Shinjuku, Harajuku, Meiji Shrine

Narita to Shinjuku - Day One

Our arrival in Japan was announced with quite a thud on the runway. Cathay Pacific pilots seem to enjoy waking everyone up by whacking the runway as hard as possible when landing. The same thing happened when we arrived back in Taiwan. At least the landing back in Taiwan didn't have the feeling of careening around on 1 wheel a la Dukes of Hazzard we had at Narita. After getting off the plane, somehow we managed to make it all the way from Narita Airport to the hotel. We took the Narita Express to Shinjuku station. It's about US$30 one way per person. Not exactly a bargain but at least it is comfortable for the roughly 90 minute ride. Narita is way out in the boonies. We didn't realize all the seats on the train are reserved until Sophie noticed the tickets had kanji for car, row, & seat printed. OK, that avoided a bit of embarrassement right there. Being able to read Chinese is looking to be a bit handy after all.

By the time we settled in to our hotel room, it was already getting a bit late and we were getting hungry. So it was time to venture out in the Shinjuku area and look for some food. We quickly stumbled on a place called Sangokuichi that looked promising. We only went to restaurants that had prices (and usually plastic food) posted out front. A good piece of advice from Lonely Planet is be prepared for a really expensive meal if the prices aren't posted outside. Anyways, the plastic bowls of udon out front looked pretty good and the prices seemed reasonable so we gave it a try. The restaurant itself was quite nice on the inside and the food was very good. We had katsu curry udon and a wacky udon soup with pumpkin, chicken, tofu, and veggies. Both were delicious with surprisingly large portions for only Y950 (US$8.50) each. We were quite pleased with our first meal in Japan and then decided to wander around the area a bit afterwards.

Walking towards the train station we noticed a pretty large electronics store called Yodobashi. This place had quite a selection of laptops, PC's, and cameras. Then we realized that was only the first floor and there were 5 or 6 more to go. At that point, though, it looked like it was about to close so we moved on. The one new thing that we saw there that was not in Taiwan was lots of stylish small PC's. Regular mini-towers, not mini-pc's, but not just hulking beige boxes.

We wandered past a bunch of cheap curry shops towards East Shinjuku. Some of the curry places looked pretty good, although unfortunately we did not have a chance to check them out. East Shinjuku is allegedly inspiration for the urban backdrop for the movie "Blade Runner". It's not too hard to imagine why at night, it's full of more neon and giant TV screens than Las Vegas. It's also packed with shops, restaurants, strip joints, and crowds. The most notorious Tokyo red light district is here, but it seems pretty tame compared to Bangkok or Pattaya. The really weird thing here is the number foreigners here working either as strip joint touts or selling trinkets. Very few locals seems to work either of those jobs.

Our first meal in Japan was here at Sangokuichi.

Harajuku and Meiji Shrine - Day Two

The next morning we decided to head over to the Yoyogi park area. Sunday is the day for wacky high schoolers to congregate and the Meiji Shrine is also in the park. This would be our first attempt to ride the train. After a bit of confusion and some help from the ticket counter, we managed to buy tickets and find the proper track. There are dozens of tracks in the big stations like Shinjuku and Tokyo, so finding the right track isn't as trivial as it sounds. They are well marked, although it can be quite a hike to find the proper track. The Japan Rail (JR) Yamanote line connects most of the areas of interest.

Once we got to Harajuku, we needed to find some breakfast. We found a Doutor Coffee Shop and picked up a sandwich for Y230 (US$2). It was way too smoky in there to eat so we found a spot to eat later near some vending machines. As a bonus, the vending machine coffee was cheaper. Now that we were recharged, we were ready to go exploring. We quickly stumbled on Takeshita Street which looked interesting. Sophie immediately noticed a lot of people eating Japanese style crepes and we had to get one of those (about US$4).

After wandering around Harajuku for a while, we decided it was time to head for the Meiji Shrine. If we need to take a break from the Tokyo crowds on a nice day, this is probably our number one contender. Not only is the shrine itself a nice looking building set in a pleasant park, it's the only touristy attraction inside Tokyo we saw that could be considered peaceful and relaxing. A fair number of women and children came wearing traditional Japanese attire which in itself was a interesting sight.