Golden Week Adventures - Part 1

Sorry about the delay lately, folks. But your favorite stranger in a strange land is back and ready to talk of adventure.

One of the reasons for the radio silence of late was that I was busy planning a major vacation for my first golden week in Japan. One of the reasons why I was making this trip so spectacular was because I got my first visitor from the homeland and I wanted to make sure that his first, and probably only, trip to Japan would be memorable and action packed. While it was as action-packed as I had hoped, I didn’t think it would be so crazy, but we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s just say I learned a lot from this trip. A lot about Japan, a lot about myself and my friends, and a lot about how a sardine feels.

Moving on… Golden Week is a wonderful time between April 29 and May 5 that includes 4 days off and, when mixed with a weekend, gives the average employee seven days off. This is one of the things in Japan that would never happen in North America. Since almost everyone in the country has so many days off, it’s the busiest travel season of the year. And after touring a good chunk of the country, I can definitely say that that is one of the most factual statements on this blog.

After weeks of trolling Japan travel websites, reserving hostels and transportation, and triple checking everything, the big date had finally arrived! On April 30, after school was done, Kris and I grabbed our bags, locked up our apartment and headed to the train station, about to start on our grand adventure.

There are a lot of ways to get across the country; the very reliable JR train, the super speedy bullet train (or Shinkansen), highway buses and overnight buses, or by airplane. For this part of the trip, we opted for an overnight bus. Now, as a North American, I know what kind of images the term “overnight bus” or even “highway bus” brings to mind. But, like most things in Japan, it’s not the same here. While overnight buses are a much more affordable way to travel, they aren’t nearly as dingy, dirty or disgusting as their North American counterparts. They’re very well maintained, modern, and, in some cases, incredibly comfy. The bus we took from Kobe to Tokyo, wasn’t the incredibly comfy kind (we cheaped out on this ride) but the one we took from Tokyo to Kyoto was like a cloud, complete with a cone of silence.

The next morning, we found ourselves in the very large and busy Tokyo Station. This was our second time in Tokyo Station and, if I can help it, our last. Tokyo Station seems to be in a constant state of construction and is very hard to navigate through. I think we were lost for about an hour trying to find our way to the Tokyo subway station that would eventually take us to our hostel.

Ah, there’s another word that would make a normal North American squirm. While this hostel does have rooms that hold eight or so people, they also have nice and clean private rooms that can hold one to four people. We stayed in a private room that held the four of us. It had bunk beds, which is a lot of fun for me, because I have the maturity of a five year old. While the hostel in Tokyo was nice, the hostel in Kyoto was amazing, but we’ll get to that later.

Our hostel was in an area of Tokyo called Asakusa. It’s a very old area of Tokyo, but a very beautiful area. Asakusa hosts an area with a few temples, shrines, old fashioned market and an old amusement park. This area is also famous for making and selling plastic food. Almost every restaurant in Japan has displays outside of it that shows the food you can order. The displays are pretty amazing. They look real enough to eat, and it seems like you can get anything in plastic form. And this is where they get it from. I didn’t get a chance to look at the shops, but there’s always next time. As it was, we didn’t have enough time to explore the area with the temples and shrines as much as we would have liked. But we did get some nice pictures, and I got some great ideas for presents for family and friends.

After we checked in and got our bags safely stored away, we headed to Tsukiji Fish Market. This is Japan’s largest and busiest fish market. The market comes to life at about 5 am. At around 6 am, the tuna market opens up. This is a big tourist attraction. Unfortunately, it was closed during Golden Week, and, thanks to our adventures in Tokyo Station, we would have been too late for it anyways. It was pretty cool to see. Even though there were a bunch of tourists, business never stopped. Men were packing fish in ice, conducting business and just going on as if they weren’t being stared at from on-lookers. Another reason to head to the fish market is to check out the different shops and the restaurants that serve the freshest raw fish you’ve ever had. There’s nothing like a raw tuna over rice for breakfast. Yum! But what really stuck out to me about the fish market is that there weren’t any stray cats in the area, which is pretty impressive considering that the fish smell is so strong that you can smell it while you’re still in the subway.

Having finished our adventures in the fish market, we headed to Akihabara. Akihabara is Tokyo’s anime and electronic district. This is where you go if you want to find the crazy anime and manga toys, play a bunch of video games, and find the crazy electronics that Japan is known for. This is the only part of the trip that Kris really cared about. Since he didn’t get enough time to really experience Akihabara this trip, next time we head to Tokyo, I’m just gonna leave him there and meet up with him again for dinner. Like a daycare…

Wow that's a lot, and we're not even finished the first day.  Okay, I'm going to go take a break and I'll be back with the next chapter next week!