Sunday, only 2 days after graduation it was time for all
students to leave. Everyone was going
back to their home countries except for me and david and maybe one or two other
people. Me and david instead took the
local train out to a large train station to get on the bullet train and leave
for Tokyo. My host family saw me off and
I carried my very heavy baggage on board the train and wrote my blog entries
for the wedding and Disney sea on the trip.
It wasn’t goodbye for my host family since I gave them all my relevant
contact information so I can talk to them any time.
I didn’t
really have a plan for Tokyo, or anywhere else.
I had taken care of transportation and housing plans far ahead of time
and knew how much I could spend on food, but I never planned on what I would do
when I got to a place. On board the
train however I read some guides that my host family had given me about Tokyo. The English guide recommended a few places
like museums that I thought I would go and see, but really most of my trip at Tokyo
was just going to places I had known about ahead of time, as well as looking up
highly recommended areas from the internet.
Our first hostel that me and david had stayed at
was excellent. For 30 dollars each night
we got memory foam mattresses, a bathroom and shower shared with only 2 other
people, air conditioning and a few power outlets. There was also free internet. The owners spoke both English and Japanese,
and many of the guests spoke only English including our roommates. It seemed to me like some of the people there
should have learned more of the local language before coming. It would help them and the people they try to
talk with in the long run. But so, since
it seemed to be common that travelers did not speak Japanese, there were
several occasions where I got to speak Japanese with people around town and
they would complement me on my language skills.
The hostel owners also wanted to speak to me in Japanese, and would
recommend to me good places to eat.
Speaking
of food, that was a challenge. I am
tired of Japanese food at the moment since I had enough of it while at school. So, I didn’t really know what to do for food
while at Tokyo. I ended up eating at :
denny’s, a curry chain restaurant, mcdonalds, a convenience store, kfc, and a
donut chain. Denny’s in japan really has
very little to do with American Denny’s.
American Denny’s menu I believe is just a random assortment of food that
is convenient for family dining. Well,
that’s the same in japan. Except that
convenient family dining options are different in japan. So while it had a lot of good food, the food
was not like American Denny’s at all.
The only similarity was the look of the building.
KFC and
McDonalds were the same as in America.
Except that towards the end of the week McDonalds all around the region
started doing this international food thing, where they are going to
temporarily sell food from McDonalds in different countries. So this week they had a French McDonalds
burger. And I had that and it was pretty
good. Later in the summer they are
supposed to have Indian and Australian options.
The
donut chain was a lot like dunkin’ donuts.
They have crispy crème around here, but it wasn’t that. It was just a place called mr donut. And it was good and cheap. Oh right, there was also a chain called Miami
garden which served Italian food. Of
course Italian food is pretty normal in America so I went there a lot and it
sure was tasty. As was the curry
chain. In fact the curry chain is so
good, convenient, and cheap, that I really wish they had some in America.
Anyway,
enough about food. Where did I go? Next post is akihabara, the anime and
technology district of Tokyo.
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