About 2 weeks ago it was "Silver Week" here in Japan. Silver Week is a group of holidays celebrating the elderly, the people of Japan, and the summer equinox. Because everyone had off, 9 of us decided to explore Tokyo for the 5-day weekend.
There are a few options for getting from Hikone to Tokyo. The most direct route is to take the "Shinkansen" (bullet train) from "Maibara" (a town that's only a few train stops away from Hikone). The shinkansen takes about 3 hours, and gives a great, albeit quick, view of the Japanese countryside. The only downside is that its ~$130 each way.
The other option is to take the "Yakkoo-basu" (night bus), which will land you in Tokyo at approx. 5:30am after a 7-8 hour bus ride. This option is obviously cheaper (at about 1/2 the cost of the shinkansen), but for a couple of reasons. Everyone is trying to fall asleep in a hot, cramped bus for 8 hours during the middle of the night.
Being the college students that we were, we decided on the cheap route. Because it was Silver Week, all the buses from Hikone were booked; instead, we found a bus leaving from Kyoto (fairly easy/cheap to get to by train) at 10:15pm and would arrive in Tokyo around 6:00am.
Our group was large, so we were placed in separate buses: 6 in one bus, and 3 in the other. We are on our own for communication. No one on the bus speaks English -- all we have is our limited Japanese skills. 2 of my friends and I climb on to our bus, and shortly after sitting down, the conductor walks up to us and motions that we are in the wrong seats. Thoroughly embarrassed, we grabed our stuff and move to were we were supposed to be sitting.
After a fitful night of cramped quarters, few stops, and almost no sleep, we got to Tokyo. We were all a little bit hazy because we had just been wakened up, but the conductor said "Tokyo -- Shinjuku" (a district of Tokyo) so we got off.
What we had forgotten is that the bus was going to make 3 stops in Tokyo: one at Shinjuku, one at Tokyo train station, and one in Ueno (another district). The other group remembered to get off at the Train station like we had agreed beforehand, so first thing in the morning (around 6am) in Tokyo we were separated halfway across one of the busiest cities in the world.
The Subway map for Tokyo
The first thing that struck me once we got off the bus is how empty the city seemed. I'm not sure if it was because of the vacation weekend or if because it was so early, but there was hardly anyone around. Shinjuku seemed like a business district, with some tall buildings and wide plazas, so perhaps it was because all the "Sarariiman" (Salary-men) were visiting relatives.
Luckily for the lost foreigners in Tokyo, each group had at least one person with a phone so we could call each other. We asked where the larger group was, and they answered "In a Starbucks in Tokyo train station". That seemed easy enough, so the 3 of us hopped on the subway (Very very convenient and relatively cheap), and after about 20 minutes we were walking through Tokyo train station.
Once we say the inside of the station we realised it would be harder than it first seemed. There was an entire shopping mall beneath the train station. Oddly enough all the stores were closed, but it was staggering at how far it went on. Shop after shop of clothes, snacks, games, restaurants, gifts; it was all in the the basement of the train station.
We stopped and asked for directions to he Starbucks, but the mall was so big that the employees didn't even know what we were talking about. We ended up having to walk for at least 15 minutes (without leaving the train station) to get to the other side of the station to find our friends. Once reunited, we stopped for a quick breakfast in Starbucks.
After some much-needed coffee and a muffin, we met up with Keichiro. Keichiro was a Teacher's Assistant at Kalamazoo College, where many of the group was from. Keichiro (or 'K' for short) acted as our Tour guide in Tokyo, and without him our trip would have been a mess. With his knowledge of the train system, the general layout of the city, and good places to see, he single-handedly made our trip.
After meeting K we decided to visit the Imperial Gardens. We got there right before the gardens opened at 9:00am, so we were just about the first people in. If you ever find yourself in Tokyo, the Imperial Gardens are a great place to go (... its free).
For being such a cramped city, the imperial gardens were incredibly spacious. Its hard to describe what the gardens are like, everything had a feel of 'designed nature'. Each 'scene' in the gardens was constructed in a way that left it looking natural, but if you looked hard, you could sense a human touch.
A good example of this would be "Bonsai" trees. Bonsai are ordinary trees that are kept unnaturally small by constant pruning and attention. The art is in that each tree looks like a miniature version of the real thing. This isn't to say that the imperial gardens were miniature, quite the contrary, I'm just using this as an example feel of the gardens.
After the gardens we took a brief trip to Shinjuku (where earlier, we mistakenly got off the bus), to visit the Tokyo Metro Government Building. Its one of the most noticable objects in the Tokyo skyline and the observation level is free for anyone who would like a great view of the city.
Next was lunch, and then on to Hara-juku. Unbeknownst to me, Hara-juku is a cutting-edge fashion district that sets trends around the world. Immediately stepping off of the train you see that people think of clothes in a different way in Hara-juku.
Unfortunately this is not my picture, but its not far off from what I saw.
Its a central spot for an odd mish-mash of fashions that you can't see anywhere else. I found goths, French-maids, anime characters, cos-play and any other number of fashions unique to Tokyo. The main alleyway was wall-to-wall with people. I was swept up in the sea of people.
I had to walk however quickly the people next to me were walking because there was no room to maneuver around. You went where everyone else went until you could find space enough to switch directions.
Like the options in getting to Tokyo, there are many places to stay once you're in Tokyo, ranging from the Luxury Hotels all the way down to the 'capsule hotels'. We decided beforehand to find the cheapest possible place to stay for our one night. Through some other friends who were also going to Tokyo, we found this hotel that would give you a capsule for 2000 yen a night (~$20).
This was great for us college students, we're always trying to save a few dollars where we can. However, there is definably a reason capsule hotels are the cheapest option.
All we got was enough space to sleep, everything else was shared. Toilets, sinks, baths, what little free space that was available was shared with the other tennants. We dropped off all of our stuff that we had been carrying all day and changed for dinner / karaoke.
That night we had "Kaiten Zushsi" (round-about sushi) for dinner. The premise is a conveaour belt of sushi that the customer's sit around and pick only which sushi they want. Each plate is about a dollar, and you can order specialties from the chef. Its somewhat hard to explain so I took a video:
After dinner we went to a karaoke bar, and then directly to bed. We all slept soundly because we had been on our feet for about 17 hours.
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