We got up early this morning to spend some time around Tokyo before we had to depart for Kanazawa. Here's a picture of our hotel room:
After our second trip to the Excelsior Cafe in two days, we took the subway train from Shinjuku to check out the Tsukiji Fish Market. The trains in Shinjuku were packed full of commuters in business suits, standing room only. We got off the train only to find the Tsukiji Fish Market was closed today.
Tsukiji Fish Market
We wandered around the area anyway to see what was open, and we stopped at the Tsuji Sushi Sen to eat.
Tsukiji Sushi Sen
Since the market itself was closed, we decided to see nearby Ginza, an upscale shopping district.
Street near Ginza
We went into a japanese department store which had maybe 6 or 8 floors above ground. They sold some really nice kimonos.
Kimonos in the Mitsukoshi department store
The department store also had 3 or 4 underground floors that mainly sold food, we stopped at a French bakery store called Johan's and bought some pastries, they were decently cheap and pretty tasty.
Strange pastries
When we got sick of carrying our bags around, there was an entrance to the subway station from the department store, and inside they had lockers for your baggage. They cost 300 yen, or less than 3 dollars, not sure if there was any sort of time limit.
Subway entrance from the store
After that we found a music store that had CDs, DVDs and instruments. They had a cheap fender guitar that I played with for a bit, but Xander asked to try a more expensive guitar. The sales clerk had to come over and unlock the guitar from the stand, and he proceeded to tune it for Xander, and after Xander was done he took it behind the counter and cleaned it.
After that, we went to the Apple store in Ginza, the first floor was a mix of things, the second was the place to go for help with your computer or ipod, the third floor was a theatre where they were giving a presentation on how to use the spreadsheet application Numbers, and the fourth floor was accessories. There were two glass elevators that were constantly going up and down and stopping at each floor.
We also stopped at a Starbucks for another coffee and I bought a vegetable sandwhich after we confirmed with them there was no meat in it. My coffee actually came in a ceramic mug, so I had to stay there to finish it. After that we got our stuff from the lockers and got on the train to Kanazawa.
On the train ride out you could see that Tokyo was a huge metropolis that stretched for miles and miles. Occasionally there would be a break in the city for some farm land, but then shortly after there would be more cities. We stopped in Echigo-Yuzawa station to change trains, and there were a lot of buildings, but there were hardly any people there. I bought a local beer called something like echigo-brau for the next train ride, it was pretty good.
The train ride from Echigo-Yuzawa to Kanazawa was more rural. There were hundreds and hundreds of rice farms and lots of other farms. Then the train ran parallel to the Sea of Japan for awhile, and eventually we got to Kanazawa. We were a few hours early so we looked for some food, stopped at the "Beer Restaurant Lion" for dinner. All the food places had plastic replicas of their food outside so you could see what you were going to get. The food wasn't bad, but there were maybe 3 types of beer total. At least there was guiness.
The restaurant we ate at
Back at the train station we found some of the other people waiting for the KIT pickup, they were in the waiting room because they tried to wait where the KIT people asked us to, but the police told them not to loiter there and to go to the waiting room. When the KIT professors arrived, they gave us envelopes with our KIT IDs, keys to our rooms, and a packet of papers including class/trip schedules and maps and guidebooks.
When we took a bus back to KIT, there were students from KIT's Students for Global Exchange (SGE) there to greet us, at about 11 o'clock at night. There were probably at least 20 of them, and they were very friendly and spoke about as much english as we did Japanese. They took us up to our rooms and showed us how to use the futon beds they had for us, which are basically matresses you store in the closet during the day and take them out and make your bed at night. Sure saves a lot of space. I'll have to write more about the rooms another time.
After our second trip to the Excelsior Cafe in two days, we took the subway train from Shinjuku to check out the Tsukiji Fish Market. The trains in Shinjuku were packed full of commuters in business suits, standing room only. We got off the train only to find the Tsukiji Fish Market was closed today.
Tsukiji Fish Market
We wandered around the area anyway to see what was open, and we stopped at the Tsuji Sushi Sen to eat.
Tsukiji Sushi Sen
Since the market itself was closed, we decided to see nearby Ginza, an upscale shopping district.
Street near Ginza
We went into a japanese department store which had maybe 6 or 8 floors above ground. They sold some really nice kimonos.
Kimonos in the Mitsukoshi department store
The department store also had 3 or 4 underground floors that mainly sold food, we stopped at a French bakery store called Johan's and bought some pastries, they were decently cheap and pretty tasty.
Strange pastries
When we got sick of carrying our bags around, there was an entrance to the subway station from the department store, and inside they had lockers for your baggage. They cost 300 yen, or less than 3 dollars, not sure if there was any sort of time limit.
Subway entrance from the store
After that we found a music store that had CDs, DVDs and instruments. They had a cheap fender guitar that I played with for a bit, but Xander asked to try a more expensive guitar. The sales clerk had to come over and unlock the guitar from the stand, and he proceeded to tune it for Xander, and after Xander was done he took it behind the counter and cleaned it.
After that, we went to the Apple store in Ginza, the first floor was a mix of things, the second was the place to go for help with your computer or ipod, the third floor was a theatre where they were giving a presentation on how to use the spreadsheet application Numbers, and the fourth floor was accessories. There were two glass elevators that were constantly going up and down and stopping at each floor.
We also stopped at a Starbucks for another coffee and I bought a vegetable sandwhich after we confirmed with them there was no meat in it. My coffee actually came in a ceramic mug, so I had to stay there to finish it. After that we got our stuff from the lockers and got on the train to Kanazawa.
On the train ride out you could see that Tokyo was a huge metropolis that stretched for miles and miles. Occasionally there would be a break in the city for some farm land, but then shortly after there would be more cities. We stopped in Echigo-Yuzawa station to change trains, and there were a lot of buildings, but there were hardly any people there. I bought a local beer called something like echigo-brau for the next train ride, it was pretty good.
The train ride from Echigo-Yuzawa to Kanazawa was more rural. There were hundreds and hundreds of rice farms and lots of other farms. Then the train ran parallel to the Sea of Japan for awhile, and eventually we got to Kanazawa. We were a few hours early so we looked for some food, stopped at the "Beer Restaurant Lion" for dinner. All the food places had plastic replicas of their food outside so you could see what you were going to get. The food wasn't bad, but there were maybe 3 types of beer total. At least there was guiness.
The restaurant we ate at
Back at the train station we found some of the other people waiting for the KIT pickup, they were in the waiting room because they tried to wait where the KIT people asked us to, but the police told them not to loiter there and to go to the waiting room. When the KIT professors arrived, they gave us envelopes with our KIT IDs, keys to our rooms, and a packet of papers including class/trip schedules and maps and guidebooks.
When we took a bus back to KIT, there were students from KIT's Students for Global Exchange (SGE) there to greet us, at about 11 o'clock at night. There were probably at least 20 of them, and they were very friendly and spoke about as much english as we did Japanese. They took us up to our rooms and showed us how to use the futon beds they had for us, which are basically matresses you store in the closet during the day and take them out and make your bed at night. Sure saves a lot of space. I'll have to write more about the rooms another time.