I woke up my last day in Osaka, checked out, and hopped on a train back to Tokyo. The trip back was pretty uneventful. I napped for most of it, then read for the rest. Once back in Tokyo I made a beeline for Asakusa, where my hostel was. Asakusa is home to a large market, a popular temple (Senso-ji), and the Tokyo Skytree, none of which I had visited while I was previously in Tokyo. It's also home to Khao-san Kabuki, the flagship hostel of the Khao-san hostel empire. This hostel is also EXACTLY what a hostel should be. Cheap, well-located, comfy beds, clean showers, and a common area with a thriving social life. The staff are friendly and knowledgeable, there are tips and tidbits posted on the walls, and a corner where the hostels schedule of daytrips, tours, and services are all listed out. If I'd had my druthers, this (or someplace like it) would've been where I stayed all ten days in Tokyo.
My plan for my last day was basically cram as many souvenirs and sweets into my luggage as was humanly possible before heading back to the States. Once I checked in, I wandered through the market, cramming cookies, cakes, and jellies (and a NICE bottle of sake) into my luggage like there was no tomorrow. I spent a little over an hour wandering the shops and dodging the rick-shaw tour carts in the area.
Once done with that, I swung by the hostel and dropped off several bags of goodies before heading back out again, this time back to Tokyo Station, where I got completely and utterly lost, in the best sense of the word. I was shopping there for about two to three hours, and I swear shops kept shuffling around me. I filled what little space for snacks I had with some ramen-flavored pretzel sticks and rainbow colored Pocky, and, lo and behold, stumbled across something I'd failed to locate on earlier trips: Hasegawa liquor store, a shop that specializes in Japanese whisky. I had several folks online recommend stopping there to see all the interesting things that Japanese whisky had to offer, so I grabbed a couple of things that just are NOT available in the states (namely a couple of weird wine-finished whiskies), then started trying to find dinner. Here, I wandered into something ELSE I hadn't found on earlier trips to Tokyo Station: Ramen Street! See my previous post on Tokyo station to see why I was so excited about this. It's literally just a stretch of like 6 or 7 ramen shops, all of which have their specialties. I picked the punk rock looking place and, unfortunately, didn't really like it. They had a weird...chunky miso ramen that had a beef stew type broth. Interesting, but not what I was hoping for. If it weren't for the fact I was trying to stretch my last $30 worth of yen until my flight then next day, I would've tried another one.
I headed back to the hostel and played luggage tetris to make sure everything would fit. It did...barely. I still carried a couple things in my hands onto the plane. Thankfully no one said anything the next day! One of my roommates, Ray, was a student from Singapore who had just finished studying accounting in Perth (I swear, for a small, nowhere city on the west coast of Australia, like 60% of the people I meet abroad are from Perth). I went downstairs to chat with him, and ended up watching him and an Argentinian guy play a game of drunken Jenga that was honestly awe-inspiring. Isn't alcohol supposed to inhibit fine motor control? Not for these two, apparently. While watching, I was talking with a woman from the middle of nowhere Canada (can't remember the town's name) about what was worth seeing in Tokyo. She'd just landed the day before and was still jet-lagged as all get out. She'd apparently stood in line at a sushi restaurant from 5-7am that morning and wasn't really sure why aside from the fact other people were as well. I also got pulled into a conversation about Microsoft's engineering practices with yet ANOTHER Perth Australian, which was entertaining, then headed up to bed.
The next day, I basically just got up and went straight to the airport. Before I left, Ray made the universal-to-Asia gesture for 'hangover' (squint your eyes, furrow your brow, and hold a balled fist to the side of your head; I'd seen this SEVERAL times from people by the end of the trip) when I asked how he slept. After being pulled into a quick costume photo by the hostel's front desk, I caught the 'express' to Narita airport from Asakusa, which took about an hour and a half, and began the (surprisingly smooth) process of getting back home. Security was a breeze, emigration was as well (basically just got a second stamp in my passport on top of my original visa), and my gate was easy to get to (despite me reading my gate number incorrectly originally). I spent the rest of my yen on an udon soup lunch, an ice cream bar, and some more candy, bought some books for my kindle, then boarded.
The flight home was as uneventful as the flight to Japan. I napped, read, and watched movies, then twiddled my thumbs for the other 5 hours of the flight. Once we landed, I breezed through customs, remembered why black luggage was a bad idea at baggage claim, then caught the light rail home. It was WEIRD walking back into my apartment. It took me a few minutes to remember which switches went with which lights (seriously, leave home for a month; you forget stuff like that). I showered, changed, then went out for some basic groceries. When I got back, I took a 'nap.' I fell asleep at 1 pm. I woke up at midnight. Giving into the fact that it would take a couple of days to get back into the swing of things, I stayed up and read until 5 am (with a brief interlude at 3 when my floor's power went out) before taking a quick nap before church.
My plan for my last day was basically cram as many souvenirs and sweets into my luggage as was humanly possible before heading back to the States. Once I checked in, I wandered through the market, cramming cookies, cakes, and jellies (and a NICE bottle of sake) into my luggage like there was no tomorrow. I spent a little over an hour wandering the shops and dodging the rick-shaw tour carts in the area.
Once done with that, I swung by the hostel and dropped off several bags of goodies before heading back out again, this time back to Tokyo Station, where I got completely and utterly lost, in the best sense of the word. I was shopping there for about two to three hours, and I swear shops kept shuffling around me. I filled what little space for snacks I had with some ramen-flavored pretzel sticks and rainbow colored Pocky, and, lo and behold, stumbled across something I'd failed to locate on earlier trips: Hasegawa liquor store, a shop that specializes in Japanese whisky. I had several folks online recommend stopping there to see all the interesting things that Japanese whisky had to offer, so I grabbed a couple of things that just are NOT available in the states (namely a couple of weird wine-finished whiskies), then started trying to find dinner. Here, I wandered into something ELSE I hadn't found on earlier trips to Tokyo Station: Ramen Street! See my previous post on Tokyo station to see why I was so excited about this. It's literally just a stretch of like 6 or 7 ramen shops, all of which have their specialties. I picked the punk rock looking place and, unfortunately, didn't really like it. They had a weird...chunky miso ramen that had a beef stew type broth. Interesting, but not what I was hoping for. If it weren't for the fact I was trying to stretch my last $30 worth of yen until my flight then next day, I would've tried another one.
I headed back to the hostel and played luggage tetris to make sure everything would fit. It did...barely. I still carried a couple things in my hands onto the plane. Thankfully no one said anything the next day! One of my roommates, Ray, was a student from Singapore who had just finished studying accounting in Perth (I swear, for a small, nowhere city on the west coast of Australia, like 60% of the people I meet abroad are from Perth). I went downstairs to chat with him, and ended up watching him and an Argentinian guy play a game of drunken Jenga that was honestly awe-inspiring. Isn't alcohol supposed to inhibit fine motor control? Not for these two, apparently. While watching, I was talking with a woman from the middle of nowhere Canada (can't remember the town's name) about what was worth seeing in Tokyo. She'd just landed the day before and was still jet-lagged as all get out. She'd apparently stood in line at a sushi restaurant from 5-7am that morning and wasn't really sure why aside from the fact other people were as well. I also got pulled into a conversation about Microsoft's engineering practices with yet ANOTHER Perth Australian, which was entertaining, then headed up to bed.
The next day, I basically just got up and went straight to the airport. Before I left, Ray made the universal-to-Asia gesture for 'hangover' (squint your eyes, furrow your brow, and hold a balled fist to the side of your head; I'd seen this SEVERAL times from people by the end of the trip) when I asked how he slept. After being pulled into a quick costume photo by the hostel's front desk, I caught the 'express' to Narita airport from Asakusa, which took about an hour and a half, and began the (surprisingly smooth) process of getting back home. Security was a breeze, emigration was as well (basically just got a second stamp in my passport on top of my original visa), and my gate was easy to get to (despite me reading my gate number incorrectly originally). I spent the rest of my yen on an udon soup lunch, an ice cream bar, and some more candy, bought some books for my kindle, then boarded.
The flight home was as uneventful as the flight to Japan. I napped, read, and watched movies, then twiddled my thumbs for the other 5 hours of the flight. Once we landed, I breezed through customs, remembered why black luggage was a bad idea at baggage claim, then caught the light rail home. It was WEIRD walking back into my apartment. It took me a few minutes to remember which switches went with which lights (seriously, leave home for a month; you forget stuff like that). I showered, changed, then went out for some basic groceries. When I got back, I took a 'nap.' I fell asleep at 1 pm. I woke up at midnight. Giving into the fact that it would take a couple of days to get back into the swing of things, I stayed up and read until 5 am (with a brief interlude at 3 when my floor's power went out) before taking a quick nap before church.
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