came back and he was thrust back into second. (I think my grandma was a little happy, since she had been runner up since I left.)
Alisa got on the road pretty quickly back to Pittsburgh - good since it was a holiday weekend (though it didn't feel like it to us!) and the time change was going to hit us any moment.
My moment was my hour-long nap in the afternoon, then three days of an evening nap of a couple hours, then a full night's sleep. I think having the cold was a blessing in disguise - I was able to sleep whenever and however long that I was able, so besides waking up to flip over at 3am, I was golden.
Besides catching a cold that has had me crippled for a week and a half (can I use that as an excuse for these posts being so delayed?), I got two more countries under my belt, as well as a treasure trove of experiences with my bestie and travel buddy Alisa.
Now, let's have some Christmas!
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