Tokyo Trip: Comiket

Day 2

(Austin)

    After going to sleep quite early the previous night we awoke early with lots of energy (rare for me), ready to go. Today we were going to Comiket!

    We left the capsule hotel and walked to a near by Yoshinoya. Yoshinoya is a restaurant that specializes in Gyudon. Gyudon (Gi-yew-don) quite literally means "beef bowl". Gyudon is a bowl of white rice topped with beef and cooked onions. It also is usually flavored with a bit of soy sauce or other sauces depending on the restaurant.

A picture of Gyudon from Yoshinoya

    However we didn't get Gyudon. Instead we had Butadon (boo-ta-don). Butadon means "pig bowl" and quite similar to Gyuodon, but it uses pork instead. It also has stronger tasting sauces to help bring out the flavor of the meat at the expensive of making the rice less sticky (harder to pick up with chopsticks). However, it is extremely delicious.

    After our "breakfast" we went to a convenience store, bought bento (premade lunch) for later, and headed towards the train station. The train tracks in Tokyo are packed together tightly and a station can service many different lines at the same time. The station we went to services 6 different lines (12 tracks). We took the train to another station where we switched to a monorail. The monorail traveled over Tokyo bay towards Tokyo Big Site, the location that Comiket is held.

    Tokyo Big Site is famous for its rather odd appearance of 4 upside-down pyramids at the entrance.  It also is world renown for the large conventions that it holds, one of the most famous being Comiket.  Comiket is the largest convention for Doujinshi (doe-jin-she) which is fan made content relating to Anime and Manga. When we went they had a total attendance of ~600,000 people. This convention is NOT for people who are bad with crowds. Luckily, Elijah and I have both been to conventions before so we didn't have much of a problem.

    We walked the convention floor for hours looking at random stuff and buying stuff. We also collected a lot of free stuff.  "best part" - Elijah, 2016.  Almost everything we knew was extremely expensive but it was a lot of fun to look at. I bought a few badges and also a special limited time mug. Elijah also bought a small cloth case that he uses for his PS Vita. 

    Around 5 we left because Comiket was closing for the day. We sat down on benches right outside of the Tokyo Big Site building and ate the bentos that we bought earlier that morning. We hadn't eaten lunch so it was really nice to finally be able to eat something. We should've ate them earlier..

    We were exhausted at this point so we headed back to the hotel...

... and promptly fell asleep around 7:30. 

Tokyo Trip: To the Hotel!

Day 1, Part 2.
(Austin)

    After finishing our crepes we decided that we should find our hotel and check in before it got too late. With Elijah as our navigator, we started walking to the station that was on the proper train line connected to the one near our hotel. Tokyo has a TON of train lines.

    On our way to the station we went down some back roads and I took the picture of Tokyo Tower lit up against the night sky. Its quite pretty in my opinion.

    We made it to the station and headed towards the hotel. At the destination station we found a bakery and bought some real food for dinner. It should be noted that a bakery here isn't just cakes. Actually, there aren't any cakes in bakeries here. Those are called cake shops here. Bakeries here have different kinds if bread, many of them with meats baked / cooked in. They are very delicious and cheap; great when you're on the go.

    We left the station and started towards the hotel. The hotel was a little bit confusing to find. The address, when used with Google, puts you in front of a building that clearly isn't the hotel, however there is a sign that says, in Japanese, "if you're looking for 1980 hotel, it is at the back of this building". While we were trying to read the sign 2 kids, maybe 12 years old, saw us and told us in very broken English that the hotel was around back. I guess they knew because we were foreigners. They ran inside the front of the building. I guess they live there.

    After walking around back we found the hotel, paid, checked in, and went to our pods. I say pods because it wasn't a hotel like many of you are thinking of. It is something called a Capsule Hotel. You basically have a bed and a small closet or locker to put stuff in and that is all. It is INCREDIBLY cheap and gave us everything we needed. Elijah complained that the beds were slightly uncomfortable though. If you are wondering, I could've put 2-3 of me shoulder to shoulder and fit. Length was also fine.

    The pictures show the ladder to my pod. The lower pod under mine was Elijah's. His opening is to the right, not shown in the picture. The other 2 pictures show the inside of the pod and the lockable closet beside the pod.

We were tired, so we collapsed and went to sleep.

Thus ended our first day in Tokyo.

Tokyo Trip: The Arrival and View from Tokyo Tower.

Day 1, Part 1

(Austin)

    During winter break, Elijah and I traveled to Tokyo. We left early from Osaka KIX airport and flew to Tokyo Narita airport on Monday December 28, 2015.

    After arriving, we had a train ride that was a little over an hour to actually get into the more main part of Tokyo. Tokyo is a huge city, the largest in the world. Honestly, it is so big that it isn't really a city. It is comprised of MANY cities and neighborhoods, but they all make one freeflowing Tokyo.

The train we were on was taking us towards Tokyo tower (after a few transfers). Tokyo tower originally was the tallest tower in Tokyo and the best place to see the skyline. It has been overtaken by Tokyo Skytree, but I still wanted to go because I've seen so much about it.

    On our way there I took a few shots of the outside of a temple. Sadly I didn't taken many photos of the actual temple, but trust me, it was huge. However, when seen from the top of Tokyo tower (which you can see in some of the pictures) it looks absolutely tiny.

    So we went up into Tokyo tower and I got a bunch of pictures of the surrounding area. As I said before, Tokyo is seriously immense. Eve from the top of the tower you cannot see where the city ends (besides the side that borders the ocean). It feels like Tokyo just goes on and on forever.

After finishing, we went down the elevator and exited the tower. We found a crepe shop right outside the tower so we got crepes "for dinner". (Later we got food from a bakery for dinner). The crepes were absolutely delicious; first time I had ever had a crepe before. Mine had strawberries, chocolate, cheese cake and vanilla icecream all wrapped up in the crepe wrapping. Delicious. Sadly, I didn't get pictures of the crepes.

We decided to head to the hotel...

...which will be in part 2!

Christmas!

(Austin) Christmas finally came and our friend Yusaku's birthday is on Christmas day, so Elijah, Georgia and I surprised Yusaku by taking him to karaoke. Sadly, I completely forgot to take pictures :/
After sing at karaoke for a few hours we went to a local ramen shop that Yusaku loves and Elijah got the TRIPLE SPICY ramen. So red....
It was a ton of fun.

The picture is the decoration I helped setup at my host family's home before I moved out.

The Last Supper

(Austin) On Dec 24th I have to move out of my host family's home and into a school dorm for winter break, so before that happened, my host family decided to take me out to a very fancy tofu restaurant. Now I imagine many of you just read that sentence and cringed. Tofu? Really?
I was the same; I was concerned, however this was an amazing meal. It was simply delicious, no other way to explain it. It was a 15 course meal. I didn't take many pictures of the food (sorry), but trust me, it was good.
Also, the two people pictures are my host mom and dad.

Completion of a Semester

(Austin) With Christmas right around the corner the 2015 fall semester at Kansai Gaidai finished. This is a picture of my class on our last day. Sadly, our teacher won't be teaching at kansai next semester because she is moving to Tokyo where her husband works and lives. She still plans to be a teacher there too though!