June 5, 2013

Today we slept in until 7am!!! Amazing stuff. We had a pretty lazy morning, ate a small breakfast of some super dry oranges we picked up the other day and rice snacks with peanuts. We headed out for our morning of walking around 9am and headed towards the Tokyo train station to try and find the store that carries a bunch of different flavours of Kit Kat. Weirdly enough, most of the stores in the station were still closed, I’m still not sure what time things open here, but it seems late, especially in the train station because that place is always busy. Anyways, since most stores were closed we decided to continue our search on our way back and headed out to the Imperial Gardens.

One thing that I really appreciate about Tokyo, and Japan in general I guess, is that many of the attractions are free or fairly inexpensive. The Imperial Gardens were free, the Ueno Zoo (which we didn’t go into, but still) was 600 yen (just over $6), and Amlux Tokyo (a Toyota museum) is also free. Also, at the Imperial Gardens, there were several conveniently located washrooms as well as water fountains.

 After exploring the gardens were getting pretty hungry so we went on the hunt for something to eat. We found an office building with a bunch of restaurants and stores on the lower two levels; one of the stores was a Daiso, but it was super small and didn’t have anything interesting. We enjoyed a Japanese lunch of udon and nigiri sushi before heading back towards the train station to continue our Kit Kat mission.

We did manage to find a store with Kit Kat, but they only had green tea and rum raisin flavours; I think we will see if Jen knows of any places in Nagoya where we can find some interesting flavours, otherwise we’ll probably just pick these ones up on our way home. Derrick told us that a lot of the flavours are seasonal so I’m not sure what else we will be able to find. We were going to go to the Nissan gallery in Ginza before heading home, but Ben wore his sandals today and his feet were getting sore, so we came back to the apartment to change shoes. To be fair, my feet were getting sore too in my shoes and I wanted to switch to my flip flops anyways. Now we are going to catch a train to Amlux Toyota and check out some of their models that are only sold in Japan.

Amlux Toyota is in a different area of Tokyo that we hadn’t explored yet called Toshima. The train ride took about 30 minutes and when we got out of the train station it was quite windy, so I’m glad I didn’t bring my umbrella. We spotted another Daiso in the train station and decided to check it out on our way back. Amlux Toyota was only about a 5 minute walk from the station and had 4 floors full of different cars. Ben and I picked out the sweetest van to import once its 15 years old (by which point I’m sure we probably won’t even need a van anymore…). 

The back seats were amazing and had foot rests that came up like on a recliner. In the armrest, each seat had controls to adjust the seat, control a little light on each side, turn on a seat heater, plus a bunch of other stuff. Plus there was a little table that could be pulled up between the seats for beverages and snacks. Also, all the staff there was female and there was this little army of cleaning ladies that went from floor to floor dusting the cars and wiping off any fingerprints.

 They had a little routine when they arrived on a new floor where they marched in, lined up and bowed. When two of them were working on one car they had a synchronized little routine for that too with their dusters and cloths.

After we left Amlux we decided to just wander around the area and poke through some shops. We found a couple different 100 yen stores and picked up a couple things for people back home. While we were walking down one street that was a little quieter a little old lady exclaimed over how tall Ben is, she even got right up beside him to compare their heights. Over the last few days there have been a few adults that have said something or made gestures about Ben’s height, but they have all been older people, I would guess 60+ (but who can really tell).

After a very nice stroll through the area, we headed back to the train station and hit up the Daiso for some snacks to bring on the train with us tomorrow on our way to Nagoya. Once we got back to the apartment we ate our dinner of noodles and then started cleaning up and repacking our bags so we are ready to roll out of here tomorrow. Derrick is picking us up and we are going to a car auction and then he is dropping us off at a train station in the afternoon, which is super convenient because we don’t have to lug our bags anywhere.

Tokyo Observations:

-          The area where our apartment is located is close to the financial district of Tokyo, so everyone we see walking around is dressed very professionally; all the men are wearing suits and the women are wearing skirts (with nylons, bleh so hot) and blouses with tasteful accessories. In Shibuya people’s style is definitely more edgy and in Toshima everyone is much more casual.

-          Apparently little girls riding unicycles is “all the rage”

-          No one wears deodorant/antiperspirant (according to Derrick), they just buy scented wipes to clean their armpits when necessary. However I did see an ad on one of the subways for deodorant and the picture showed a woman on the subway holding onto one of the rails with her arm in there air (hint, hint, some people are not smelling so fresh, especially during rush hour when everyone is airing out their armpits on the subway).

-          All the cars here are black, white or grey (which I guess makes sense because the only cars Ben ever imports are those colours/non-colours). Sometimes you will see a green or yellow taxi or a delivery truck that is a colour, but not very often. However for whatever reason the excavators we have seen are pink and purple.

-          There are a ton of people who ride bikes here and a lot of the bikes have carriers on the front and back for small children. Also, I guess helmets aren’t required because no one wears them, not even the kids. And because the crime rate is so low, no one locks their bike, they just leave them on the street without a care in the world.

-          People here seem to love coffee and pancakes; we have seen many coffee shops (including Starbucks) and, especially in Shibuya, many restaurants specializing in pancakes. There are cans of coffee in every vending machine; the big name in can coffee is Boss. You can find pancakes in every convenience store in little pre-wrapped packages.