Okay guys, as much as I'd like to stay in order and post all the pictures I've got from the gorgeous temples and shrines/ yummy food I ate in Gifu and Kyoto, fact is there are like hundreds of photos from there and I can't condense them all with the time I have now. So I'm going to have to skip those and post them later; I'm thinking I can work on them on my 13 hour plane flight back to the States. For now, I'm getting even more backed up because my current posts are stuck behind the gigantic Gifu & Kyoto ones so I'm going to go ahead and start my Shinjuku ones!
So I came in from Kyoto on Monday night and Julia met me at Shinjuku Station. Shinjuku Station is the mot heavily used station IN THE WORLD, with about 4 million people passing through it everyday. It has THIRTY-FIVE platforms (most smaller station I go in and out of have just a handful...some only have 2-3) and over TWO HUNDRED exits. It is seriously massive. Just walking around inside it is a wonder in itself, with all the thousands of overhead signs directing you to various lines and colors and arrows and the masses of people walking left, right, forward, behind you, criss-crossing. Mind-blowing. Anyway Julia took me to my new hotel, which is actually an apartment building, not a hotel. Hatsue had done the booking for me so I didn't know until now. After we settled my stuff in my room with a minor hiccup regarding the smokiness of the room (there are often no smoking/non-smoking rooms in apartment buildings and some hotels in Japan, because smoking is quite prevalent), we headed out to get some late dinner! We settled on a ramen shop located near my apartment, and since I finally had someone who could READ all the darn buttons I had a blast choosing what speciality bowl of ramen I wanted. I ended up with a bowl of menma ramen, with pork, bean sprouts, and nori in a shoyu base. So. Epicly. Good. By the way menma is bamboo shoots, but treated specially to prepare it as a ramen condiment. I have no idea what they do to it but it's bomb.
So I came in from Kyoto on Monday night and Julia met me at Shinjuku Station. Shinjuku Station is the mot heavily used station IN THE WORLD, with about 4 million people passing through it everyday. It has THIRTY-FIVE platforms (most smaller station I go in and out of have just a handful...some only have 2-3) and over TWO HUNDRED exits. It is seriously massive. Just walking around inside it is a wonder in itself, with all the thousands of overhead signs directing you to various lines and colors and arrows and the masses of people walking left, right, forward, behind you, criss-crossing. Mind-blowing. Anyway Julia took me to my new hotel, which is actually an apartment building, not a hotel. Hatsue had done the booking for me so I didn't know until now. After we settled my stuff in my room with a minor hiccup regarding the smokiness of the room (there are often no smoking/non-smoking rooms in apartment buildings and some hotels in Japan, because smoking is quite prevalent), we headed out to get some late dinner! We settled on a ramen shop located near my apartment, and since I finally had someone who could READ all the darn buttons I had a blast choosing what speciality bowl of ramen I wanted. I ended up with a bowl of menma ramen, with pork, bean sprouts, and nori in a shoyu base. So. Epicly. Good. By the way menma is bamboo shoots, but treated specially to prepare it as a ramen condiment. I have no idea what they do to it but it's bomb.
My apartment is awesome! It's got a fantastic city street view from my balcony, a nice kitchenette, huge fridge (for Japanese standards as well as any hotel/apartment), a big freezer, hot water maker, big bed, bathroom, cool multi-button toilet, and a WASHING MACHINE. It also has all sorts of buttons on the wall, there are seriously so many I can't remember what each does and I kind of just randomly hit buttons until I get the lights on that I want lol. My apartment building is pretty new as it was only constructed 4 years ago, so that contributes to how nice, modern, and clean this place is.
There's a bunch of water control buttons on a wall box too for how hot you want the water to get, as well as another knob you can use to control the water temperature in the shower. I guess the first is just to make sure you never get surprised by water so hot you are blistering...which I know has happened to everyone so I happen to like this gadget lol. There's like three different fan buttons in this apartment for seperate fans, but there's one big wall gadget near the bathroom that has several different buttons on it. They are for the regular fan, a cooler (for those summer nights when you step out of the shower only to start sweating so heavily immediately that you want to take another shower. Those of you who live in any sort of valley- I KNOW YOU'VE FELT THIS PAIN), a heater, and a dryer. It appears Japanese people never use dryers, since there are always drying lines outside of apartments and on balconies. My own apartment has a drying line on my balcony. But for the winter like now, when it probably won't get dry outside because it's too cold, apparently I'm supposed to dry them on the curtain rod in the bathroom and turn the dryer on (the fan button). I tried it out when I washed my clothes and it works like a charm!! Talk about space efficient and really fast :)
The apartment does not come with towels or bedding, but Julia had lent me a comforter and Hatsue had given me some hand towels, along with a bunch of other stuff like shampoo, soap, chopsticks, etc. Thank you both so much!! Hatsue seriously thinks of everything haha, she even gave me laundry detergent!! Which was clutch, because the first thing I wanted to do when I saw that washing machine was wash a TON of my clothes lol. I've been having to wash them all in the shower until now.
The one thing I was missing though was a pillow. I slept on some clothes the first night but I really needed an actual pillow. The next I went down to a convenience store across the street for some breakfast and things to eat later. I hauled my usual basketful of yummy goodies to the counter and was surprised when the girl held out a drawing basket (the kind where you stick your hand in and pull out a card where you may or may not get a prize) and told me to pick 4. Apparently I'd spent enough to deserve 4 lol. I pulled them out and found I'd won candy, a bag of yummy chips, and LO AND BEHOLD. I also won A FLUFFY WHITE PILLOW AND A CERAMIC MUG. FOR FREE.
Dear Japanese gods: I owe you one. And I love you.
SERIOUSLY?!?! I was lol-ing in my head the entire way home loaded down with my food and winnings. Talk about lucky!! My fortune back at the Narita Shrine in Gifu DID say I'd have luck when on traveling abroad...
The one thing I was missing though was a pillow. I slept on some clothes the first night but I really needed an actual pillow. The next I went down to a convenience store across the street for some breakfast and things to eat later. I hauled my usual basketful of yummy goodies to the counter and was surprised when the girl held out a drawing basket (the kind where you stick your hand in and pull out a card where you may or may not get a prize) and told me to pick 4. Apparently I'd spent enough to deserve 4 lol. I pulled them out and found I'd won candy, a bag of yummy chips, and LO AND BEHOLD. I also won A FLUFFY WHITE PILLOW AND A CERAMIC MUG. FOR FREE.
Dear Japanese gods: I owe you one. And I love you.
SERIOUSLY?!?! I was lol-ing in my head the entire way home loaded down with my food and winnings. Talk about lucky!! My fortune back at the Narita Shrine in Gifu DID say I'd have luck when on traveling abroad...
After a restful sleep on my new free pillow, I went out for my green tea latte (I figured I'd just change "went out for coffee" to "went out for my green tea latte" by now -.- My obsession is of EPIC PROPORTIONS by now. I'm not even trying to fight it at this point). I chose a place called Tully's Coffee down the street from my apartment. It was multi-level, like most Asian coffeehouses and I went upstairs to read and sip my Matcha Cream Swirkle. There are usually closed off glass areas of coffeehouses that are smoking areas, again because of the prevalence of smokers. I'm sure this is to accomodate the businessmen who often smoke but also often frequent coffeehouses. I think it's nice that if there has to be a smoking section, it is airproof-ed off by a sliding glass door to keep the smoke from the rest of us :)
After my Swirkle (lol, I love this word its so fun to say. Go on, try it!!) I jumped on a train to Kichijoji where I remembered seeing a Daiso while I was walking around with Julia last week. I had solved my pillow crisis but I still needed a bath towel and other necessities and Daiso is the place to go for a great variety of stuff at a good price. Just like in Korea, where Daiso was my place of choice for almost everything I could ever need :) While the price is more expensive obviously because of the dollars weakness in Japan, it is still way cheaper than other stores in Japan and I found everything I needed...and more. Seriously BEER PRETZ?! What. WHAT. I had to buy some just for the heck of it. Justin if you are reading this I also bought you a package, because for some reason as soon as I saw the "Beer" in the title I had this insta-flashback of us playing beer pong at your house with our dads HAHA. Good times.
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Top left: my neatly packaged McDonald's grocery sized bag lol; Top right: mandarins and what look like persimmons from Obaachan thay Hatsue brought to Tokyo for me! Yum :) ; Bottom left: BEER PRETZ WHAT. ; Bottom right: the flusher on most toilets here in Japan have two settings, large and small. Luckily of the Japanese kanji I retained, those were among them so I had no problems when I first arrived. I just like the idea and know it's not widespread in America. The new toilets in the Rec Cen at UCSB had them, but it was a tip up or tip down with your foot thing if you wanted a small or big flush, since we have foot pedals.
- I don't have a picture of it, but a lot of toilets here have faucets of water located directly behind your back when sitting on top of the toilet (where usually there is a liftable lid over the back of toilet?). This is to wash your hands after to save the need for a seperate sink to wash at. SO COOL. Just when I thought they couldn't get any more space-efficient, they throw me a curve ball haha. I admit I did NOT see that one coming, the sink attached to the toilet??? I can't remember if I mentioned this already too but they sometimes have seat warmers on the toilets. Which is HIGHLY pleasant, especially since it's so cold out. Like I could sit on that thing all day in perfect happiness hahah and don't understand why all the good citizens of Japan are ever not constantly attached to these amazing seat warming toilets.
Now a note on McDonald's here. If you recall, I had said I'd expand on the McDonald's here in Japan later after I had it in my Osaka post.
Osaka
They seem to treat foreigners extra well or they only hire suuuuuper friendy people. The first time I went I didn't even have to stress about them calling my number or having to watch for the right order in case they don't call numbers here like Korea. The sweet girl who helped me was really nice about my retarded blank looks to everything she said and she even went back and personally mad my order so she could come back out, wave to get my attention, and hand it to me. Talk about service. The quality of the food here is also abnormally good. I next to never eat McDonalds at home except for when I crave their iced coffees (I swear there's crack in them, they are so addicting). But here they make the burgers so carefully that the buns are puffy and fresh, the chopped grilled onions remind me of In-n-Out onions (extremely tough to beat), and they are NOT GREASY. This is unprecedented in my entire lifetime of McDonalds experiences. Do you hear that America. THERE IS A WAY to make McDs not disgustingly fattening. Lets make moves.
On a totally irrelevant note to anyone but me, the selections of soft drinks are much better than America's too. They have grape Fanta for one (grape is my favorite OF ALL TIME in case you missed it in any of my other posts and its rarely found anywhere in America in candy or drinks) and there are no diet sodas to seen on any soft drink menus. I LOVE IT. If you don't want the calories of a soft drink, ice always thought you should just drink iced tea or water. Don't lower your standards and drink some disgusting excuse for a soft drink. Find a replacement that's untainted and still plenty delicious. Besides, they cause cancer!
Kichijoji
The second time I went I got it to go this time and the girl was again super nice and friendly and made sure to get my order down correctly (for all who don't know, I can't stand pickled or any kind of sauce- mustard, mayo, and ESPECIALLY KETCHUP). They know in these McDonald's that as soon as they hear English, they whip out a laminated menu and have us point to what we want so the order goes very quickly and painlessly (unlike my ordering at Burger King in Korea lol. Ouch).
The service was so ridiculously fast for my order that I had JUST finished paying and was in the process of walking to the side to pick up my food when another girl was already there smiling at me and holding my order out, with my drink, fries, and burger all nicely packaged in individual bags then all sitting in one larger handled paper bag. HOW DO THEY MOVE SO FAST?!? I just ordered for goodness sakes haha, I am so so so impressed. It's like they take extra care of foreigners in here or something, because there were plenty of people before me and after me both times I entered a McDonalds, but my order was always given priority and even taken care of personally by my cashier in Osaka. Definitely the most impressed I've been with the service given to me this entire Asia trip, and it was in a McDonalds. Unnnnnnnbelievable. There is some serious ninja maneuvering going on here.
Osaka
They seem to treat foreigners extra well or they only hire suuuuuper friendy people. The first time I went I didn't even have to stress about them calling my number or having to watch for the right order in case they don't call numbers here like Korea. The sweet girl who helped me was really nice about my retarded blank looks to everything she said and she even went back and personally mad my order so she could come back out, wave to get my attention, and hand it to me. Talk about service. The quality of the food here is also abnormally good. I next to never eat McDonalds at home except for when I crave their iced coffees (I swear there's crack in them, they are so addicting). But here they make the burgers so carefully that the buns are puffy and fresh, the chopped grilled onions remind me of In-n-Out onions (extremely tough to beat), and they are NOT GREASY. This is unprecedented in my entire lifetime of McDonalds experiences. Do you hear that America. THERE IS A WAY to make McDs not disgustingly fattening. Lets make moves.
On a totally irrelevant note to anyone but me, the selections of soft drinks are much better than America's too. They have grape Fanta for one (grape is my favorite OF ALL TIME in case you missed it in any of my other posts and its rarely found anywhere in America in candy or drinks) and there are no diet sodas to seen on any soft drink menus. I LOVE IT. If you don't want the calories of a soft drink, ice always thought you should just drink iced tea or water. Don't lower your standards and drink some disgusting excuse for a soft drink. Find a replacement that's untainted and still plenty delicious. Besides, they cause cancer!
Kichijoji
The second time I went I got it to go this time and the girl was again super nice and friendly and made sure to get my order down correctly (for all who don't know, I can't stand pickled or any kind of sauce- mustard, mayo, and ESPECIALLY KETCHUP). They know in these McDonald's that as soon as they hear English, they whip out a laminated menu and have us point to what we want so the order goes very quickly and painlessly (unlike my ordering at Burger King in Korea lol. Ouch).
The service was so ridiculously fast for my order that I had JUST finished paying and was in the process of walking to the side to pick up my food when another girl was already there smiling at me and holding my order out, with my drink, fries, and burger all nicely packaged in individual bags then all sitting in one larger handled paper bag. HOW DO THEY MOVE SO FAST?!? I just ordered for goodness sakes haha, I am so so so impressed. It's like they take extra care of foreigners in here or something, because there were plenty of people before me and after me both times I entered a McDonalds, but my order was always given priority and even taken care of personally by my cashier in Osaka. Definitely the most impressed I've been with the service given to me this entire Asia trip, and it was in a McDonalds. Unnnnnnnbelievable. There is some serious ninja maneuvering going on here.