Adventurasia Community

One of the moving stories that I remembered from the museum was that of a school girl named Sadako Sasaki. And it goes something like this. The paper crane has become an international symbol of peace in recent years as a result of it’s connection to the story of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki born in 1943. Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1955, at age 11, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with Leukemia, the atom bomb disease.
Sadako’s best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She started to work on the paper cranes and completed over 1000 before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of twelve. …….and all the cranes that she folded were on display at the museum.

On Miya-Jima Island, there is the famous floating torii of the Itsukushima-jinja Shrine. I guess it was low-tides, so it didn’t look like it was floating. The shrine with the island’s Mt Misen as a backdrop is classified as one of Japan’s three best views. An interesting aspect of the island is that there are deers freely walking around on the streets.

In the early evening, we took the long shinkansen (4-5 hours) ride to Tokyo. Unfortunately, there were several rude foreigners in our coach. They were drinking and were rowdy. The conductor kept on telling them to quite down but once he left they continued on their loudness. What was even worse was that they kept on harassing the poor female staff that was selling the beer. I hoped she didn’t understand the verbal stuff the foreigners were telling her. We were tired so we were able to sleep most of the way.

We arrived late at night in Tokyo. From what I saw on the shinkansen, I was very pumped up for Tokyo. We met my friend Kenny on the shinkansen platform. He is from Vancouver and has been working in Japan for the past four years. We headed back to his place, near Ikebukuro.

June 18th, Andre and I wandered around Tokyo on our own. We headed to the Fish Market. It was pouring rain and we were lost so we ditch going to the Fish Market. We went to Akihbara, the electronics capital of the world. The streets are lined with stores selling the latest electronic gadgetry. Visiting one store is enough since most of them sell more or less the same products. There were several hobby stores where we spent most of the time.

In the afternoon, we went to Roppongi district to watch Japan’s second round match against Turkey. We arrived 10 minutes before kick-off and the normally busy streets were almost empty. We headed to a nearby Spanish bar to watch the game. Japan lost the match and the mood was sad. But once we headed out to the streets, people started cheering for the team’s surprise success in making it to the second round. People started gathering and chanting at an intersection. A large contagion of police came and moved the gathering to a side street. It was raining and crowded but it didn’t dampen the mood of celebrating.

We met with Kenny and several of his friends and co-workers in Roppongi for dinner. We had Mexican food. Korea was playing on the same night. All of us decided to go to a nearby sports bar to watch the game. Korea had won and qualified for the quarterfinals. Everyone was excited. People were still cheering on the side streets, five hours since they started. It was a tiring day, a day that saw one of the World Cup host gets eliminated and one that advanced. It was time to head home and sleep.

The next morning, Andre and I explored Ikebukuro district. We got some milk at a 7-eleven. The milk tasted oddly different from that of Canada and I didn’t finish it. We went to the Toyota Amlux to look at cars. At lunchtime, we walked to Tobu and Seibu, the largest and second largest department store in the world. We read in the Lonely Planet that there were lots of tidbits for sampling. We planned on filling our stomach on those free tidbits but to our disappointment didn’t see any. We ended up buying a fruit bowl and enjoyed it right down to the last drop (Fruits are ridiculously expensive ie 12 peaches for 60,000Yen).

In the afternoon, we went to Shinjuku. This district has got to be the busiest place on earth. I was in awe of the thousands of people crossing an intersection per light. Apparently, two million people pass through Shinjuku station per day making it one of the busiest stations in the world. We walked the crowded streets and rested at an internet cafﾈ. The cool thing about this cafe was that the surfing price included an all you can drink beverage bar, and one can purchase toiletry items so that they can sleep or refresh at their computer station.

Harajuku was an interesting place to look at people. Teenagers make their own fashion statements; anything goes. There are girls in back and white leather maid uniform, punk and S&M style outfits.

We met Kenny for dinner. I forgot the district’s name, but there was a long line of girls waiting to get autographs from a popular Japanese boy band. We had dinner near the top floor of an office building. We drank Sake for the rest of the night. [Editor - this was at the Ebisu Garden Place Tower on the 40th or so floor]

On the 20th, Andre and I had breakfast at a fast-food Japanese restaurant. We looked at the display of food and told the chef what we wanted. She said something to us, but we couldn’t understand, then she pointed to a box mounted against the wall. We were supposed to pay at the machine and give the receipt to the chief, who then handles the order. The box was label in Japanese and we just picked one of the items that were the same price as the one that we wanted and hoped the order was right. Andre ordered correctly, but I ended up with a cold bowl of noodles that I didn’t finish.

We met up with my friend Aki and went to the Tokyo National Museum. She hadn’t been there before so I was the tour guide for her (she’s from Japan). The museum had lots on display within its four galleries such as swords, lacquer ware and art.

In the afternoon, us three headed for Odaiba. Once again, I was a tour guide for Aki. The district was an open space of few futuristic looking buildings. We went on a large ferris wheel, which gave a great view of Tokyo. There’s a mall with a color-changing ceiling.

That night, we met Kenny and his co-worker for dinner at a street-side restaurant. The Japanese co-worker ordered several dishes that we’ve never tried before. The fried garlic was great. He also ordered special drinks for us and we drank all night. All of us went back to the apartment to drink more sake. Oh boy, I didn’t feel too good that night.

Kenny took the next day off which was great because we could sleep in and also it was our last full day in Tokyo. We bought some souvenirs at Ikebukuro. Then, we went back to the hobby stores in Akihbara to buy some toys to bring back home. In the afternoon, we went to an English Pub to watch the England vs Brazil match with Kenny’s co-workers. He works at an English firm so it was an important match for them. In the end Brazil won 2-1.

We went to Chinatown in Yokohama for dinner. Yokohama looks exactly from what I’ve seen in pictures, the Yokohama building and ferris wheel. The Chinatown was larger than Vancouver’s Chinatown. It was nice to speak Chinese for the first time in two weeks. Later that night, we walked around Johoku Park. It felt strange seeing grass and trees in Tokyo.

June 22nd was our last full day in Japan and we had tickets to the quarterfinal game in Osaka. We left Tokyo early in the morning to take the four hours shenkansen ride back to Kyoto. On our previous visit, we didn’t have enough time to see Kinkakuji Temple, so we headed straight there. This is perhaps one of most beautiful temple as it is covered in gold foil. We decided to call our friend Jacky in Kyoto to hang out before we head off to the game later that night. Jacky knew we weren’t too excited about the game since it was Senegal vs Turkey. He found two of his friends to buy the tickets from us.

Jacky, Andre and I decided to hang out at Namba in Osaka to watch the evening match at a bar. Before heading to the bar, we ate a bowl of delicious Ramen. After eating Ramen, the Korea game had just ended with Korea advancing to the semi-finals. This was a major surprise and there was a large group of Koreans parading the streets. I was enthusiastic that an Asian team had made it so far. Andre and I paraded and cheered with them while Jacky took pictures. When we paraded past a Korean restaurant, the owners were so excited about the outcome that they handed out free beer. We enjoyed a couple of bottles.

In the evening, we went to a foreign bar to watch the Senegal vs Turkey match. We met two Japanese airline attendants and we sat and chatted with them while watching the game. After the match, Jackie went home. Andre and I walked around Namba for several hours that night. Namba is a shopping and entertainment district. We also watch several people jump off the famous Namba Bridge to celebrate the World Cup. The last time Japan won a match, there were over one thousand people jumping off that bridge. People cheered whenever there are people attempting to jump.

We had planned on staying up, since it was our last night in Japan. Since we had some extra cash from selling the soccer tickets, we decided to go to a club. We walked around looking for one but all we saw were drinking bars where we had to pay a steep cover. Each bar had several well-dressed men on the street trying to persuade us to drink at their place. The cover was too steep so we didn’t go to any bar. We went back to the Ramen place for another bowl after mid-night. By this time, we walked the area several times and had nothing to do. The streets were lively through out the night with people selling second-hand items and playing/practicing their music. We were tired and got some cardboard and laid it on the storefront and slept. This was our first time sleeping on the street. It was warm and I can hear people playing music nearby. I probably slept for an hour before waking up. We couldn’t fall back to sleep so we played soccer with a can. We used our cardboard as the goal. This was about 2 or 3 am. We walked around Namba some more. There were still lots of people around. By this time, the well-dressed men stopped persuading us to enter their bar since they recognized us from our many walks before. I was craving for some more Ramen, but by this time, they were closing up. We bought some drinks from 7-eleven and went back on our cardboards to sleep some more.

Around 5 am, people started gathering for the first train. When the first train arrived, the platform was literally packed with people who had stayed out all night partying. We took a train back to Osaka station to pickup our bags from the lockers. I was ready to go to the airport when Andre realized that his plane leaves the day after. He went on a Shinkansen to sleep on the comfortable recliners, destination unknown. I headed off to Osaka airport to fly to my next destination Thailand.