Fly the great big sky
See the great big sea
Kick through continents
Busting boundaries

“Roam”
Cosmic Thing
The B-52s

Day 8: Some place you have been, Part 2

The trip to Tokyo began with a flight. A very long flight. Like 12 freaking hours long flight.

I don’t get car sick, and amusement park rides don’t bother me in the least. For some reason, riding in planes makes me ill. It’s the same motion sickness I get from watching movies or tv shows where people can’t seem to hold the camera steady. Thank god for Transderm

This is not an advertisement or paid endorsement for Transderm, although if they wanted to pay me I certainly wouldn’t turn it down.

This stuff rocks! I made it through the entire flight without evening feeling like I needed to toss my cookies.

No idea where we are, but somewhere high above the earth.

After our hour long bus ride from the airport to the hotel, there really wasn’t a whole lot of time or energy to do anything that first night. We explored a little bit of the area surrounding the hotel, but I didn’t take many pictures right away. I way more than made up for it though.

One of the streets by our hotel in Akasaka

Our first full day we got acquainted with the area around where we were staying and where Jason was working. He had some time to show us around in the morning, so we hopped over to Shinjuku to go to the observation deck at the top of the Tokyo Government Center. Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world. Needless to say, we ALL held hands to make sure we didn’t get separated. It was crazy. The view from the top of the Government Center was amazing

View of Tokyo from the 48th floor.

All of Tokyo is laid out before you, with Mount Fuji silently keeping watch in the distance. Then we went to a department store called Tokyo Hands in Shibuya. I don’t remember how many floors, but if you want anything, you’ll find it there. That’s where we picked up Hiro.

Meet Hiro. Andrea accidentally left her regularly scheduled stuffed companion at home on this trip, but it gave us an excuse to find her a new friend. She named the lamb Hiro after a character from "Fruits Basket."

Jason’s show was being produced at the Tokyo International Forum, so we trekked over there to drop Jason off for work. The building is beautiful; it looks like an upside down ship, made entirely of glass. While we were there we ate from the street vendors outside. Andrea was disappointed there wasn’t a crepe cart, because she’d heard they were all over Tokyo (and they are, they just weren’t that day) but she got over it pretty quick when she ate some pretty amazing curry.

Tokyo International Forum

Loading in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

With Jason off to work, Andrea and I started our first adventures at wandering. We started by walking around in the gardens by the Forum. We thought we were in the Imperial Gardens, but later a consultation of the map showed that we were just west of them at Hibiya Park. Tokyo in March is a lovely time of year, especially as compared to Minnesota. It’s starting to get warm, and the cherry blossoms were just starting to bud. A great day to explore.

Crane up close and personal

Hibiya Park

No idea what the sign says, but it looked cool.

After wandering the park for a while, we decided to expand our adventure. We hopped on the train and made our way to Ginza to find the Sony building. The guide book said that they often had samples you could try, but the floor with the PlayStation equipment was being remodeled, so it wasn’t as cool as we had hoped.

What was cool was the intersection right outside the Sony building. The picture doesn’t give you the full experience of this street, and I honestly didn’t notice it until we were in the middle of it. Then I realized that ALLOFTHESEPEOPLE were walking every which way.

The photo doesn't do it justice. The swarm of people traveling in every direction was mind blowing.

Sukiyabashi Crossing.  This intersection tripped me out. I didn’t notice until we were halfway across the street that there were about 15 different directions of crosswalks. All the vehicle traffic stops and people come from every direction, going every direction. It was pretty insane.

You would think it would have been a major clusterfuck, but it was so orderly. Everyone had a place to go and walked in the designated walk to get where they were going. I hadn’t realized until I was in the middle of the street that all the pedestrians had been held at their corners while the traffic was crossing. It was like a traffic jam of pedestrians, only without the honking and cursing. And it wasn’t jammed, just really, really busy.

That was one of the cool things about Tokyo. Everything was very orderly. I think that’s part of the appeal for Andrea. She likes having clear rules and boundaries, and Tokyo had that in abundance. People did not jaywalk or go against lights. Everyone was super polite and helpful, even if they didn’t speak English. The streets and sidewalks were super clean. Almost disturbingly clean, but it was so cool. The weird part is that I never saw (or at least I never noticed) people cleaning up, like maintenance folks or street cleaners. The weirder part is that it was really hard to find a trash can. I can remember a time when I had something to throw away, and I just kept it in my pocket because I couldn’t find any place to discard it.

Even the sewer covers are pretty

Tokyo even smelled different, and in a good way. Despite being half a world away, I didn’t feel like as much of a stranger as I thought I would. A testament to the human condition, I suppose.

What’s the most amazing place you have been? Have you been anywhere that just took your breath away or was surprising in a way you didn’t expect?

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