December 30, 2024
We checked out of our apartment at 9:30 and hiked up the hill to board the 9:45 bus to Iiyama station and then catch our bullet train.
On the bus there was a gentleman we recognized from the day before. He was wearing a shovel slung around his body like a guitar with a Fender guitar strap. He also had a tambourine on his arm and a costume hat of the blue penguin mascot from the Don Quijote store. He was sometimes playing his music out loud instead of his earphones and was rocking out, sometimes singing along with his music, deeply appreciating it. Before he boarded the bus, he was spinning around and playing his shovel like a guitar. In his backpack he had a kite, a stuffed animal, and a pair of drumsticks.
Even though Madarao is only a two hour drive from Tokyo, we were going to have another travel day due to the two hour wait between the bus and the Shinkansen. I had forgotten until we arrived at our platform the regular cars were sold out when I bought the tickets and we had to buy first class tickets. It was only $30 more per ticket, but of course when multiplied by 8…it could have been way worse.
The “green car” was lovely. There were only two seats instead of three on each side of the car, they had plush comfortable seats which reclined a decent amount, and the seats had an optional footrest. I had never travelled this way before. Apparently there is a Grand Class which is even more fancy with onboard meal service.
We arrived at Ueno station at 1:45. We had a difficult time finding vacant lockers in the station amongst several different banks of lockers. Finally we found only two small empty lockers. Erez and Noam stashed their bags and then headed to a climbing gym called Fish and Bird (Noam of course had to buy some merch).
The rest of us took our bags to something called GOO Food Hall. It was in the top floor of one of the big department stores. There were many options for food- Indian, Grill, Korean, and Japanese (omurice and curry and a few other things). I got everyone’s order and went to the central ordering counter. They gave us beepers from each of the separate kitchens preparing the food. When it was ready, our beepers went off and we collected our food. It was surprisingly good for a “food court”.
By the time we finished lunch, it was 3:30 and we would be able to check into our accommodations. It was a short trip there and the cleaner wasn’t quite done cleaning yet (so he let us in as we floundered looking for the lockbox).
After unpacking, at 5:15 we decided to walk to Nakamise-dori shopping street in Asakusa. On the way we visited Senso-ji, one of the major shrine/temples in the Greater Tokyo Area.
Then we headed to the shopping street to explore.
It turns out it was a hole in the wall bar. The walls and bar and windows were completely covered in small papers with handwritten messages and drawings with mostly crayon. It advertised itself as being completely open and inclusive of everyone – EVEN KIDS!
We then headed over to a 24hr store called Don Quijote. It was 4 jam-packed floors of everything you can think of. We were in there for a couple of hours – too much in my opinion. The experience was a sensory overload.
We definitely needed to decompress after that experience.
We set out to find food. There were so many choices. The alleys were lined with restaurants, many with plastic tents extending their seating areas. We chose a random busy Izekaya (drinking establishment that has food). We were the only foreigners in the place. They offered a lot of small plates, so we tried many things. I was able to stick to veggie and tofu dishes which made me very happy. As usual, we each had to have a drink as well.
After we closed the Izekaya down at around 10:30 we started the 30 min walk back to our house. Many of us passed out without even getting ready for bed.
Another great day!
Tomorrow I get to see my Japanese family in Kazo – I am so excited!!