First Night, Part 2

(a.k.a. I've been awake for HOW long?)

At the airport I encountered something else I would see over and over again, the hospital mask. I saw people wearing them everywhere (bus drivers, students, all age groups). If you saw someone wearing one of those in the US people would think something awful was happening.

My heart sank when we walked outside. I was absolutely pouring. I’m talking torrential downpour. Ugh. I had my fingers crossed that the weather would not stay that way. We spent 10 to 15 minutes waiting for our bus to show up. All of us were excited but anxious to get our adventure in Japan underway.

Narita airport is actually not close to Tokyo. The bus ride to downtown Tokyo was over an hour. It was during that time that our tour guides formally introduced themselves to us. Our tour leader was Aka-san. Aka means “red”. Aka-san’s real name is Isaac, but he said that name was often pronounced “Eye sack” or “I suck” so he was motivated to find a nickname. Already the tour guides were making us laugh. When you have red hair Aka-san fits the bill! Kazu-san had actually flown to Japan with us from LAX, but we didn’t have a chance to talk to him.

Our tour leader Aka-san introduces himself. He doesn’t stand out in Japan at all.

Kazu-san formally introduces himself.

After getting the initial introductions out of the way Aka-san had each of us come up and tell a little about ourselves. “Hi! I barely watch any anime.” That went over really well. Actually, the cool thing about the trip was that you shared similar interests with a lot of people. Whether it was technology/gadgets, games, culture, anime, etc. you were with other people that were crazy enough to travel halfway across the planet to experience Japan. There was a really wide variety of the twenty or so people on the bus. There were many different ethnic groups and age groups. Three young people were lucky enough to have this trip presented to them as their birthday present. Yeesh. Kids today are hooked up. There were several people who had been on previous PJT tours and came back because they had enjoyed them so much. That was a good sign.

Everyone say cheese! [taken from the PJT website]

After a long ride we arrived at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel (SPH). Oh my goodness. This hotel is AMAZING. It’s hard to believe how much there is to do there. It has a bowling alley, IMAX theater, movie theater, arcade, shopping area, roller coaster, aquarium, and multiple restaurants. I was so happy we stayed there. I loved the place.

The Prince!

More Prince!

The walkway to the hotel’s aquarium.

If the prince has an Achilles heel it is the rooms. They’re completely crappy. The smallest room I have ever seen. And the beds. Oy vey the beds. I would describe them as “concrete slabs with a sheet on top” complemented with potato sack pillows. As much as I didn’t like the room I loved the hotel. We were so exhausted each night when we got to the rooms it didn’t matter.

My tiny room.

Aka-san and Kazu-san offered to walk some of us around who were stir crazy and didn’t want to go to sleep. I had been up for about 23 hours but I couldn’t miss out on this. We met in the lobby and headed out. The SPH is located right across the street from the Shinagawa train station, which made getting around so much easier. While we were being shown around all I could think was “I can’t believe I’m in Japan.”

One thing I immediately noticed in the station was this yellow line in the middle of the walkway. It extended for as long as the eye could see. I for the life of me could not figure out what it was for. Kazu-san explained that it is for blind people. It’s made of long rectangles in walkways, but when you approach something that should be noted, such as stairs or an intersection, then it switches to contain small circles. How thoughtful! I saw these everywhere. The stoplights also play a little tune when you should be crossing the road.

Follow the yellow brick road!

Are you sure I’m in Japan?

The group split in two once we got through the station. Some people went off to eat a meal. I went with a group that just wanted to explore. We poked around a convenience store marveling at the unusual (to foreigners) items. (Yes, they even had “Black Black”!) Another thing that amazed me was that it was really late at night yet we saw several women walking alone down some dark streets. Then again we were unfamiliar with the area and were walking around with hundreds of dollars in our pockets. I never in a million years would do that back home.

Here’s something you don’t see every day. Car elevators!

You could see the Tokyo Tower from where we were. Man this picture sucks.

We walked by some pachinko parlors before deciding to check one out. I love pachinko. My parents bought a used machine at a garage sale when I was kid. I spent countless hours planted in front of that thing.

The pachinko machine I had when I was a kid looked a lot like this. [pic grabbed from Ebay.]

Playing pachinko was something I definitely wanted to do in Japan. That changed rapidly when I actually entered a pachinko parlor. Good lord in heaven. The clanging of metal balls in all of the machines was so loud I’m surprised my ears didn’t start bleeding. As if that wasn’t pleasant enough the cigarette smoke was so thick it would make your eyes water. All I could think of was “get me out of here”.

Pachinko machines are a little more advanced now. I snapped this right before the attendant told us “No pictures!” Of course it has anime characters on it.

After this some people went exploring some more but I was done. I headed back to my concrete bed and called it a night.