Birthday in Tokyo! (Sept 15-19)

DAY 1

Sheila and I met up at Haneda airport in Tokyo…and so began our 5 day long birthday trip!!

We used the very efficient (though at times a little complicated..) public transportation to get around. Considering it was our first time, we did really well! Only missed our stop once!

In the evening, we met up with some of the Baha’i youth in Shinjuku. Junko, who had come down to Nagasaki with the Dance workshop last year, was there. As well as Arwyn from the summer camp in Yamaguchi. Takuto also came, it was great to finally meet him in person!

DAY 2

There’s a lot of French influence in Tokyo…not only is the Tokyo tower modeled after the Eiffel Tower (but slightly taller and weighing something like 300 tons less thanks to advances in technology), but also many of the buildings in the Ginza district, where you can find the most expensive real estate in the world are also modeled after French architecture.

Tokyo Tower

and mister Tokyo Tower himself!

Within short walking distance from the the Tokyo Tower is Zozoji temple, the main temple of the Jodo sect of Buddhism.

Having lunch at a kaitenzushi (rotating sushi) restaurant.

The famous Harajuku...where people-watching is as interesting as any site seeing spot. It was crazy busy! According to our guide book, there are 2 million people a day who pass through the Harajuku station.

There's a trend called 'Lolita look' which you see all over the place in Harajuku

Sheila chatting it up with some stranger :)

DAY 3

The first two nights, we spent at a hostel in the Roppongi district, in Azabu Juban which we affectionately called Azerbaijan. It was a gorgeous area... The cobble stone streets, the French-named bakery shops lining the streets, the surprisingly large number of foreigners wandering the streets…you’d almost forget you’re in Japan!

On our way to Asakusa, we came across some statues of Japanese characters and couldn’t resist taking pictures :)

In Asakusa, we visited Kaminari mon (literal translation: Thunder God Gate). The crowds were ridiculous…

Akihabara, known as the Electronic district. Famous for all the cheap (and not-so-cheap) gadgets.

As we made our way back to the hostel in Roppongi to pick up our stuff, we saw some of the small festival that was taking place this weekend.

The Ogami family spent 3 years living in Malaysia. Sheila met them while they were there. They now live on the outskirts of the downtown Tokyo, we spent the last two nights at their place. On the first night, they picked us up from the train station and took us out for dinner. From Right to left: Yuko, Haruto, Momoka, Me, Sheila and Kenji.

When we got to their place that night, they surprised us with a birthday cake!! It was so sweet of them!

DAY 4

We decided to go to a photo studio and get dressed up in traditional costumes. We were given the choice between dressing as a geisha or a maiko (an apprentice geisha). We could choose 3 poses from about 20 or so, as well as the colour of the kimono we wanted to wear. The whole process of getting dressed, taking pictures and taking off all the makeup took a little over 2 hours. It felt like the longest part was getting the costume on.

The 'before' picture:

Ready to be transformed into a maiko!

The white paint was COLD.

Layers and layers of materials are wrapped around and around...lots of tugging and pulling involved.

At times, needed more than one person tugging and pulling at the same time.

When they placed the wig/headgear on, I was suprised at how heavy it was..!!

We choose what coloured-flowers we wanted dangling from the side of the wig.

Three pictures were taken by the professional photographer (below is one of them).

Once we were done, they let us take as many pictures as we wanted with our own cameras and allowed us full use of the props they had!

Ready to have the makeup taken off!

Because it was our birthday, they gave us a large discount, a laminated wallet-sized picture, as well as a CD with all the pictures they took (usually sold separately)! It pays to go on your birthday..:)

After treating the Ogami family to lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we went our separate ways. We wandered down to Shibuya, famous for its shopping. Unfortunately, it's not the kind of shopping that either of us would normally do..but, once again, watching the people was entertainment on its own....!

Later in the evening, we met up with some of the Baha'is and their friends to go out for Indian food. There were about 15 people, and it turned out that one of Junko's friend's birthday was September 20th! So we had three birthday girls at the table :)

Met some great people (in particular Melanie, John, Alan and May), had lots of laughs! I hope to get together again with them!!

DAY 5

By the end of the trip, the lack of sleep, all the walking and laughing eventually took its toll on us. We slept in this morning, and took the rest of the day real slow.

We went to visit the imperial palace (entrance behind us).

We had left our omiyage (souvenir) shopping to be done at the airport. By the time we got through security, there was only a couple of minutes before take off time. Sheila was heading back to Kochi, and me to Nagasaki. Our gates were on opposite sides, mine being right by the security gate. After saying our goodbyes I hurried to board as Sheila wandered off towards her gate. As I was handing my boarding pass over, I saw a stewardess with a walkie talkie to her ear rush to Sheila and after exchanging a few words they both started running! We were a little later than we should have been I guess…!

View from my window seat as we neared Fukuoka…

Couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my birthday! :)