Japan 06/22/2019 - 07/04/2019

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 The Itinerary: 
Saturday
JAL Flight 7015
Jun 22-Confirmation #OYIRA8-No Updates
Los Angeles LAX
12:30 PM
Tokyo NRT
3:55 PM

Saturday June 22nd –
we get there at 3:55pm
Take the Keisei Narita Skyaccess located in Terminal 2 Station to Heiwajima Station, Should be the same vehicle to go all the way to the destination.
Get off of the station
Then walk about a minute to home
If awake enough, go to “my basket” grocery store 7a – 11p and get:
Different flavor kit kats
Different flavor Lays potato chips
Morinaga Dars
Different flavor Oreos
Hiyoko cakes
Takenoko No Sato – the ones shaped like pinecones
Tokyo Banana
Taiyaki
Dorayaki
Sandwiches and other things for Mt. Fuji and picnic at Ueno park.
Buy something for Breakfast and dinner on Sunday June 30th
Buy something for Breakfast and Dinner on Tuesday 25th
Buy something for Breakfast Tuesday July 2nd.
Drinks
Calpis or Calpico
Different fanta flavors
Melon soda
Cocacola clear
Meiji
Japanese Yogurt Drink
Amazake



Sunday June 23rd –
Meet with tour guide Ken:
First, I will meet you at your commodity (Air bnb) at 9 am.
Then we will go to Ueno where we can see Ueno park and an entrance of “AmeYoko” shopping street.
Then we will got to Akihabara to see Yodobashi and some other shops.
After Akihabara, we will go to Tokyo station where we can see shopping mall and check the location of the Imperial palace.
Until here, it would be around 1 pm.
Then we will move to Shinjuku and have maybe Ramen as lunch at “Ichiran”.
After lunch, we will walk around the town to see the location of Robot restaurant and Samurai museum and so on.
Then we will go to Harajuku to see Meijijingu shrine and Harajuku street.
After Harajuku, we will go to Shibuya where we can see the big crossing and the statue of Hachiko dog.
After Shibuya, we will go back to your commodity at around 6 pm.

Monday June 24th –
Disney Sea 8a – 10p – can bring in your own food, no glass bottles or alcohol.
Tuesday June 25th –
Take a Best Photo at Shibuya Scramble Crossing walk to,

Shop at Don Quijote 24 hours - biggest branch is located in Shibuya walk to,

Eat Wagyu at Hakushu 9:30a – 4:30p – The most popular restaurant to try Wagyu is Hakushu which is a family owned restaurant located in Shibuya district, Tokyo. The best quality Wagyu beef can be enjoyed with an authentic Teppanyaki style. The restaurant is extremely popular, so make sure to reserve a table in advance! Walk to

Virtual Reality World Opening hours are 10 a.m. to 11:20 p.m. Tickets can be reserved in advance or purchased on at the door. Check the online timetable to find out the times of each 90-minute slot and plan your visit accordingly. During weekdays, one 90 minute, all-you-can-play admission costs ¥3,300. During weekends and holidays, the admission costs ¥3,500. You must be over 13 to use the VR attractions.
Wednesday June 26th –
Watching Sumo Morning Practice –
Arashio sumo stable 7:30am - around 10:00am ONLY. Almost every day, except for March, July, November, and each one week after the grand tournaments.

Imperial Palace 9am – 5pm – You’ll spend All day there

Robot Restaurant - Make a reservation
Please come to the restaurant 30 minutes before the show. We do not allow: Sunglasses, drunk customers, tattoos – please cover if you have any, costume outfits and large wigs.
Entrance Fee / per person : 8,000 yen
Meal Fee / per person :
A:1,500yen B:1,200yen C:1,000yen



Thursday June 27th
Owl Café Jingumae, 1 Chome−21−１５ 原宿ATMビル4F
Opens 11AM – 8pm
Cash-only · Breakfast · Casual then walk to,
Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden Park then walk to,
Eat Ramen at Ichiran Shinjuku Japan, 〒160-0022 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Shinjuku, 3 Chome−34−11 ピースビルB1F・6F24 hours
Friday June 28th
Yodobashi Akiba Electronics Department Store - with rooftop driving range walk to,

Kanda Myojin Shrine walk to,

Ameyoko street – The street has vibrant and chaotic atmosphere with lots of discount stores, groceries, and street food stalls. Walk to,

Playful Ueno Park - You can easily spend a whole day here, eat a picnic
take metro from ueno to asakusa,
Sensoji, Asakusa (oldest temple in japan) - Address: 2 Chome-3-1 Asakusa, Taito City, Tokyo 111-0032, Japan
Saturday June 29th
Farmer's Market ＠UNU, Japan, 〒150-0001 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Jingumae, 5 Chome−53−70 国際連合大学前 10am – 4pm
sakurai japanese tea experience
Teas to try:
1. Shincha. "New tea," Shincha is first flush Sencha, meaning it’s made with the very first leaves of camellia sinensis plants grown in full sunlight.
2. Sencha. Japan’s most consumed green tea,
3. Gyokuro. This more expensive green tea is smoother and more umami-rich with a delicate sweetness.
4. Matcha. Matcha is also made from shaded leaves, but the stems are removed and the steamed, dried leaves are stone ground to a fine powder.
5. Bancha. Like a mature Sencha, Bancha is a later-season, full-sun crop that yields larger leaves.
6. Hojicha. This is a form of roasted Bancha, yielding a smoky, delicious nose and rich amber color.
7. Genmaicha. Take Bancha and roast with rice. The flavor is smoky and sweet. Especially good iced.
Walk to,
Nezu museum garden Walk to,
Eat puffer fish (Fugu) - Usuki Fugu Yamadaya 臼杵ふぐ山田屋

Sunday June 30th
Pack food and water for today and tomorrow.
Getting to Mt. Fuji:
Take metro to Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal Then,
Take Bus #1405
Departing from : Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal (09:05 Scheduled Departure Time）
https://www.highwaybus.com/gp/inbound/inbBusStopInfo?lineId=110&stationCd=001
Arriving at : Mt. Fuji 5th Sta.
https://www.highwaybus.com/gp/inbound/inbBusStopInfo?lineId=110&stationCd=095
Adults : 4
Total Number of Reserved Seats : 4
Hike up to:
Fujisan Hotel (Yoshida Trail/3,400m) and stay overnight.
Monday July 1st
Getting back to Tokyo
Bus Number : 1466
Bus : 1
Departing from : Mt. Fuji 5th Sta. (15:00 Scheduled Departure Time）
https://www.highwaybus.com/gp/inbound/inbBusStopInfo?lineId=110&stationCd=095
Arriving at : Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal
https://www.highwaybus.com/gp/inbound/inbBusStopInfo?lineId=110&stationCd=001
Adults : 4
Total Number of Reserved Seats : 4

Saryo Minimalist Tea Shop 1 Chome-34-15 Kamiuma, Setagaya City, Tokyo 154-0011, Japan 1pm-8pm
Tuesday July 2nd
Niwa no Yu Get hot and steamy at an onsen - Hot springs
Eat dinner at restaurant of choice
Wednesday July 3rd
Rikugien Garden drive to,
Ghibli Museum walk to,
McDonald's, クレッセント三鷹3 Chome-35-7 Shimorenjaku, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0013, Japan
Do everything you wanted to do but haven’t done, souveniers…
Thursday July 4th
Flight leaves at 6:40p
Sushi - anywhere
Poke – anywhere
Yakitori – anywhere
Okonomiyaki - Literally meaning ‘grilled as you like it’, this savory Japanese version of pancake is a mixed made with flour, yam and egg. As the name suggests, you can also add anything you like. The most commons ingredients are green onion,shrimp, beef, vegetables, squid, mochi and cheese. It is cooked in a griddle and usually made by the customers themselves, which can be part of the fun. Because the preparation has to be cooked from both sides, by the time it has to be turned, it is a stressful and also funny moment, especially when it is your first time doing it! However if you find it hard, the staff will gladly help you or even make it for you, so don’t worry.
If we have time for some reason:
NAMIYA
Address: Koizumi Building 2F, 5-15-1 Toyotamakita, Nerima, Tokyo
Hours: Mondays to Saturdays 5:00 P.M. – 2:00 A.M.
Sundays and holidays 5:00 P.M. – 11:00 P.M.
Website: https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1321/A132102/13008999/ (info)
or
OSAKA KITCHEN
Address: Great Building 2F, 4-14-19 Ginza Chuo, Tokyo
Hours: 5:00 P.M. – 11:00 P.M.
Website: https://r.gnavi.co.jp/e390001/ (info)
Shonan Coast Beach Park 56 minutes SOUTHWEST
Mt. Fuji - opens july 1st We will be doing June 30th – July 1st
You will need to pay for the use of the mountain hut in cash once you get there (usually between ¥6,000 - ¥10,000 per person per night depending on meal plan)
Cancelation:
https://fujimountainguides.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Fujisan Hotel Go Back home :( Take

2 hours 8 minutes SOUTHWEST
Thursday
JAL Flight 7016
Jul 4-Confirmation #OYIRA8
Tokyo NRT
6:40 PM
Los Angeles LAX
1:15 PM 

My Check-ins:
Guess we're not done yet

Great way to end our trip

Leo Mass is eating Wagyu with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Hakusyu Teppan-yaki Restaurant.
July 3 at 2:27 AMShibuya, Tokyo, Japan
Wagyu kobe beef, serloin and filet
Uva is a milder taste than lipton, my new favorite tea.

Old Friends New Places

Like a japanese Starbucks but better

Here we go

So beautiful

Oldest temple in Japan

Got sick of Japanese food

So relaxing

Date night

Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Mount Fuji （富士山）.
June 30 at 12:24 AM
Rotating sushi

Leo Mass is feeling human with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Daikanransha.
June 28 at 11:04 PMKoto, Tokyo, Japan
Kawaii

So blissful

Pit stop

Japanese curry is actually pretty good.

So tranquil

Bang bang

The most famous street in the world.

Like an overpriced walmart. Finally found this gem though.

Ssooo much food

Can't even enter the palace 

Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Eric Mend at Ueno Park.
June 27 at 1:12 AMTaito, Tokyo, Japan
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Eric Mend at Ameyoko Shopping Street, Ueno.
June 26 at 11:54 PMTaito, Tokyo, Japan
Domo arigato Mr. Robato

Tried: Saemidori, okuhikari, shizu7132 asatsuya, shigeru 2. Best is saemidori
How do you pronounce fish without the eye?
Best fish!
Looks like we made it.
Our hood
We are having a hoot!
Leo Mass is with Eric Mend at Mcdonald's Shinjyuku Subsrubuilding.
Whatchu know about the teriyaki burger, egg burger, white grape juice, Japanese green tea, spicy chicken nuggets with cheese?
So peaceful and beautiful
Elevator tea.
Cubicle ramen
So much egg and sssooo good. Dumpling soup is the best.

Music: Styx - Mr. Roboto


Getting ready for the trip
I book the flight to Tokyo Japan for me and Yelena with Expedia as I usually do. Expedia told me that the cheapest one was American Airlines, I was very excited to learn that this time it wasn't United. Next thing to do is book an air bnb, but first I need to see how many people are coming with us. Eric, who you may know from our China trip, said that he will need to check with work and get back to me. Semira also heard about our trip and said she'd tell us last minute. How do I book an Airbnb if I'm not sure how much space we will need? Yelena also told me that her work friend Eugene and his wife Nadia are coming too, but they'll be staying at a hotel. 

I decided to roll the dice and book a 3 bedroom Airbnb and if anything just cancel it before the trip, there was still plenty of time but I wanted to get this part over with so we don't get stuck far away from the city or with a crappy place to stay. A week after I booked the Airbnb, I get an email form the host to fill out a pdf file for all the guests that will be staying including passport information. Weird, I've never had to do this before, maybe this is a scam? I decide to research a bit and turns out this is common practice for people staying at an Airbnb in Japan that are out of the country. I fill everything out and send it in.

While I was researching things to do in Japan, I fell upon a website who was offering free tour guides to show you around. Very convenient. I book a guide and let them know our dates of stay. I actually tried to book a guide for all the days that we stayed and shared my itinerary so he can show us those places. A guide emailed me back and introduced himself. A 60 year old man who has weekends off of work and would love to show us around on Saturday when we fly in. I'm not sure what happened with the rest of the week, but I agree and I change the itinerary a bit so he can show us around. He asks for our address of where we're going to stay so he can meet us there and I give it to him. Then he asks me for the full name of the host so he can find the place. I wasn't sure why the address wasn't sufficient enough, but I ask the host to give me his full name for the tour guide, and he insisted that the address was good enough. I conveyed this message to the tour guide and he was good to go.

Got the itinerary, Airbnb booked, air fare is done. Eric eventually calls and says that he will be with us, then a few weeks later Semira confirms she is also with us. I'm very excited, I've been wanting to go to Japan pretty much my whole life and going with my fiance and friends is just going to make it that much more epic. 

06/22/2019 Saturday
Yelena and I are packed and ready to go. My mom drives us to the Flyaway and this time we have plenty of time to get to the airport. We get to the airport and everything goes smoothly. We meet up with Eric and Semira at our terminal and get onto the plane. Even though I booked through American Airlines, we flew with Japan Air. It had tons and tons of movies to choose from. You can use the touch screen or a controller, it was very convenient. Everything is eerily going the way it's supposed to, which I'm not used to. 

06/22/2019 Saturday err 06/23/2019 Sunday
After our 11 hour flight, we finally land in Tokyo. We get our luggage and wait for Semira to get her wifi on the go. I wanted to get a sim card for my phone because Metro PCS doesn't work in Japan but Semira already got it covered with the wifi that she purchased prior to her trip, all she needed to do was pick it up at the airport. It's just a wifi stick that you can carry with you so you can use it with whatever device you want. This was actually more convenient than a sim card, because all of us can use it with our own phones.

While Semira was picking up the wifi stick, Eric and I start to explore the airport. There was already our first vending machine standing inside the airport, this one sold beverages. I've read that there are vending machines everywhere in Japan that sell all kinds of crazy things like socks, I can't wait to see all the stuff that vending machines sell here. We proceed to go upstairs and see cardboard anime.


Turns out, this is a station to visit to get pictures with all different types of Anime all around Tokyo. This was station #88. You can also get a stamp and a fake passport to prove you've been to these stations. I love anime, but very picky about it, so this was interesting to me, but not enough to seek all the stations around Tokyo. 

Before the trip, Yelena informed me that going through an exchange in other countries rather than the U.S. is usually cheaper even with commission. I confirmed this by calling my bank and couldn't believe that they charged such a high percentage to exchange your money, I wish I had known about this before! So we exchanged the money at the airport at a much more decent rate than what would have been with Chase. The sign said that the exchange rate right now is $1 USD = ¥107 Yen. Which was quite easy to convert in your head. If the sale was for ¥3457 then it would be close to $34.57. We get our Yen and proceed to the train.

We get tickets and take the train to our location in Heiwajima. The machine we get our tickets from give us our change. Japan doesn't have cents, it just has Yen. It still, however, has coins. The coins are 1 yen, 5 yen, 10 yen, 100 yen, 500 yen! There aren't any bills until you get to 1000 yen. Which means you have $5 worth of coins to carry around with you which we found pretty ridiculous. We enter the station, and to enter, you have to feed the ticket through the machine and take the ticket out from the other side. If you don't put a ticket in, a red X will appear and the gates will close and not let you in. We all fed the machine our tickets and proceeded to go through.

While exiting, you need to feed your ticket again to the machine. I was already pretty used to this from my trips before but LA Metro doesn't do this. Semira forgot to take the ticket when she entered so she didn't have one to exit so a big X appeared and didn't let her through. We see that there was an attendant on the side to help. We explain to him that she forgot her ticket and luckily he believed and understood us and let her through. We walk with our luggage to find our place, and if it wasn't for google, I'm not sure if we would have ever found it. There aren't any indication of an address in any home. I saw last names on mail boxes only, which had occurred to me why the guide needed the last name of the place. 

Speaking of the guide. When we were on the train, I connected to Semira's wifi and got an email from the guide asking where we were? I also got an email from the Airbnb host asking if we were able to find the place and check in. Weird it wasn't time yet. Turns out I completely forgot about the time change and that we arrive in Japan a day later. There is the not so smooth trip that I'm used to. I emailed them back letting them know the situation and apologized. 

We get to the place. It is a 3 story place, first floor had the bathroom, shower, laundry, and what was to become Eric's room. the second floor had the kitchen and the living room. The third floor had Semira's bedroom and mine and Yelena's bedroom. 

The house was very minimalistic, I mean everything was tiny. The refrigerator was small, TV was small, a washer that fit a few clothes without any dryer, in our room there was the smallest couch I have ever seen. No one can sit on it, just purely for aesthetic purposes which made our room seem even smaller. I actually kind of liked it. 

In the living room there is a locked IPAD and a big note posted on the wall, "Check-in here." We turned on the IPAD and followed the instructions. A lady comes on the other side and welcomes us. She asks again to take a picture of all of our passports and send them in. She wishes us a good time and we disconnect. I'm thinking this is to control illegal immigration in the country.

Let's talk about the bathroom. Here is the toilet room:


As you can see there is a sink on top of the toilet. When you flush the toilet, the water comes out of the sink so you can wash your hands and then uses that water to flush. Genius! 

Outside of the toilet room you get into the washer, sink and a mirror. You slide another door open and this is the shower room. The shower room is like what they had in Australia! You can shower anywhere you wanted in the room. It seems like every country has this but America. We need this in our life! 



The first few times I took a shower, I still stood in the bathtub because it's just so foreign to me to wet the floor. At the end of the trip, it was like waterworks when I was done with it. Also, there is a wood panel so, when the bathroom was steamy, it smelled like a sauna. It reminded me of the "bania" in Russia.

It's still not late enough for bed so we decide to go to a local restaurant. It is called, "ふじ池." Which apparently translates to: Fuji Pond. We walk in and take a look at the Japanese menu which we don't understand. The waiter comes up to us and we're guessing he's asking us what we want to drink. I look at the menu and ask him if the melon soda is alcoholic? He doesn't understand me. Uh oh, this is going to be China again where I try to explain or charade something and they won't understand me. I try to charade anyway, I pretend to drink and move side to side as if I'm drunk. They look at me, smile, and shake their head no. They understood me! Japan understands charades!! 

We order whatever is on the pictures and they bring us warm towels to clean our hands. We have a few restaurants in America that do this and it's quite nice. In Japan, every restaurant does this. However, in America, they take it away from you once you're done and if you use regular dry napkins then it's already on the table. In Japan they don't take the wet naps away from you and there aren't any dry napkins. Which means, this is your wet towel for the rest of the meal and the awkward part is you don't know where to put it. I have a goatee and we ordered noodles with soup, which means that when you slurp the food it may get on your face. In my case, it gets all over my beard. Wiping your mouth with a wet towel isn't the most comfortable thing and then finding a spot to either put it on the table or on the chair only to reuse it again seems unhygienic. I understand that it minimizes waste which is great, but at the very least please give a clean plate or something for me to put this away while I'm eating. Needless to say the food was good, the dumpling soup that we ordered was my favorite.



 06/24/2019 Monday
We wake up and I had to redo the itinerary a bit since we aren't meeting with the tour guide anymore and we are a day late. First place will be Ichiran Ramen. We google how to get there by metro and leave. I gotta say that walking around our neighborhood was really nice. It is made up of small streets where only one small car can drive through. Usually you see people on bikes and people walking by. It's filled with little parks, stores, and houses. 


I also noticed, that there are tons and tons of bikes parked without any locks! It's so cool, the whole time I was in Japan, I felt totally safe. We pass through a few more vending machines but they were all beverage machines like coffee and soda and nothing out of the ordinary like I hoped. The metro isn't too far from home, we get there and again purchase our tickets. This time we all make sure to go through and to take the ticket from the other side. 

We get to the station that we needed to get out of and we feed the ticket to the machine, a red X comes on for all of us and doesn't let us through. We went to the side where the attendant is to see what the problem was. The attendant got out his calculator and said that we owed money to come out. It was about 60 Yen each, weird but whatever. We paid it and moved on.

We get to Ichiran Ramen and go in. They lead us to a machine where you make an order. You choose the best picture and press the button. It tells you how much it's going to be and you feed the money into the machine.


It gives you a ticket and you go stand in line. Someone then comes up to you and gives you a paper with toppings on it. Do you want onions in your ramen? Thick or thin noodles? Spicy? And so on. You circle what you want and give it back. The line moves and we are finally next in line. We sit down in a row on what seems like a cubicle. It was very unique to say the least.


As your sitting there someone from behind the table serves you food and drops the mini blinds so you can eat by yourself. You can open the cubicle up to be not so secluded or you can close it and just be by yourself. It came with your own water fountain if you wanted water.



The ramen was pretty good.

Next up was Meiji Shrine which is a temple located not too far away. We begin to walk and after a bit, we decide to stop for some tea. We find a shop with tea but then I point out that there is another tea place on the second floor right next to it. We decide to go to that one and I'm so glad that we did. There was a sign at front that the tea shop was located on the second floor. We get in the elevator and head up. Then the elevator doors open and we see a small room with workers already standing there near a cash register. We are a bit confused and we ask if this was the tea place? They told us to go to the 4th floor. We didn't even get out of the elevator, so naturally the door closes and we hit the 4th floor. We get there and it opens again to a tiny room with a bar and a few tables. It was so weird, there isn't a hallway or anything, just an elevator that takes you straight to the room. The server asks us to get out of the elevator and take a seat as the elevator doors close.


We thought this was the coolest thing ever and absolutely nothing like it in Los Angeles. The weird thing is, that it was just us. What if people were already there sitting on the only tables that we were at? Would we have to wait? Or would they guide us to the bar? Oh well, I guess we got lucky. It was like going to someones home to drink tea. Definitely an experience that I haven't done anywhere else.


After we had our fill, we decided to move on to Meiji Junuin Hall. It's a temple and at some point the street enters into the temple property.



It was a really nice walk on the way up to the temple with trees on the sides and a beautiful paved road by a rake. The road in the middle had tons of tiny pebbles almost like sand that a guy was literally paving with a rake. I wonder if the guy was being paid to do this? Or he was just a part of the temple and this was his initiation?


We get to the top, on the side before entering there was a fountain where you had to wash your hands. It reminded me of those fountains before entering the Jewish cemetary where you also have to wash your hands before you leave. I come up and there are instructions, in English and other languages, that show you what to do. First wash your right hand, then your left, then take a sip of water and spit it out.


It was after that I realized I should have sipped from my hand and not the cup. Oh well. We go into the main part of the temple. It's an outside yard shaped like a square. After you enter, you go to the right where the shrine is. There were monks there praying and there were boxes where you toss coins in. The instructions say that you need to, bow, clap two times, and bow again. Then toss the coin inside. The box has bars on top so you can hear the coins going down. Unfortunately no pictures are allowed at the shrine, but here is a stock photo.


Next stop is the owl café. We walk back the amazing foresty walkway and continue on. On the way back we see a bunch of Wine barrels. Apparently a bunch of wine gets donated to this temple.


Before we get to the owl café, we see a cat café. The rest of the group decides to go in. I wasn't too into it because I've seen many cats before and have my own, so I waited outside.


We get to the owl café, and they tell us that the owls need rest and to make a reservation in the next hour or so. We made the reservation and decided to walk around. There was another small street where there weren't any cars or anything, just shops and people walking. It's a lot like the 3rd street promenade in Los Angeles, but everywhere and everything is much closer together.

Eric and I decided to eat at McDonald's and the girls went to eat somewhere else. We ordered a teriyaki burger, an egg burger, white grape juice, Japanese green tea, and spicy chicken nuggets with cheese sauce. That's right they had cheese sauce as one of the sauces for the nuggets. It was very yummy, I'm not sure why we don't have cheese sauces in McDonald's in America nor do we have spicy nuggets. A lot of people like cheese and spicy, I believe this is a missed market.


The food was decent, but I still like the McDonald's burger from Mexico better. After we were done, we walked back to the owl café. They first sat us down on the floor and gave us dessert and tea.


The dessert was waffles and cute owl shaped chocolate. It wasn't that great. Afterwards, they tell us to proceed to the room where the owls are. They explain the rules, "Before petting the owls, put your fingers in front of their beak so they can sniff you out. Pet the owl with two fingers, some like being pet on the head and some like the stomach, gauge their reactions on which ones like which." They let us go, and we walked around to pet each owl. All of them had different kinds of personality. Some didn't seem like they liked being pet at all and just wanted to stay away and others liked the attention.



It was really cute. At some point, the trainers were passing out a glove so you can take turns in holding the owl on your arm. Really cool.


06/25/2019 Tuesday
We wake up pretty early in the morning to go to Disney Sea. We take the train and this time I forgot the ticket from the metro. We let the train station people know and they said that we needed to pay a bit more for the fare and let me go without the ticket. We later noticed that every metro seems like it was owned by a different company and if you went from one to the other, you have to finish paying at the end of the trip. It was very weird. Remember the coins that we had to carry in our pockets? Well, because we had to pay a little bit more, meant we got more change jingling in our pockets. For what seems to be an efficient country, this was a very inefficient way of doing things.

We get off the metro, then get onto the Disney train to get to Disney Sea.


We go to the ticket counter. I have already collected money from everyone when I was making the itinerary so I can easily get tickets. I get them, and let everyone know that they've already paid for so don't purchase anything. Apparently Semira didn't hear me and as we were walking away, she purchased another ticket. I turn around and repeat to her that we already got tickets for everyone, and ask her to go get a refund.

Eric and I go to a shady spot to wait while Yelena waits by Semira to get her refund. A good 45 minutes go by and they aren't coming. Eric and I go back to the ticket window and Semira is still at the window trying to get her refund. There were now three people standing behind the cash register trying to figure it out. It was as if this is the first time this ever happened. We wait a bit more, and they finally hand Semira her refund receipt. I understand needing a supervisor for a refund, but it shouldn't take this long. I keep on forgetting that America is a rare country that actually gives refunds for pretty much anything.

We finally get into the park.


Yelena notices that Disney Sea is divided into sections where each section is named after a popular city, state, or fictional place that borders or has a famous body of water. Our first ride was the Gondola ride located in "Venice." While waiting, they actually had benches where you can sit at. We thought that was a genius thing to do and were wondering if every ride had it. Unfortunately, this was the only ride that had it. Why can't there be rides with seating while waiting? Amusement parks should definitely do it.


After the ride, we go on the Toy Story ride where we had to wait in line for a good 2 hours. The ride was exactly the same as Disneyland, so that was a bummer. After a bit, we notice that groups of people were wearing the same outfits.

They were like twins everywhere.

There weren't as many rides as there is at Disnelyland, but it was still fun. There were beautiful structures and places to see.


The wait for the rides were very long and it was hot! Where were those seats like we had at the Gondola ride? My favorite was the last ride we went on called, Journey to the Center of the Earth. It started out pretty slow with a story line and bam now you're outside the mountain then inside again. It reminded me of a mix between a slow ride and Big Thunder Mountain from Disneyland. It was pretty awesome.


We wanted to do the last ride which was 20,000 leagues under the sea, but it was closed. Other than that, we have conquered Disney Sea!

We went home and decided to eat at a local sushi restaurant. We came in and they sat us right at the bar. The chef pointed at the fish through the glass and told us in broken English what it was. There were about 5 typical kinds of fish to choose from such as salmon, eel, tuna, and octopus. You can order sashimi which is just a slice of the fish, or you can order the sushi, which comes on top of the rice wrapped in seaweed. Not a roll of 5+, but just 2 pieces! There wasn't anything else, no cream cheese or anything, no sauce, no grilled onion. Just the fish and seaweed. They, of course, also had the soy sauce bottle with wasabi on a plate and ginger.

We tried all of the combinations and the ingredients were very fresh. The wasabi tasted like it was real and amazing. However, I like more toppings on my sushi. After we were about finished eating, I guess the chef didn't like what he had seen. He went around the bar and over to me and taught me how to eat sushi the real way. You take the sushi and put it in the side, then you grab it with your chop sticks. So one stick is holding the bottom side of the rice, and the other is holding the fish. You dip it on the soy sauce and eat. He also showed us a real wasabi plant and how he grinds it against a wooden board that has what looks like fiber glass, but it's shark teeth pasted on the board. He put it on my plate and oh man can you taste the difference between real wasabi and the fake kind. It was yum.



06/26/2019 Wednesday
Next morning we went to meet Yelena's friends at the Tsujki Fish Market. Once again we take the metro and once again we have no idea what we're doing and once again we get change in oh so heavy coins. We get to our destination and once again have to pay more to get out. We get to the fish market and meet up with Nadia and Eugene. They have just arrived in Japan so we catch them up on what we had done as we walk around the market. The market is a good 5 blocks around with a little bit of everything you can try. Pretty expensive to get everything a la carte, but we had to try anyway. We first walked around and checked everything out before we made our decision on what to get. First we tried the wagyu beef with caviar. It tasted a bit fatty for me but more on that later.


I don't like clams much but the rest of the group tried it.


Then we tried this:


We also tried sea urchin. A bit too slimy for me but it literally melts in your mouth which is good for many foods but not my cup of tea.

[insert video]

Then we tried, what I thought was the best food. Ice cream! I had the gum flavor and it was ssssooooo good.


The cream part was already refreshing, but it also had tiny little ice crystals inside which made it even more refreshing. The consistency was perfect, the taste was flawless. I have never tasted anything like it before. Someone please let me know if we have this in the states?

[insert video]

After the amazing dessert, the next thing on the itinerary was The Minimalist Tea shop. We hop on the metro and still have to walk for a good 20 minutes to get there. Did I mention I love walking around this city? Because I do! We saw a 2 story automatic car garage:


We saw one of Yelena's favorite flowers which are Hydrangeas.


After our pleasant walk we find the place. It's a very small shop. We walk in and get greeted by a lady, in broken English she asks us to sit down. I'm glad the place was empty because I'm not sure if we would have fit if there were a few other people there and it was nice that we had the attention on us.

We sit down and the lady serves us bitter tea with ice to cleanse our pallets. She asks us to order 2 types of teas and dessert. She gives us a chart to see if the teas were more on the sweet side or the bitter side as well as more traditional teas. I don't much like sweet tea nor too bitter, so I chose more on the traditional side and a little bit bitter. There are only two desserts to choose from so I got earth tea ice cream and Yelena got a butter cream waffle.



The butter cream waffle was the better choice.

There are three rounds of drinking the teas that you choose. The first round is served at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. She takes your tea leaves and weighs them to make sure she has the right amount. She puts the leaves onto a closed strainer that is over your cup and pours the water. She gives a certain amount of time to let everything seep in and then lifts the strainer up to open it and let the tea pour into your cup.

[insert video]

We took sips from all of our teas so we could have a taste of everything. I tasted the following teas: Saemidori, okuhikari, shizu7132, asatsuya, shigeru. The best was the traditional saemidori tea. The second round was pretty much the same but served at 85 degrees. Then the third round came and this time after she poured the last cup, she gave you the tea leaves that was used so you can eat them. I thought it was a great idea. This country is very conserving and not wasteful. Just like the ice cream and the tea that I had, the leaves were a bit bitter at first. However, after a while I got used to it and enjoyed it very much. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip because it was so unique and very chill. A nice place to relax and enjoy traditional tea.


Nadia and Eugene decided to get rest for the night and we also went home to rest a bit too and get ready for the Robot Restaurant.

We get ready and leave. We get to the street it's on and this street is poppin. Crowded with people and a lot of them are speaking clear English.


There are promoters standing outside of clubs trying to get patrons in. This reminded me of when I went to China where everyone was speaking only Chinese, but when we went to Hong Kong, people spoke English as clear as day. I didn't quite like it because it takes out the authenticity of the country I'm visiting.

We get to what we think is the Robot Restaurant, but we were redirected to claim the tickets first and enter from the other way. So we keep going, and finally found the ticket place. Pretty weird that it wasn't connected to the place itself, you had to pass a few businesses to get there. We get the tickets and head to the entrance.


None of us know what we're getting into. I looked this up online when I was making the itinerary and no one actually explained what it was. Every blog said that I had to witness it first hand without having any spoilers. Without any spoilers, the only thing you should know is order food online, that is all. So from here on in, if you don't want to know what went on and experience it yourself, please skip and scroll down to the next day... This is your spoiler warning...

We head inside and wait in a room where others are also waiting for the show to start. There are food vendors but I saw online while ordering tickets an option to purchase food beforehand. Online there were 3 different choices of food and all looked really good containing sushi  It was optional, and if I didn't order it then I can order it later. Since I didn't know what everyone wanted to eat when I was making the itinerary and ordering tickets for my friends, I decided that everyone should just order when we get to the restaurant. Well, turns out this wasn't the case. Either I didn't understand, which is possible, or the website didn't explain it very well, probably some language barriers. I asked about it and they told me that the only way people got food was from the website, but we can order from the vendors if we wanted to. The only thing that vendors had was fried food, pop corn, and churros. I was very bummed that they didn't have the food option that they presented online, it looked way better. Oh well, I guess I'd opt for a churro at this point. I go to the vendor, and they're out of churros! Great, I guess I'm not hungry anymore. There are a few couches that were already taken and a few standing tables. We grabbed one and the rest of our group ate their food. More people came in and I felt sorry for them that they didn't have anywhere to stand  around a table or sit down really. I noticed that everyone was white, I don't think that I would be able to spot one Japanese person in here. This was totally a tourist trap.

Someone finally comes and asks us to follow them. We go downstairs. We turn, and go downstairs again. The walls were filled to the brim with all kinds of pictures and lots of lights.


We turn and go downstairs again! How many floors are we going underneath the ground. I was getting a bit claustrophobic and excited at the same time.  A few more turns and a few more flights of stairs, we finally get to an opening with a stage. There are rows of seats on the left and right side of the stage. We find our seats that are listed on our tickets and sit down. There were two guys sitting next to me and I introduce myself. In their German accents they tell me that they're from Germany visiting Japan, and they have also read about this place and know nothing about it.

A Japanese lady MC comes out and gets us riled up. "Are you ready for show!? Clap hands, everybody clap hands." We start to shout and the lights dim. We are sitting in the front, they close the door and a metal pole lifts up. I was guessing that it was for something not to hit us.

People on a float, like a float from a parade, roll in from both sides banging huge drums. We get more riled up, the beat was really cool.


Then a huge robot comes out. It was pretty cool, the robots and floats were controlled by a literal remote control by people who wore black sitting behind the stage and sometimes coming out. Then a laser light show happened which was also fantastic. I loved it! Halfway through there was an intermission and the vendors came on stage so people can order more fried food.

The show resumed and it took a major turn. It became a Power Ranger Style entertainment. A person on top of a robotic animal came from right stage and threatened to take over the world. The hero from the left came in another robotic animal and tried to stop it. After a few too many fights, the hero of course won. At least this is my take on it, since the show was all in Japanese even though there weren't any Japanese patrons. At the end of it there were more floats with every flag and dance from around the world. I liked everything but the power ranger part. If we took kids with us, I'm sure they would have loved every second of it. Surprisingly, I didn't really see any children there, maybe it's because we chose a later time. The show reminded me of another show called Lucha Vavoom. Random, silly, intense, and in your face. I do not regret going, I just wish Kevin came with us, he would have loved it!

On the way back after we climbed the 5 flights of stairs we went to the metro to go home. Then I saw what I didn't think I would see, drunk Japanese people hanging out. A drunk girl passed out on the side while her friends are trying to help her out. So far, we saw the Japanese people just being to themselves, being on work mode trying to get from one place to another. I had almost forgot that, just like anywhere else, there are parties here and a whole night life. 

06/27/2019 Thursday
We decide to take it a bit easy today and go shopping for souvenirs at Ameyoko Street. It's just a street with a bunch of stores and shops you can walk through.


Eric finds a cool little machine that gives you your fortune in one of the little shops.


Yelena wanted to get a Kimono, but the prices there were actually more expensive than getting one back in Los Angeles. So we didn't really find anything and decided that we have the rest of the trip to find something so we went to our next destination.

Ueno Park. Right before we get there, Yelena saw a coffee shop with cute looking desserts. It reminded me of the bread shop of little shaped bears in San Francisco.


We get to the park and it's a beautiful walk with so many unique things to see.



In the middle of the park, we stop for a picnic. I have bought a bunch of random Japanese finger foods from the store near our house for this occasion. After the food, we took our final pictures at the fountains and headed back.




The next stop is the Imperial Palace. We get there, and Eugene and Nadia meet with us. We started at the East Garden. To enter, they give you a small plastic number and when you exit from wherever, you have to turn the number back in. This number is small, so you put it in your pocket. I understand that this is the way to keep a count of people walking in so that when they close, they make sure that everyone is out but what if you forget to give it at the exit? What if you lose it? So many questions were running through my mind. In the states, we usually just have those turney thingys you walk through and as you exit you walk through another one. If the count is the same, everything is good. If not, then you have someone missing or someone just spun it more than once. Either of these things aren't a good way to keep count of people.


We look at the map that they gave us at the entrance and look for the actual Imperial Palace. We can't find it, but we decide to walk around to see if we can spot it and go in. We get to one of those original Japanese house structure where the floor is bamboo and the walls are paper. We take off our shoes and go inside. There is a man there looking over the place and we ask him where the palace is. He says that we can see it over on the other side of the garden. We thank him, but we ask him how to get into the palace. We didn't really understand him so we decide to go to the other side of the garden.


We finally get to the other side and see the walkway entrance to the palace. We see a bunch of signs that pretty much showed that there was no trespassing. A guard comes up to us and we ask him if we can go through? He says no, and doesn't really give a clear answer with his broken English but we start to slowly understand anyway. This is a palace that is still in use by the government and probably by the president. This would be the equivalent of us trying to get inside the White House. Now it makes sense, but I was still sad that we couldn't go in. The guard told us that we can see the view of the palace from a bridge. We walked to the bridge.


Next we go to eat at, "Toritake." Just like Korean BBQ, This place serves you raw food and you cook it at your table. It's not an all you can eat place, but they give you a lot of food.


ordered a Ramun and I was surprised that most of the group didn't know what it was. Ramun is a Japanese soda that pretty much tastes like Sprite. The cool thing is, the bottle comes with a marble stuck in the top of the bottle and you have to press down with your special cap so the marble falls to make the soda fizz. I used to think that the marble contained the carbonation somehow, but it turns out that the content in the bottle is already carbonated and the marble really doesn't do anything. We have them here in the states, and I highly recommend getting it.


We grilled everything. We compai'd (cheered) and had a great time. After we had our fill, we went to the Don Quijote Mega Store.


This place is 5 stories of pretty much everything Japanese.  It's a bit overwhelming and overpriced, but I still managed to buy this.



Right at the exit, is Shibuya crossing, Japans most famous street.


This is the street where the lights turn green 4 ways and everyone crosses at the same time. It wasn't as packed as I thought it would be, probably because of the rain and not a weekend, but it was still neat. 

06/28/2019 Friday
Today we decide to take a bullet train to Kyoto. We take the metro to the central station where the bullet trains are and go to buy tickets. The tickets are a bit pricey at about $120 USD one way per person. Oh well, this is a one time experience, we'll do it.  We get our tickets, and the guy tells us the direction to go to get to the bullet train. We walk and walk, and of course, go somewhere completely different and decide to turn around. It was about 7am, as we turn around we see people rushing for work in a stampede that I've only seen once before.

West Hollywood Halloween Carnival, it was the most hectic, most crowded place I have ever been to. No one moves by themselves, everyone moves slowly with the crowd one direction. I'm not even exaggerating, you're locked shoulder to shoulder, can barely even turn your head. I felt so claustrophobic, I thought I was never going to get to the end of this craziness and get out.

Back to Japan, we turn around and we see the same swarm coming at us. We don't have to go with the swarm, we have to go the other way through the swarm! I started to get flashbacks and started to brace myself. Yelena starts to yell at me to go to the side where a small railing separates the crowd going one way versus the other. I barely get there and survive to tell this story.

We find the correct place and get on the bullet train. I downloaded an app to see how fast we were going and the max speed was 180 mph. Not bad for a train compared to 50 - 80 mph of a regular train.


We get to Kyoto and head over to Fushimi Inari Shrine.


We walk in and hear a bunch of noise coming from the entrance.


I don't know what it's for but I try it.


We walk further in and there is a line of orange pillars that lead you all the way to the top of the mountain. There were thousands of them.


Halfway up, Yelena asks if we can take a detour and go through the backside of the mountain. You don't have to ask me twice to go on an adventure! So we go the long way.


We went through a bunch of beautiful bamboos and a bunch of small shrines that look like graveyards.



There was just us, no one in sight. Eric spots a little house and on the door it asks to knock to see a wood shop. He knocks, a person answers and we walk in. This is how scary movies start. The keeper is very friendly and invites us to take off our shoes and come in to look around.


The guy told us the history and the meaning of the pillars. The pillars are donations from businesses to bring good luck to the business. There are so many business trying to get a pillar up in this place that there is a waiting list for 10+ years! We thought that if a business has enough to donate and last for 10+ years then it already has pretty good luck. But the keeper tells us that the family usually passes their business down to their kids and do it for them to have good luck. He goes on to say that outside of these shrines there is a fox on one side with something in his mouth facing another fox on the other side with the moon in his mouth.

 Ok, side note, google blogs is broken! The save function doesn't work because I had to write this a second time, everytime I save it and come back to the blogger to edit, it doesn't save! So after writing it a second time, I make sure to publish at each spot that I stop and it erases my stuff ANYWAY! Google, WTF. Now this is the third time I'm having to write this over again, ugh!!!!!!!! Now I'm going to write the rest in a note pad and then transfer it over to the blogger so I don't lose anything the 4th time. So stupid! Anyway....


 They are foxes because back in the day, farmers had a problem with rodents eating their crops. To remedy this problem, they had foxes as pets to eat them. So the fox that has something in his mouth usually has some sort of rodent in his mouth. The other fox has a ball. I didn't really understand what the guy was saying about this fox because of his accent, all I knew was that these foxes represented Gods as they looked over the farms. I tried to research it, but as most legends go, the stories contradict each other and there are different versions. 

 The man also tells us that there are monks that go to each and every shrine to pray. This was shocking because just during this hike we must have passed at least 7 shrines. So I asked again, "every shrine!?" "Yes," he said that, "Every shrine around the world has to be prayed at certain times of the year."

 We thanked the mysterious man in the wood shop for the story and the history of the temple. We buy a wooden souvenir from him. I was kind of expecting that when I walk away, turn around and the shop would be gone. We kept going up and finally got to the top and guess what we see. That's right yet another shrine. 


 We rest and hang around a bit and Semira catches up because she went up from the front. We head down the right way this time and take more pictures.


 It was a really nice looking place, and I have to say it again, very unique. 

 As we were about to exit, Yelena spots some girls wearing kimonos so we had to take a picture. 


 We still haven't found a kimono for Yelena. We exited and kept walking to find a closeby restaurant. The restaurant we chose was called, "Handmade Udon Kendonya." Just like the name suggests it was an udon restaurant. There was a 10 minute wait, so we waited outside. The restaurant provided us with umbrellas because it was starting to drizzle a bit and at the window you can see them making the udon.

Eugene and Nadia came to join us and they call us in to seat us. I try the Japanese curry cold udon.


 It was good, but as far as noodles go, cold udon is probably my least favorite. The flavor doesn't really stay on and tastes a bit bland to me, even with all the spices and curry. 

 After having our fill, we decide to go on a cool boat ride down the river. We take the metro to get there and while riding, there was an older Japanese man that sat next to me. In broken English he asked me if I was from the United States. I said yes and we started talking. He told me that he was living in New York for 20 years and had to come back to live with his family. He also said that he absolutely hates it here and wants to go back to the states. I was astonished, first because even though he lived in New York for 20 years, his English was still pretty bad. Second, because he hated Japan while I was loving it here, so I asked him why he hated Japan so much? He told me that the people here were very nosy, not accepting of other people other than their own, and the government was really shady and corrupt. He randomly pulled out a piece of paper with English idioms on it and asked me if I can explain them to him. I explained what "you can have your cake and eat it to" means and many others. There were some that I had never heard before, but tried my best to explain those to him anyway. We got to our stop, I wished the man good luck and hoped to see him back in America some time.

We get to the river boating spot and... It was closed. This is what I don't like about many countries that I have visited, the opening times are at will and not consistent. It's only open as the business owner decides to have it open, so if you look online for open hours, you can't depend on them. In America, this isn't the case. If something says that it's open, it will be open pretty much no matter what, unless it rains. If it rains in Los Angeles, some businesses will be closed even when it's just sprinkling outside. In other countries, I found that if there are many people coming in, screw the pouring rain, they will be open!

 We were bummed but it is what it is. I guess I'll have to mark this on things to do in Japan next time I go. We see a coffee shop nearby and go inside to figure out what to do next. We decided to go to a bamboo path. There were many of them in Kyoto, so we chose the closest one called "Arashiyama Bamboo Groove." I think they misspelled grove. As we walk to get there, I noticed that this city was much different than Tokyo. It was a small old timey feel city with small buildings and houses that looked traditionally Japanese. This is what I thought Japan was supposed to be like. 

 We get to the bamboo place and what a sight! Bamboos went on for miles in all directions with a path going through them. 



 It was very serene and peaceful and I'm very glad we went. 

It was getting dark and we had a long trip back. This was also the last day that Eugene and Nadia were in Japan, so we said our goodbyes and we went back to the bullet train and made it back home exhausted. 

 06/29/2019 Saturday

Semira told us about a museum called Team Labs not too far from us. When I was making the itinerary, I didn't include it because I thought the museum was only for kids. She insisted that it wasn't, and when Nadia and Eugene were here, they also took the time to go and told us that it's an absolute must that we visit. They told us to go early because it fills up really quickly and right when we get there to go upstairs. They didn't want to tell us what was there but to quickly go up before it gets too crowded. 

 So, we woke up to get to the Team Labs museum early in the morning. Oh man, this also turned out to be one of my favorite spots in Japan! We go inside and see many projected lights on every wall, on the floor, and on the ceiling. Ok, that's cool. We quickly look to go upstairs as Eugene and Nadia had suggested. We find the stairs and get on a net. The person in charge there, asks us to find a place and to either sit down or lie down. It is pitch black, and we are trying to walk on the net to get to the other side of the room so we can sit and lie down. We do so and more people come inside. 

 The music starts and the light show begins. Basically you're suspended on a net and relax while there is a light show on a dome, very much like a planeterium. I think we were so mezmorized by everything that we forgot to take photos. Here is how it would look like, but imagine there being like 15 people instead of just one.


 As the show completed, we walked out and explored the museum. The museum is huge! There aren't any signs on where to go and where anything is located. They encourange you to get lost here and embrace the show. There were even hidden hallways with black velvet drapes that looked like walls for you to go through, if you found them. It was so cool! We got lost and walked through the same rooms many times trying to find our way. We also figured out, that the projecting lights were interactive.


 In one of the rooms, you press your fingertip anywhere against the wall on a blank spot then a butterfly is born. If you touch a butterfly then it dies. To me this was very poetic. Then we see these guys go by and we follow:
As we follow, we go through one of the velvet drapes and find a lilipad room.

These rooms were not just tiny showcase rooms like we have in "The Broad Museum" in Los Angeles. They were huge. 

 Then we get to another light show.


 Then we see a waterfall that goes around you and streams down to the floow.
Then Yelena invites me to go further into the museum


 We get to the area with a slide, and of course I go down the slide.


 Then we get tired and decide to sit on the floor while frogs hop around us.


 Then we get parched and drink some tea. Even the tea is interactive!!!!


 This place was so amazing. We found another room where there were lights going down some icycles. When we came a second time we saw a control panel where you can put symbols together to make a different light pattern in the room. 

Easily the best museum I've been to. Sure, I heard we have one like it in Los Angeles, but it isn't as big and not nearly as many rooms as here. 

 Another room had a picture that you drew and it came to life. I drew an animal that was very dear and near my heart.



 I know, I know, I'm clearly a modern day Michelangelo. 

 The final room we went to was the infinity floating lantern room. 


 I believe we have done all the rooms and saw everything there was to see. Even though I could stay here forever, it was time to leave. 

 We come outside and in the same plaza they had a Ferris wheel with a clear floor we decided to try. The Ferris wheel was cool and it went very high up, but the floor wasn't as clear as we'd hoped it would be. It was foggy and scratched up so you can barely see through it. I haven't been to the Skyslide in L.A. but I heard that it has the same problem where you can't see anything through the bottom anymore. Still the Ferris wheel provided a nice view.


 After the Ferris wheel ride, we wanted to try sushi again. We went to Hamazushi. 

 This is a rotating sushi place where you order the sushi on the screen and the sushi comes to you on a revolving belt straight to your table. The electronic menu had pictures and it was in English so we were sure what we were ordering. There were no sushi rolls of 12 but they did have the dressed up sushi that we were accustomed to. We make our first order and a few minutes later it arrives on the belt at our table. I wondered if we didn't remove our sushi, would the next table starve? I wanted to really try my hypothesis out, but I decided not to get kicked out of the country. 


 The rolls and the sashimis come in two pieces in a plate. So after we were done eating, our table looked like this:


 And this is only half of our food because we have already asked the server to clean the table beforehand. This sushi was better than our last sushi place because it had more things on it but I still say Los Angeles sushi is better and China sushi is the best! Sorry Japan but you gotta update your menu to keep up.

 We came home and started to pack for Mount Fuji. I checked the weather once again, and low and behold there will be a typhoon. Eh, I've dealt with a typhoon before in Australia, nothing that we couldn't handle and besides we already bought tickets to get there and reserved a spot to sleep in a hut. 

 06/30/2019 Sunday
We wake up again early in the morning to take a regular train this time to Mount Fuji. The scenery was beautiful, we were passing through many small villages and rice fields. 



 I felt like I was in a story book traveling to a wonderous destination. After a few hours we get there and it is not pouring rain, but drizzling enough to get you wet and windy where it was drizzling sideways. It was so windy to the point where it hurt when the rain hit you. We stopped at the store and asked the workers if Mount Fuji is still operational. They said yes, we can still climb it. We bought some outfits to stay dry and Eric bought a walking stick with a Japanese flag on it. He said that there are stamps along the way where he can stamp the stick. We found a place to eat our food that we brought to get some energy to climb and  then went to the welcome center at the entrance of the mountain. We asked again if it was open and they said yes, it's open unofficially and the official date is tomorrow and they didn't advise us to climb it right now. Still I was pretty stubborn and we came all this way and there is a hut waiting for us, so we decide to climb it anyway.

 As we come out of the welcome center, a girl comes to us and says that she's with the news and asked us if we were going to climb the mountain? We said yes, and her face was in astonishment. "Can I take a picture of you guys?" She asked. I can see the headlines now, "Stubborn Americans climb Mount Fuji in terrible weather, never to be found again." We let her take our picture and away we went. 


 We took the Yoshida trail which was the most popular one. We turn the corner and it wasn't windy on this side of the mountain so the rain was bearable. It was great! And beautiful.


We kept going and the hill was a good 45 degree angle pretty much the whole way. We rested a few times, and kept going. We saw a few groups of other people, none were asian though, but it was good knowing that we weren't the only crazy ones. We turned the corner of the mountain, and the wind started going again, and the rain was hurting. The very top of the mountain is 12,388 feet. The mountain is divided into stations, our bus dropped us off at station 5, so that's where we started hiking. Because we were on the off season, all the other stations were closed, except for where our hut was which was in station 8. Which also meant that Eric couldn't have his stick stamped along the way. We got to probably station number 7 and saw people coming on the way back. We asked them if they were able to get to the top and they said that there are rocks that you have to climb a bit, and they were way too slippery to get through so they decided to turn around. 

 If it was just me, or me and Eric, we would have trekked on to see the top of the mountain. However, we were with a mother of a child and another beautiful soul. We couldn't do it, we couldn't risk other lives and this, ladies and gentlemen, is where my senses overpowered my stubborness. I felt powerless and defeated, we had no other choice but to turn around. Damn you bad weather! 

 It was very painful turning around but we did make it pretty high up and the view was still gorgeous.


 Mount Fuji, you will see me again, and I will conquer you!

 We came back down and just made it for the last bus to take us to the train to get home. We get home and Yelena and I decide to go out for a walk. We were saying that we didn't see a lot of vegetables in Japan. Like, sure the big grocery stores had some but none of the restuarants served salads or anything. So we walk by a restaruant that had a picture of a cabbage in it, so we decide to go in to get a salad. Turns out the cabbage was an advertisement for cabbage soup and there wasn't any salad on the menu. Oh well, we ate our soup and had our small little date night in Japan. 

07/01/2019 Monday
We take our time sleeping in. This is our relaxing day, we eventually take the metro to Toshimaen Onsen. A natural hot spring spa. We read online that there aren't any tattoos allowed under any circumstances in these traditional spas in Japan. So we went to a store and bought a water proof opaque bandaid to hide Yelenas tattoo on her ankle. We found one that fit perfectly and went to the spa. We get to the front desk and they give us the locker keys and show us a sign of what we can't have before entering the spa. No weapons, no photographs, etc... and lastly no tattoos. Yelena, the good girl that she is, says that she has a tattoo but it's covered with her bandaid. The workers look at her bow and say, "I'm sorry but you can't come in." She kind of laughs it off and assures them that it will be covered the whole time and no one will see it. They bow this time and cross their arms with an X in front of them and insist that she will not enter this spa. Very bummed we come out, but Yelena feeling bad that if she doesn't go no one goes, tells us to go anyway and she'll just go shopping around the area. Semira said that she didn't really feel like a spa anyway so decided to join Yelena shopping, Semira you're a good friend.

Eric and I went in. They gave us a robe and a towel. We went inside and it's your typical spa. There is a cold pool, a warm pool. A bucket that fills up above you and you pull the string slowly to have it wash over you while giving you a gentle massage. You had your typical sauna and steam room. We went through all of these then we went to the common area. The common area consists of a huge pool where it broke down in sections and you can get different forms of water massages from fountains. You just prop your back on the side of the pool and hold onto the metal bars while the shower head above gives you a shoulder massage and air blows in the water to give you a back and butt massage. No photos in the spa, here are some I found online.


 Going further outside, there is a common jacuzzi in a pretty big garden. 


 You can walk around and enjoy the scenery. It was very nice and tranquil. You can even relax more looking at the coy fish.

We go back to the only men area and outside there was a natural waterfall going into a huge jacuzzi.


 In the same location, there were big pots with different scented hot water inside. It reminded me of Dragon Ball where Goku would take a bath in a huge pot over fire. We managed to sneak a photo in.


 This spa was probably the best I've been to. The one we went in China was great, they even gave you swimming shorts and slippers there which they didn't give as much here. However, this one was more unique, and the ability to just go outside and relax at the garden made it the creme brulee of all other spas. 

 We left relaxed and hungry. We called the girls, and decided to eat at our next itinerary destination called Naniwa. It wasn't too far away so we walked over. We find the place and... it's closed! We go to a neighbor store, who sells all kinds of leather souveniers, and ask the owner when does Niwaya open? The owner of the leather store was a Native American and tells us, without any accent, that it usually opens at 5 which was a half an hour from now. We ask him what brings him to Japan, and he says that he visits the United States every year and buys leather there so he can sell it here in Japan. Pretty cool. We walk around for a half an hour and go back to the restaurant and it's still closed. I'm so sick of optional opening times! There is no reason for this restaurant to be closed right now. We wait another 20 minutes, and it's still closed, so we decide to find another restaurant. 

 We kind of got sick of Japanese food by this time anyway and wanted to try some burgers. I remember passing some burger place on the way here, so we decided to retrace our steps and eat there. It was called the Freshness Burger. We ordered our food and the cheeseburger was alright, definitely not In N Out but wasn't as terrible as Umami burger either. The fries were also not bad, tasted like anywhere else. 


After eating our American food, we took the metro to Asakusa Temple, Tokyos oldest temple. We get there, and before you get to the actual temple, there were many outdoor shops, like a swap meat. We decided to look for Yelena's kimono there and Eric wanted to get chop sticks as souveneirs. 

We must have gone through every shop and couldn't find any kimonos cheaper than what we can buy from Los Angeles. 

 I had a list of desserts to try in Japan and I was looking all over the place for Tokyo Bananas and finally found some.

They were actually really good!

 We get to the temple and hear so much rattling and noise. I love it! They treat their dead with celebration. Not like they do it here, where pretty much every temple, church, mosque or gurdwara, you have to be respectful and quiet, make the least noise as possible. Over at these buddhist temples in Japan, make noise, have fun, celebrate! So much better and, excuse the irony, lively. 


 Yelena tries to get her fortune. She put a coin in a silver box and shakes it. A stick comes out with a symbol which matches the symbol on the drawer against a wall. You find that drawer and take out your fortune. You put the stick back into the box and read it. 


 Yelena got a bad fortune where, in summary, she will lose hope. If it was a good fortune you take it with you and keep it until the fortune is fulfilled. If it's a bad fortune, like the one Yelena got, you tie it up at the temple and leave it there so one of the demon looking Gods can destroy it for you so you can make sure that that misfortune doesn't happen.


 We walk around the area some more and then go to the Rikugien Gardens.

 We get our ticket and enter the garden and what a site! 


 Everywhere you look was nothing less than a fairytale. It was so green and so still. 


 We made a circle around and ended up back at the entrance. 

 Next up, was Fugu at Tora-Fugu Tei Restaurant. Fugu is a poisonous puffer fish where only one of the few skilled chefs in the world can prepare it for you. If you don't cut it a certain way then you die. I'm here to tell you this tale, so you know I'm fine and Yelena, Eric, Semira survived too. 


 The food comes in courses. First you get the fried fugu which tasted ok so far. Then you get the grilled Fugu... If you're squimish, I would skip the video.



 It was very weird and unnerving. But we got used to it pretty quick and ate it, it was pretty good. Then you get the boiled Fugu.


 There weren't any small bones or anything like that which made me love the fish. It wasn't too fishy either. It was good, and I'm glad I had it, but for the price, I'm probably not going to eat it again. For the last course, whatever you didn't eat they put it into a bowl of soup for you so you can pretty much drink the rest. Just like at the tea house we went to in the beginning of our trip, nothing was wasted. I thought this was genius and commend Japan for not being wasteful. I wish we were as creative.

 The night was still pretty young so we decide to walk around a bit. We stop for some tea at a Japanese equivelent Starbux called Tullys. They were all over the place and I liked it better than starbux because they had a wider selection of drinks and desserts.

 07/02/2019 Tuesday

 Yelena and I go to meet her old co-worker Tetsuya, an Italian restaurant for lunch. 


 He decided to come back to Japan to live and work. I asked him all kinds of questions comparing American culture to the Japanese culture. He confirmed that people work themselves to death, but he is in a position where he can work the 8 hour American way and go home. He also mentioned that there was a lot of racism going on behind the curtains. I guess every country has their skeletons. I told him that we can't find any salads and he said that people don't cook at home anymore, the little markets that we see around have meals already prepared for you with a lot of salt and saturated fat which are very popular. Of course there are great things too, he found a wife and has started a family. Even though work is tough for most, you'll keep the job for life and it's very hard to get fired. You feel safe in the streets and can be assured nothing will get stolen. 

 We finished our food, which was really good, and he had to go back to work. We met up with Eric and Semira who are hungry, so we go to a cafe nearby. We have tea, Semira ordered an appetizer, and we tried a noodle dessert.

I would have thought that because we walked so much that we would all lose some weight, but after eating so much, I don't think it happened. 

 The noodle dessert wasn't as good as I thought it would be, but the tea I got which was called Uva became my favorite tea. I like black tea and Uva has a milder taste compared to Lipton. Yummy.

 We took our time and walked around some more. We tried to find souveniers and basically killed some time because we had a reservation at yet another restaurant in 2 hours. We pretty much walked all over the mall we were at and still no good prices for kimonos. After a good 2 hours of walking around and getting to the restaurant we finally make it to Hakusyu Teppan-yaki Restaurant.

 It's a legit Wagyu Beef restaurant.


 This was much better than what we had at the fish market. Less fatty and still pretty much melted in your mouth. They had a choice of Kobe, sirloin, and filet. Of course we all ordered one of each so we can taste everything. I probably liked Kobe best, but I'm actually not sure. Everything tasted so great!

It was all great, but I love bones in my meat. I love ribs especially with cartilage in them. Give me wagyu ribs with cartilage and I'll be all over that!

 Our next stop is VR Park. It's located on Shibuya street in one of the floors of a video arcade place. Japan doesn't play around when it comes to arcades. This place has 5 stories of video games, the VR place is located on the 4th floor. Semira, Eric, and I go up and sign up. They tell us that we'll be the next group of people but it won't start in another hour. So we walk around to kill some time. We find a train simulator so naturally we had to try it out. It was in Japanese so we didn't know what the heck we were doing, but Eric got the hang of it.


We shared some waffle ice cream.


 We saw an interesting playing card arcade game. Imagine a screen just like a regular video arcade, but instead of the joystick and buttons, there is a square sensor with a grid on it. You put your cards on there where you want your army to be, and you take one of your player cards and put it to the front to have it attack, put it back and turn it for defense. There was a guy playing it the whole time and we were pretty sure he was winning. We were wondering if this place provided the cards, or you had to buy your own cards from somewhere else? We didn't want to be rude and record the guy playing, but here is a video I've found of the same thing.


There were also a bunch of claw games where you can win stuffed animals. Not only toys, but cookies, cereal, and other weird items. I was so bummed that I didn't find any vending machines with unique items as people told me I would. Maybe they were talking about claw machines? Because those had plenty of items that I've never seen a  claw machine have before. 

 Our time was up, we go back to the 4th floor and enter the VR place. It's a room with different VR games you can play. They had 1-4 player games. There were 3 of us so the first game we tried was an Alien one where we can all play at the same time. We sit down around a circular table and put on our VR headsets and pick up our controllers. We see each others avatars sitting in a closed office. There stood an NPC (Non player character) who was explaining what we should do. It was in Japanese, so we had no idea what he was saying. He leaves the room and all of a sudden we get shot up into space along with the table and into a space ship. There are now aliens studying us. One alien put something behind our neck and I actually felt a puff of air on my neck. I tried to use my controls to shoot them, but all it does is take pictures. Then we teleport into the woods and see little creatures come up to us, so we take pictures of them, then big foot comes out of nowhere. We teleport back to the office and the NPC starts talking again, as he is talking we see the pictures that we took and it's over. We take our headsets off and the worker there shows us that they used one of those small bike pumps to blast air onto our necks. 


 It was really cool, we were laughing the whole time. This game already made this place worth it. The next game we played was a knight and shooter game. Semira was the knight trying to protect herself from enemies coming toward her. I was behind her shooting arrows to protect her. She got pretty far before the enemy killed her. We switched places, I was the knight and she was the shooter. I didn't do as good protecting myself.


 There was a carpet game where you stand on a moving platform with a carpet over it. You put the VR goggles on and you're on a flying carpet flying over baghdad through tunnels and mountains shooting flying dragons and projectiles. 

After I was done, I met up with semira and we see Eric already playing one of the games. We couldn't see what he was playing, but he was standing on a red rectangular prop that was jut lying on top of the floor about half of a foot in width and height. I assumed it was supposed to be a metal beam and the point was to balance on it. Eric was so into it that for whatever reason he panicked turned really quick and hit the worker in the nuts and kept doing what he was doing without noticing what he just did. The worker was so professional that he moved out of the way and bent over quietly to ease his pain so Eric would continue not to notice or hear him. Semira and I were laughing so hard. After Eric was finished and I decided to try it. 

 Basically you start on the roof of a high rise tower and you have to walk on a beam over the city to get to the other high rise. So you literally have to put one foot over the other and if you fall off you lose. This was the second best game they had. It actually looked pretty real. I got about a quarter of the way through and all of a sudden the game gets distortred to throw you off balance for a few seconds and it worked. I fell. I was laughing so much because I actually got nervous.

 The next game I tried was a parachuting game. You sit on a swing and they put a harness on you. The actual real floor below you moves away and there is a net on the bottom in case you fall. You don't really do anything but in the virtual reality game, you're a monkey jumping from tree to tree and swinging on vines. I thought this would have been much cooler if you're jumping off of a plane or something and have to collect rings. But instead as you're hanging there in a sitting position, the ropes pull and release you. 

 Then there was a safari car you get into and put on your VR gear. Just a simulation with a moving vehicle, however there was something wrong with my headset that the game froze for me while the car was still moving. It was a bummer, and I tried telling the workers about the issue, but I'm not sure if they understood me.

 There was also a racing car VR game where you get into one of those race car video arcades with pedals and a wheel and put on the VR headset. Eric and I were racing, and today was just not my day, I'm usually really good at video games, but he ended up beating me! I was a bit upset about that. 

 We played a VR Ghost game, where you go into a haunted house and shoot ghosts. It was kid friendly so not scary at all, the ghosts were kinda like ghost busters.

 That's it, those were all the games. I decided to go back to the beam game determined to beat it. This time my strategy was to slide my feet across the beam always having one foot behind the other and never crossing over. When the game got distorted, I'd stand still until I can see what is happening again. It was working, this time when I got three quarters of the way through, they asked me to turn around and the actual worker turns me to the left, and this is where Eric must have hit him accidentally. I see a platform that I have to jump to, so I jump and make it! My strategy worked. Everyone started clapping for me. The worker took off my headset and asked me not to tell anyone my strategy to beat the game. Well, now you know.

 We still had a little bit more time, so we decided to play the Alien game again. Still a great game, all of us noticed more small details that we haven't noticed before.

 It was a great time. Definitely a Japan thing to do, however, I wish they had better graphics. This is Japan, where is all the futuristic technology that I hear so much about? I mean these games were awesome, and they definitely made them fun, but the graphics weren't much better than what my phone could handle. Still I do prefer gameplay better than great graphics if I had to choose.

 We get home and start packing because tomorrow we leave Japan. :(

 07/03/2019 Wedensday
We pack up and get ready to go. Our plane leaves at 6:40pm. I asked the host if we can leave late, but got denied. So we had to be out of our air bnb by 10:00am. Since we didn't want to carry our stuff everywhere and hang out, we decided to go to the airport early and see what we could do there. 

 We get to the airport and see if we can put our stuff into a locker and mosy around. We find lockers, but they're all taken. Then we find a desk who collects luggage for a fee and stores it behind the desk. There were already so many luggages behind there, they had to put it in the front a little and just cover it up with plastic. Oh yeah, at that point I remembered that we were in a place where no one steals anything. We could have just left our luggage in the middle of the side walk and no one would have touched it. Why were the lockers and the storages so full anyway? This is the first time ever I had to have my luggage stored, was everyone else early because their air bnb didn't let them check out late? 

 We look at the phone and check out what we can do. We see that there is an outlet about 10 minutes away by bus. So we get on the bus and go to the Sanrio Outlet. 

 We get there and nothing too special. Just your ordinary outlet. Still couldn't find a Kimono for Yelena.


 We hung out and took the bus back to the airport. This time we got off at a different terminal. A terminal where it welcomes guests to Japan! I didn't see this when we flew in!


 They had video games where you can play, and other fun things to do. If I knew this was here, we would have never wasted our time at the outlet. 

 Sadly we couldn't hang out because we were running out of time. We got our luggage back and went on our plane to go home. I finished watching Lord of the Rings trilogy on the plane and nothing much else to say, we got home just fine.

 What a trip! I love Japan. From walking on the streets to the museums and mountains, everything is so majestic, clean and taken care of. The people there keep to themselves and the atmosphere makes you feel very safe. I love seeing anime all around, even the advertisements were cool to look at. 



 This is the most unwasteful country I've ever been to. I love how they make everything cute. If the United States kicked me out, I'd live in Japan.

 The only thing I was bummed about was that there weren't any vending machines that sold out of the ordinary items like socks or ties. Also, their technology wasn't as what I thought it would be. If I can summarize Japan in a few words, I would say it's like an HD rotary phone. The look is outdated, yet the thought process is modern. Very weird, but I dig the creativity.

 Thanks to my fiance for joining me in this trip. Thank you Eric and Semira for coming! Thank you Eugene and Nadia for tagging along. And thank you Kevin for taking us out to lunch!


 Things we didn't get to try and need to next time:

 - Climb Mt. Fuji all the way up.
- Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden Park
- Ghibli Museum
- Namiya
- Osaka Kitchen

View all of our pictures here!

 Will we ever get to Colorado?

























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