We're in Tokyo!

Another long ride means another blog post.  Today, we're taking a 2-hour ride from Tokyo to Sendai (to see the Sendai Mediatheque) on the Shinkansen.  The Shinkansen is the Japanese bullet train that goes up to 180 mph.  Looking out the window, it's crazy to see things going by this fast without being on an airplane.  We have rail passes for this trip that are good until we leave Japan.  Some days, we've been taking tours by bus, but on others, we'll take the Japanese rail system (usually the Shinkansen) to another city and start from there.  $450 seemed like a steep price for a rail pass but I just found out that today's roundtrip ticket alone is $100, so I guess the pass was worth it.

The Japanese landscape is really nice.  It's incredibly green, but the trade-off for that is that it's been raining for a good deal of the trip.  It rained consistently during our last few days in Kyoto, then finally stopped yesterday for our journey from Kyoto to Tokyo, and now it's raining again today.  However, our schedule is so tight that the rain isn't preventing us from seeing anything; we just bust out our umbrellas and keep going.  Luckily, it isn't a cold rain.  In fact, the temperature has been consistent and pleasant for the entire trip so far.  It's been slightly humid but not too bad, and we all agree that we'll miss this weather once we move south to China, and further still to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia.

One other thing about the landscape that surprised me is the amount of development.  I was expecting large metropolises like Tokyo and Osaka with large amounts of nature and rice fields in between.  However, Japan is very developed and many of its cities spread over large areas.  Hence, there are few large undeveloped areas.  Even in Tokyo, the skyscrapers are not as tall as I had imagined.  While the city is obviously incredibly dense, it still covers a very large area and travel times can be great between different points in the city.  However, public transportation is relatively good and cheap, and Tokyo's massive subway network is well utilized.

Last night was our first night in Tokyo and we used our free evening to explore Shibuya, an entertainment and shopping district that reminded me of Times Square in New York.  Some of the third years have a friend who lives in Tokyo so he met us at our hotel and helped us navigate the overwhelming subway system to get there.  He then took us to an awesome all-you-can-eat shabu shabu place, so I got to compare real Japanese shabu shabu to the stuff I get back home in Little Tokyo.  The verdict: comparable.  Te food was about the same.  However, I liked that it was all-you-can-eat here, but at home, it comes with free rice and is a bit cheaper.  Anyway, after we finished eating, we explored Shibuya a bit but found that most of the stores were closed or were closing soon.  However, I did get a chance to run into the local H&M to buy a cheap belt since I forgot one and my pants keep trying to fall off.

We finally made it back to our hotel around 11:30 and got a chance to sleep in REAL BEDS.  This is our third hotel and the first where we haven't slept on mats on the floor.  Our hotel also has a shower curtain in the bathroom.  The lack of a shower curtain was a particularly annoying aspect of our hotel in Kyoto since it meant that you either had to shower incredibly awkwardly to keep the water in the tub or that the entire bathroom got wet by the time you were done.  However, with the exception of the shower curtain, the bathroom is exactly the same.  There must be a Japanese company that makes identical capsule bathrooms.

Before we came to Tokyo, we had the opportunity to stay in an authentic Japanese mountain town called Tsumago.  The town has been preserved with no visible satellite dishes or power lines allowed.  The place where we stayed provided us with an authentic multi-course Japanese meal.  Just when we thought it was over, they'd bring something new.  By the end, I had eaten a new type of sashimi, some interesting Japanese vegetables, lots of cold noodles, and two different types of soups, among other things.  Oh, and wasp larvae.  Yep, wasp larvae.  It actually tasted fine but it was weird if you thought too much about what you were eating.  The next morning, we got another authentic Japanese meal for breakfast before exploring the town and departing by bus, then Shinkansen, for Tokyo.