JordanPachal.ca ...Just Me, Myself and I...

I am writing this late as it has been so busy, more entries will follow soon...

Day 2 - July 22...Time to do a bit of exploring and meet up with our friends who will be arriving at Narita Airport at about 4:40pm.  After going to bed at 7:30pm we were early to rise, unfortunately Jaime's rude awakening was a migraine that stopped her in her tracks.  After feeding Jaime some drugs to alleviate the migraine, Michael and I took off in search of local cuisine.  We ended up returning to a noodle shop which we saw upon our travels the night before which had pictures of the noodles with an average price in the 400 yen range.  We walked into the shop and looked around and noticed all of the signs were in Japanese, so it was going to be hard to order our food.  Another customer followed us in and I noticed he walked over to a vending machine near the door, put money in, obtained a small ticket and handed it to the lady behind the counter.  It was at this point I realized all of the pictures on the wall had numbers which corresponded to numbers on the vending machine.  One of many Japanese efficiencies we are sure to come across during our stay.  As it appeared that the food was only prepared for consumption in the shop, Michael and I ate our food there and went to a nearby convenience store to pick up some food for Jaime.

After getting some food in her stomach, that combined with the drugs earlier was enough for Jaime to feel well enough to go out.  We made our way to the Shinagawa Japan Rail station, just down the street from our hotel and exchanged our vouchers for our 2-week rail passes.  We had some assistance from the information booth as to the route to take to get to the station near our friends and we were on our way for our first experience in the Japan Rail system.  Our first stop was from Shinagawa Station to Ueno Station where we then have to buy a ticket to take us to the Asakusa Station as the Japan Rail Pass does not include travel on the Japan Metro lines, they are run by a separate company.  There was a sign on the wall beside the ticket vending machines showing that travel to Asakusa was 160 Yen so we bought our transfer tickets and we were on our way....or so we thought.

Upon arrival at Asakusa station we made our way towards the exit where you have to use the ticket that you purchased at your originating station in the pass-through machine to let you out of the station.  When we put our ticket into the machine, it displayed a red 'X' and the gates closed on us.  We took our ticket to the information booth in order to leave the station and we were then informed that we owed another 30 Yen for each ticket.  We were confused by this, but in order to get to the exit and figure out where we had to go, we paid the money and continued outside.  We looked at a map which was at the station entrance/exit in order to figure out where we had to go from there and at that point figured out that we made our way to the WRONG station.  We went to Akasaka station instead of Asakusa station, which ironically had put us back almost to where we started (near Shinigawa Station).

We decided to make the best of the situation and do a bit of wandering around as it was still early in the day and our friends wouldn't be arriving in Japan until late in the day anyway.  We found a little noodle house and had some lunch.  After lunch we made our way back to the Akasaka station and bought tickets which would get us all the way to Asakusa now that we were paying more attention.

We arrived in Asakusa and now it was time to find our friends hotel so that we could prepare for their arrival.  We looked in our map of the area to try to narrow down the area where their hotel might be and made our way in that direction.  After walking for a bit we found a convenience store and decided to get a few drinks as we were hot, sweaty and thirsty.  Michael also had to go to the washroom so we back-tracked a bit as we saw a sign for washrooms about a block back from where we were.  As we approached the washroom we also stumbled across a huge shrine which we decided to take the time to explore (as shown in the picture).  The building itself was quite amazing, but it was also incredible to watch the people and the traditions undertaken at the shrine.  There was a fountain with small wooden-handled ladles which people used to cleanse themselves.  They would pour water from the fountain on their arms to wash their hands and then they would take a sip from the cup, rinse their mouths and then spit the water out.  They would then proceed to a large cauldron filled with smoking incense and rub the smoke into their bodies and hair in order to purify themselves.  After this process they would then proceed into the shrine.  In multiple places inside and outside of the shrine there were banks of drawers with an octagonal metal cylinder in front of it.  After paying 100 Yen they would shake the container and then tip the container over to obtain a stick which had characters on the end.  They would match the characters on the stick with the same characters on the bank of drawers and then open the drawer to obtain their fortune.  Some are good, some are okay, and some are bad.  If they received a bad fortune they would then proceed to one of a multitude of racks around the shrine and tie the bad fortune there.  At the end of the day, the monks of the shrine will take all of the bad fortunes, burn them, and pray for those who received them.

We then proceeded along our way to find our friends hotel.  We made it to the general area on the map and started looking for the address which we had for their hotel.  We were looking for 1-30-12 and the area which we were in showed 2-9 (the buildings then have a number on them).  We wandered around for about an hour trying to make sense of the numbering system, however upon finding numbers such as 3-26, 2-19, 1-8, 2-6, etc in what seemed like no particular order, we first questioned who came up with this ridiculous numbering system and then decided we would need to obtain assistance in reaching our destination of 1-30.

We found a cell phone store, which was also on our list of items to get so that we could communicate with each other if required and went inside to see about renting a cell phone and found an attendant that thankfully spoke some decent english.  The store was unfortunately only for selling phones and customer service, however I also asked the store clerk if he knew of the address we wanted.  He was incredibly helpful and was able to point us to where we had to go, so we thanked him and were on our way.  The directions showed our destination was about 5 blocks from where we were.  We continued along the path laid out and were able to locate the hotel our friends were staying at, if you want to call it that.  It was now about 5:30pm so we decided to at least check to see if they had miraculously arrived at the hotel that quickly.  Unfortunately the lady at the hotel spoke no english, and even when we pointed at phrases in our phrasebook she had no understanding of what we wanted.  We decided this wasn't going anywhere fast so we went to get a phone card so we could call our friends from a payphone in order to figure out how to meet up with them.  Unfortunately, upon calling them, it went directly to voicemail so we could not reach them.  We stayed around the area for a bit longer in the hopes of coming across them and even went back to their hotel for one last attempt at tracking them down, but no luck so we decided to head home at this point and hope that our friends would try contacting us.

After heading back to our hotel, Jaime and Michael went back to the noodle house that Michael and I had visited for breakfast, and I stayed in the hotel room and relaxed.  It was another early night to bed for us as we are still synching with local time and it was an extremely busy and active day.

- Jordan