Japan - Day 2

Japan - Day 2

Eurgh. I had a terrible nights sleep last night. The reason? I had the pleasure of sleeping opposite the worlds loudest snorer. His technique was rather unique. He'd start of quiet and progress to get gradually louder and louder until he gave out one final snort which was so loud he'd wake himself up every time. This man shall be known as Snorlax.
Despite my tiredness, today would be our first full day in Japan and we had loads planned. Firstly we'd check out Ueno Park in heart of Tokyo before heading out to an event I'd planned would be on when we arrived.. the famous Tokyo Game Show. A massive showcase of all the upcomming games and gaming technology from all the latest developers. We also planned to close off the day exploring Shinjuku which is known for its menu resturants, fancy bars, clubs and skyscrapers. I couldn't wait to get started.

What better way to get started with a super breakfast.... I had something in store for Bish and I...NATO Beans! These are stinky, slimy, fermented beans that are a Japanese staple at breakfast which Japanese people apparently love! They come in polystyrene packs with soy sauce that you mix with the beans. You have to stir in the sauce and the more you stir it the slimier the beans become. It looks truly disgusting. Dan's face was priceless when I first described this to him after handing him his pot of beans. We opened the packs and saw some dry looking beans that looked slightly smaller than baked beans at the bottom.. not too bad so far..how bad can they really be? I then mixed in my soy sauce and used my chop stick to stir it in.. suddenly a snot like foamy slime began to form between the beans.. I stirred more vigorously around and around until i could literally pick up 4 of 5 seperate beans all connected by the slime. A picture below illustrates me in action and the yummy breakfast I was about to consume (well attempt to consume). I relucantly scooped up a bunch of slimy beans and placed them in my mouth. My palate was then subjected to a nasty bitterness, complimented by a cold wet salty slime that reminded me of when you cough up phlem. How can people eat this?!?! I claimed that I could eat no more and Dan's face suggested the same. We threw away our slimy beans and decided to head out for breakfast at a local cafe instead. I also gave away my remaining packs of nato beans to the receptionist at our hostel.. she looked delighted! At least someone will enjoy them. For 200 yen for 4 packs (about £1.20) I should have known better.

After our breakfast we head off for our first stop of the day, Ueno Park. A good friend had advised that the train was expensive and complicated and that the bus system was both cheapier and easier. While we found that it certainly was cheaper (100 yen), it definitely was NOT easier. A short minute subway trip turned into a bus epic. We were supposed to take the red line to Ueno Park. So when a red bus pulled up we naturally assumed this was the red bus line. Nope. This was the blue bus.. obviously! We proceeded to go completely the opposite direction around Tokyo's backstreets and residential areas, before finally arriving in Ueno over 90 minutes later. We should have known when we were the only foreigners on the bus itself! Live and learn I guess.

Ueno Park itself was gloriously lit up in the morning sunshine. Gardens lined the pathways and had ponds that shoot jets of water. I struck my best pose next to one of these. We found a baseball ground were two school teams were engaged in a match so we stuck here for a while to check out the action. We also found a small shrine in the park. This was not like the Senso-ji one in Asakusa, but instead a small Torii gate up some stone steps marked the entrance. Inside were small Japanese style huts and washing fountains on either side of the pathway as we walked up to the main shrine. This particular shrine had a door that was painted gold, and was so bright it blinded us as it reflected the sunlight. I took some photos here and one of a cool statue of a lion. We looked at the time and saw it was getting later so decided to make a quick journey across to the main event of the day.. the TOKYO GAME SHOW!

The Tokyo Game show was held in the Makuhari Messe in Chiba which was located in East Tokyo. We made our way there and followed the crowds exiting the station towards to event. Bish and I amongst crowds of Japanese gamers marched around the Messe

following the signs towards the entrance. After what felt like miles we finally approached the ticket station to let us into the gameshow. Here I proceeded to tell the checker I am English ( watashi wa igrisu-jin desu).. to which she replied "I am Chinese."... oops. awkward! Bish couldn't contain his laughter in my moment of embaressment. Nevertheless she let us into the gameshow and we headed inside.

The Tokyo Gameshow was MASSIVE. The event attracted over 200,000 people and was spread across 7 different warehouse sized exhibition halls. All the big names were here.. Square Enix, SEGA, NVIDEA, Konami, PlayStation, Xbox etc etc showcasing their latest/upcomming releases and giving gamers a chance for a first playthrough of these titles. Many exhibits donned huge billboards, a multitude of PCs/consoles and all had snaking queues to play each game. Kids decked out in headphones stared at screens, immersed in virtual worlds. We bumped, pushed and edged our way through the crowds to get a closer look at what each exhibit had to offer. Here I took many photos of Japanese dressed as their favourite video game characters (cosplay), played a couple of games with Dan and, to my excitement, bought some Final Fantasy merch (a cactaur doll and a mini Cloud Strife figurine) from the Square Enix store. Outside the show we also saw a small kid with long jet black hair who was playing guitar rather impressively. He couldn't have been more than 10 years old yet was shreddding along to Ozzy Osbourne and Dragon Force songs with ease. The guitar he held was a spikey black Warlock and was bigger than him. He drew a large crowd and was making a ton of money. We spent a good 4 hours or so at the gameshow before deciding we'd seen enough and headed out of the gameshow back to Akihabara in search of food and a particular store I'd read about called Super Potato which claimed to be a retro gaming store and was famous in Tokyo.

Dan and I made our way back to Akihabara and I realised again that I had no idea where or how to find Super Potato (getting lost seems to be a common theme in this diary!). I decided to put my Japanese skills to the test and ask a local if they knew where it was. A small man about our age with short black hair, dressed in jeans and a jacket walked around the corner and I saw my opportunity. Sumimasen (Excuse me), Super Potato wa doku desu ka ( Super Potato, where is it?). This local turned out to be a man name Kento and spoke incredibly good English. Kento was on his way home from work in Shibuya and he even offered to take us to the shop himself! He was an incredibly nice and found it highly amusing with some of the Japanese words/phrases I knew. We had such a good conversation on the way that we made plans to go out for dinner one night before we left Japan. We exchanged details once we arrived at the shop and Kento went on his way (more from Kento later!).
Super Potato was a tiny shop in terms of width, but spanned 4 levels of retro gaming delights.. super nintendos, original nintendos, character merchandise, sega mega drives and all the games decked every wall and corner. The 4th floor even had its own retro video game arcade, hosting games such as Street Fighter 2, Metal Slug and Mortal Kombat. We spent some time here playing Metal Slug until we got kicked out as the place was closing. Dan and I decided it was dinner time and headed to Shinjuku for something tasty to eat.

We took the underground to Shinjuku and set about the urban jungle in search of satisfying our stomachs. Skyscrapers all around us towered into the heavens, each lit with dazzling neon signs for cafe's, shops, clubs and restaurants on each floor. It was a little overwhelming and left us confused as to which place to try for dinner. After careful examination of many picture menus, Bish spotted a menu for a restaurant on the 2nd floor of one of the skyscrapers displaying all kinds of beef and meat with an "all you can eat" sign for around 3000 yen (roughly £18). Winner. We took the stairs and entered a large restaurant space. It had a wooden decor and was dimly lit but overhanging lights at each table. We noticed each table had a circle pot in the center of it which people were throwing in meat/vegetables. It turned out to be a restuarant specialisng in a dish called Shabu Shabu. This is essentially where you boil meat and vegetables in a hotpot. This one let you choose soup instead of water (which is the traditional way) so the food takes on the flavour of the soup too. We were seated and our waiter asked us what we would like to order. Bish and I had no clue what we were doing so after some awkward hand gestures and pointing our server ordered the all you can eat for 2 and 1/2 hours and offered us a choice of two soups for our hotpot. He also brought us two well earned sapporo beers while we waited. When our food arrived he showed us what we had to do by throwing some wagyu beef into the stock and told us to

wait till its cooked. He also brought a platter of various vegetables and some quail eggs which we could also throw into the pot. Once we figured out we could order as much as we wanted Dan proceeded to order wagyu beef, wagyu beef and more wagyu beef (who needs vegetables anyway!). To be fair it was delicious and by far the best thing on the menu. The beef was thinly sliced so it boiled quickly. Needless to say we ate alot that evening. I would definitely be trying this again!

After dinner we decided to try out the Shinjuku Government Building as I had heard it was free to get into and had an observation deck on the 40th something floor that offered a view across Tokyo's skyline. Unfortunately as we got here the place had closed so had to turn back. We decided to call it a day and headed back to our hostel to rest for the next days adventure.