Episode 23: Lovers in a Dangerous time

Konnichiwa mina-san!!!

Ben: "SO, the day has come and gone. Yes, the one day, that one special day where my lady friend made her way across the world to meet me here in this strange and cool land known as Japan. Suffice to say, 'I'm elated' doesn't cut it."

Laura: "My flight was pretty good. I sat next to a woman who was a professor of Women's Studies at a college in northern Japan, so we had some stuff to talk about. She thought I was Korean....weird. We made it to Japan in about 12 and a half hours, which seemed like record time (there was no stopover). And of course it was great to see Ben waiting for me outside the terminal with this sweet homemade sign:


Ben: "So, then we made our way out to the hotel in Daiba, via the Airport shuttle, and for a paltry fee, we ended up getting the whole bus to ourselves! I personally couldn't have wanted any more personal space, seeing how the airport in Tokyo is, well, in a word, packed. Anywho, stupid me somehow lost my luggage ticket stub when we were getting off, and if it weren't for the fact that it was just the two of us, it might have been a problem getting my luggage from the bus-man. He was a douche (the bus man.) Anywho, here's a sweet pic of us sitting on a bus. Sweet."

Laura: "Then we arrived at our palatial hotel, 'Le Meridien Grand Pacific' right on Tokyo Bay in Daiba (a district in Tokyo). Ben's motto for hotels must be "go big or go home", because it was actually the largest hotel in Tokyo. Our room was great, and the air conditioning was even better. We would have gone swimming, but to get into the pool was about $20 per person- no thank you! Our room was on the 25th floor, so we had a great view of Tokyo Bay and the Rainbow bridge. On our first night there, Ben's friend Tomo sent a cake and some champagne to our room, which was lovely and very sweet. Thanks again, Tomo!"



Ben: "In case you were wondering, the hotel was a little expensive, but you can find cheaper accommodation quite readily within most districts of Tokyo. So no worries, you don't have to bust the bank just staying in Tokyo. And if you male, single, and with forty bucks, you can always sleep in a capsule hotel room. Righto, so now let's get on track with traveling throughout Tokyo in a flash... (Those two icing cookies say the following: "Happy birthday Ben!" and "Welcome to Japan Laura")



We got ourselves up and made our way out to Asakusa pretty early in the day, maybe 8ish? And we tackled the reputable giant of the Tokyo subway system. Despite what you may think, it was actually quite manageable , and we didn't have too many problems the entire time... well at least, I don't think we did :)"

Laura: "I don't think we did either! There were a few times when we were a bit confused... and the hot weather and crowds can make me a bit of a cranky muffin....but overall I think we did quite well. Asaksa is a traditional marketplace, and there is a temple there as well. There was a large variety of goods available for really good prices, so I got some cool souvenirs for some lucky people. We had lunch there, and I had my first bowl of authentic Japanese ramen, which was delicious."

Ben: "Asakusa is a totally touristy place, so we weren't really surprised by all the other Gaikokoujin (foreigners) hanging around. Oh, it's about this time that I want to mention the heat. There were record highs in Tokyo and the surrounding areas for the past few days, upwards of 43 degrees, and we had to take a lot of breaks for refreshment. If we didn't, we'd be walking husks of dried nori. (seaweed)."

Laura: "The heat is pretty killer. Unfortunately, every day I've experienced a period of heat-induced nausea...it goes away with some water and rest, but I've seriously never been in such hot weather before. Every day it's been about 37-40 degrees without taking the humidity into consideration. Japan is having a heatwave! In the Tokyo area about 10 people have died from heatstroke in the past week. But don't worry about us, we're young and vigorous.
Immediately after Asakusa, we went to the Ginza district to do some window shopping-- because that's the only kind of shopping we could afford there. Think Luis Vuitton, Prada, all the major designers. It's right up there with Paris and New York as a major fashion capitol. We walked around for about an hour, then caught the subway back to our hotel.

Ben: "Ginza wasn't as fun as I remember it. Still, it was a cool place to burn your money. Anywho, after we made our way back to our nicely air-conditioned hotel room, took a quick bath in our marble bathroom, and chilled out for a bit, we decided to hit the sack early... we had to get up extra early in order to catch our shuttle bus to DISNEYLAND TOKYO!!! Pretty flippin' awesome if you ask me. But, we had a bit of an early wake-up call... in the form of a minor Earthquake that shook the room a bit. Laura woke up and said 'hey Ben, what's that?' and I was like 'shit son, we be dead.' (translation = 'yes, that's an earthquake.') No worries though, everyone was A-ok.

Alright, before we turn this into a novel, we'll finish'er off, and say that the next update will detail our trip to Disneyland Tokyo. It should be up soon.

ja matane,

-benjamin & laura





p.s. Here's a video of Laura eating a Japanese Pickle! Totally worth the 50 seconds it'll take to watch it.



p.p.s. Kusai!!!