Tokyo - HONTO!!!! (REALLY!!!)

Im not sure where to begin, which is why its taken me some time to finally update. I had such an amazing time in Tokyo its hard to put into words exactly the amount of fun I had there but I will try my best.

My trip actually started out in Shizouka City, where my training friend Travis lives. He lives an hour away from Numazu. I actually was going an hour further from Tokyo to visit him but I wanted people to travel with so it was okay. Britney and her friend Katie from home who came to visit for new years also went to Travis's.

What a fun bunch.

So we spent our time seeing Travis's cool apartment where we had a lovely dinner and went out for drinks with his friends in the area. Had such a great time! I also learned about Mameshiba here:

Its hilarious and also creeps me out. The music is creepy!!! Its not even selling anything. The joke was the little edamame coming out of the pod going.. nnnuuuuuuuwwww! hahahaha 

Anyways. The next day we took the local train to Tokyo which was 3 hours because it was slow and made a bajillion stops. It was okay though because I put my Kindle into good use and read a book. From tokyo station we went to Ueno station which is where my hotel was. Ueno was pretty cool. Everything was just so busy from being the holidays and lots of people wanted to be there for the holiday (like me). It had a starbucks which was cool. There were a lot of starbucks in Tokyo. That night everyone met up for drinks and we bonded over stories from our first month at work.  The group I met up with were all from my training week back in November. It's so wonderful how close we've become in such a short period of time. All the traveling and new experiences really can bring you closer to people. I'm very lucky to have such great people in my life here!

The gang.

The next day was spent checking out Ueno. There were so many cool shops in that part of town and the streets were crazy. I bought a fun necklace for my outfit that night and also tried on some crazy stuff:

 Don't worry, I didn't buy that ridiculous headband.

That night was New Years Eve. We started drinking around 5 (probably not the smartest idea, but a lot of fun)  We went to Travis, Ai-Lin, Brittani, and Katie's hotel room to pregame because it was bigger.

 "America's Next Top Sensei" - Keziah

From there we went to this restaurant that I dont think liked us very much because we were such a huge group and were all drunk loud messes. But its okay.

After that we went to this club called Legato. I honestly don't remember much at this point (whoops.) But I do remember it was 15 stories up and the view of the city was so amazing. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a countdown. I looked at my phone around 1 and saw a bunch of texts saying happy new year and realized that we completely missed midnight. But it was okay. At one point Brittani and I took our shoes off which was gross haha. (Travis - "THATS DISGUSTING") I sat outside for air at one point and someone gave me an energy drink on the street. Don't know why. I also didn't pay the 5000 yen (50 dollars) required to get into the club. Don't know how I got past that one haha. At another point Erin and I went to pick up some friends at the station that were late joining us and we thought it was a good idea to buy a bottle of Chardonnay at a convenience store and chug it on the way to the station and back. (because you can drink on the streets here)  It was a great night!

The next morning... sooo hungover but woke up and did what the Japanese do on New Years Day... go to the temple and throw a coin in for good luck , and get a fortune for the year. The streets were packed and closed down to cars to accommodate all the people going to this thing. All along the sides of the road there were shops and food to eat. Pretty cool. So we get in and take pictures and throw a coin in and then leave. The next thing we do is go to the side where you shake this metal tin case. There is a hole in the bottom and inside the can are a bunch of sticks with numbers in them. The numbered stick that falls out of the little hole is your fortune, and you have to match the number to a drawer. You fortune is inside that drawer. I got a Medium Fortune. If you get a bad fortune you have to leave it at the temple so it doesn't follow you throughout the year.

So yeah...doesn't seem too great of a fortune to me. I'll need to watch my front and back.

That night we went to the restaurant that was the inspiration for the end scene in Kill Bill, when Uma Therman goes nuts and kills 88 ninjas. IT WAS SO COOL. I mean they didn't actually film there, the movie used a set. But this is the place that Quentin Tarintino ate at and used as his set inspiration! I was excited. This place was in Roppongi. There was a huge spider right when you got off the train which was cool. It also had Tokyo Tower, which we tried going to and got lost. Whoops. My camera also decided to not focus at all this night so most pictures are blurry.

Then that night we did karaoke which is always a good time, especially with 15 people haha.

So the next day me Travis Brittnai and Ai-Lin went to Yokohama which is outside of Tokyo. They had a Ramen Museum that I really wanted to check out because Ramen is like.. my favorite thing about Japan. The museum was so cool. It was underground and it was a replica of a section of Tokyo in the year 1958. All around it were ramen shops that featured ramen from different parts of japan. It was pretty neat. So we had a big bowl of ramen and went on our way to Chinatown!!! This was the best chinatown I've ever seen. It was so cool with so much going on and the buildings were so beautiful. We got bubble tea and walked around and just admired the area.

 Inside the Ramen Museum

 Busy Chinatown street

After Chinatown we went to Marine Tower and went up 40-somewhat stories in an elevator to get to the top, where there was a beautiful view of the Yokohama skyline. It was so romantic haha. We were up there just admiring the city and loving life.

 

So later that night the group went out on the town for our last night in Tokyo. Lots of fun! And the next day spent traveling home because I was so exhausted from all the sightseeing during the day and partying at night haha.

So basically this was one of the best weeks of my life. Can't wait to go back!

Also, not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.

Here are some jokes from the week...just for me to remember

Honto?

Ano NEEEE

Mameshibaaa... Nuuuuwwww

How many _______'s does it take to get to Tokyo Tower??

the rest of the pictures from my trip are found on my facebook OR you can go to this link if we aren't facebook friends: CLICK HERE

My next big trip I think will be Hiroshima, Kobe, and Kyoto which is pretty far from me but I'd love to check those areas out. Okay. I'll posting again soon.