Tokyo Subway • 1 comments • The best way to travel around Tokyo is undoubtedly the subway system. Several different lines crisscross and circle the city, making it easy to traverse the megapolis in a very short amount of time. On top of this, it's also ridiculously clean and many stations are adorned with art displays. Your journey on the Tokyo metro starts at the ticket machines. Whether you're buying the single trip ticket, or the re-loadable Pasmo pass, the machines offer an intuitive, English menu for selecting the fare. We opted for the Pasmo cards so we could avoid waiting for the machines each time. Once you've paid, the task of determining your route and platform are also surprisingly straightforward. The various lines are color coded, and each station is numbered and labeled in English, making it easy to navigate your way around the city efficiently. Though the stories of overpacked subway cars during rush hour are true, outside of the morning and evening rush you end up waiting a very short time for each train, and can often find a seat. The stereotypes of Japanese politeness are reinforced when you see people line up, let people exit the train first, and then carefully squeeze into their spot on the train. Our rides were fairly relaxed, and the system is so safe and efficient that we saw many children commuting by themselves. In fact, it's apparently common for children as young as 6 to commute on the subway and run errands by themselves - quite a contrast from the attitudes in North America. When you've finally reached your destination station, you can usually find high quality restaurants within the station themselves. The most famous example is probably the Michelin starred sushi restaurant made famous by the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but each station has a different variety of restaurants and stores (or even huge malls, in the case of stations like Shinjuku). Shimbashi Station (pictured here a few times) is much smaller than Shinjuku, but still had some gems to discover.
Purikura プリクラ - Japanese Photo Booths • 2 comments • After some impressive miming and horrendous pronunciation of Japanese words around Akihabara, we were pointed in the right direction and these glorious images were the result. Shut up, they're not creepy at all! Snapchat (and now Instagram Stories) has essentially rendered the novelty of these obsolete, but I had to do this while we were visiting Japan and dragged Alex along... I want to say he's a good sport but I know he had just as much fun as I did. There is an entire culture surrounding purikura, that has been explained extensively elsewhere, so I'll include a few links below if you're interested in learning more or looking for inspiration to seek out one of the booths during your next trip to Tokyo. The experience of making these photo strips is so much more exciting than gazing into your phone camera. - Mina (◡‿◡✿) (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ ** What is Purikura? Some behind the scenes pictures, cost info., and a 360° view ** **How to Purikura Like a Pro** Allegedly, the "ultimate guide" (I didn't read it) **A somewhat instructional video** The screens move fast and you have to follow the posing prompts, then run from the green screen room to the decorating room.... **How to get Purikura on your phone** (This is obviously complicated if you don't speak Japanese... lucky for me, Alex found it more intuitive than I did and made it happen without instructions) (˵◕ ɛ ◕˵✿)
Akihabara • 1 comments • In search of the famous Purikura Japanese photo booths, we made our way to Akihabara - the area of Tokyo where these strange machines are located. It was an adventure trying to explain what we were looking for to anyone who would listen. We got distracted by some shops and then pulled into the obnoxiously loud, cigarette smoke-filled world of arcades. Alex garnered a little audience while playing a drumming game, but quickly got bored and gave his lives to some kid. This neighbourhood would be a dream for gamers, cosplayers, and possibly pervs. We probably would have enjoyed it more if we were any of those things, but it was interesting to check out anyway. Did we find the photo booths? You'll have to stay tuned to find out. - Mina
Kudanshita Warayakiya • 5 comments • There weren't many restaurants near the park we were wandering around. We stumbled onto a beautiful narrow building wedged between two fast food restaurants, a dentist, and a bunch of commercial real estate. Hungry, and kind of tired, we figured we'd take our chances without checking reviews. Sometimes, it's a challenge to navigate Tabelog (Japan's version of yelp) on the phone and we weren't in the mood to decipher translations. If you're going to luck out anywhere for good food with minimal research, it's going to be in Tokyo. Kudanshita Warayakiya is a beautiful restaurant. They had an English menu for us, and the staff was incredibly friendly. We ordered bonito with wasabi and salt, which had a really unique flavor because of the way it was "cooked" (it's mostly raw, just seared). They had an entire section on their menu that was fresh food from "the market of Tosa" - mostly fried vegetables and meats. "Otooshi" was served to us, which was described on the menu as "a simple dish served at restaurants and pubs to accompany alcohol before the ordered dishes come out. They are served whether an order is placed or not, and can be chargeable." It was ¥380. They had Japanese Nabe Hot Pot dishes that we didn't try. Instead, we opted to share the garlic and salt yakisoba that was found under the "Rice of Tosa" section. When they served us our otooshi, we had no idea what it was and since no one spoke English it was fun trying to figure out what we were about to put in our mouths. We ultimately determined it was some sort of corn dish with the help of the translate app and Google images. The food was delicious, the service was excellent, and the ambiance was amazing, but we did discover that they serve horse and whale at this restaurant, so, if that's something that offends you, don't add it to your list.
