Tokyo Trip

Well back from Tokyo. Some random thoughts from the trip:

Favorite things: full bars on my phone no matter what neighborhood I was in; trains were all within 1 minute of schedule; everything I ate was tasty (salads with eggs for breakfast!); cute bartenders (all the bartenders I encountered were girls; the guys just handled the food); I could read menus easily enough; taxi drivers were always helpful although not one of them spoke any English, coin lockers (very useful)!!!

Annoying things: whenever I gave an unexpected answer to someone, they assumed I didn't know Japanese instead of thinking I meant what I said; Taxi fare is 5 times the train fare for the same distance (trains stop running past midnight so you're stuck unless you stay up until 5 AM); the restaurants in Namjatown had very pushy waiters (I suppose that's just because there weren't any other customers within a mile of the place though.)

Neighborhoods visited this trip: Ueno-Okachimachi, Harajuku, Shibuya, Koenji-Minami, Asakusa-Kaminarimon, Shinjuku-Kabukicho, Ginza, Nihombashi, Odaiba, Ikebukuro, Tokyo Dome City, and suburb-wise Saitama City (only for the train museum though) and Kichijoji.

Transit: Only took trains of course, since within the city for 99% of the trip this time. Flew in to Narita Airport (note: you can go through Haneda from Los Angeles now, but the times worked better through Narita). The Skyliner only takes 45 minutes to the city now. Took a couple of the Subway lines, and the JR lines. Tried the day pass once, but it didn't seem worth it (about $15 when one-way fare is only about $2 anyway, plus if your ticket ends up with two holes in it from a faulty ticket gate, it won't work any more and the staff won't replace it.)

Fun discoveries: Koenji-Minami is a fun shopping district where you won't encounter any English at all. Good for practice and lots of interesting toy stores, clothing stores, electronics stores, everything. Really discovered a lot more of Ueno than I had ever before; there's a lot of fun places along Okachimachi-Chuo-Doori. This is where I discovered the Hub Pub, a British-style bar that's a chain throughout Tokyo. Decent prices and decent food. Played Pachinko for the first time. Didn't win. Denny's has a completely different and better menu for breakfast as well (tried their dinner last time).

Regrets: Didn't go to any manga cafe's this time; missed going to a club in Shibuya (will have to do that next time); skipped the fugu restaurant that some people had offered to take us too (maybe should have at least looked); didn't get a chance to head to the Ebisu restaurant; wasn't brave enough to enter any of the sex shows.

Rides: Rode two ferris wheels including the giant one in Odaiba, plus the roller coaster at LaQua which is quite a drop.

Pictures will be coming! A great vacation over all. Biggest regret was that it was so short, but it feels nice to be back in LA.