It’s never enough of Tokyo

My friends questioned our plan, “what will we do in Tokyo for five days?” I said I don’t know yet, but what I knew was that five days in Tokyo are not enough. What I thought was correct this trip is not long enough, not only because of a number of tourist attractions but also some unexpected situation. After having taken Japanese at Bowdoin for 2 years, I gained some vocabulary but not confidence to speak Japanese. Luckily, my Thai scholars friends and I decided to go to Japan together after not seeing each other for almost 2 years. In this trip, I got to use some Japanese to order food and to ask the way, and, even better, to help(?) my ill friend in the hospital.

Before I talk about all the food and tourist attractions, let me talk about what my ill friend, Emma, and I experienced. Emma is my college mate, and she is able to speak Japanese at the same level as I. She suspected herself to have Dengue fever because of the rash and weariness. Before she went on this trip, she did the blood check, and it was negative. Although things cannot be 100% guaranteed, she decided to go on a trip (with out any travel insurance, oh my goodness!) Here is what happened on the second day of the trip. She woke up with tiredness all over her body and decided to stay at home. We went to some places in the morning and came back to see her at noon. She was a little better by that time, but everyone back home, including my parents, was so worried. I decided to stay with her in the afternoon and brought her to the hospital. However, being sick in Japan was not something easy to be dealt with. We knew that there was a free translator service for health and medicare, but no one in the house has a callable phone. Emma and I then walked to the nearest pharmacy and tried to explain them what happened. Luckily they have something called pocketalk that can translate what we say in another language. By using our limited Japanese and that tool, we finally were suggested to go to Eiju hospital which is 2 blocks away.

At Eiju hospital, we gave a staff the sheet of paper that the pharmacist wrote in Japanese. She understood what happened and tried her best to communicate with the doctor there. Another staff was asking us for the details in Japanese, and we could answer a bit but not detailed enough. He then called the free translating service, so we could communicate much easily. 2 hours passed, the staffs came back to us and said that there was no doctor that was able to do the blood check and knows about Dengue fever at that hospital. They, without any charge, kindly referred us to a bigger hospital that has an infectious doctor. There, some staffs can communicate in English and the doctor we met was good at English. After all, the doctor suggested us not to do the blood check because she does not have any insurance. He confirmed with us again and again that my friend was fine and the fever was not because of Dengue virus. However, the hospital still charged us 10000 yen, which is not bad if this cost made everyone relieve.

Okay that’s what all I want to say about the experience in Japanese hospitals. Let’s talk about other places we went!

Day 1

On the first day, we flew Nok Scoot airline to Narita airport in Tokyo. We took a train to downtown tokyo. We started from Maui Sushi at Ameyoko where they serve sushis with a huge amount of toppings. We then walked to Asakusa Temple, an iconic Tokyo spot! We didn’t really do anything there as our hotel was so close to the temple and we could walk there any time. However, we went to a famous matcha icecream shop. There were SEVEN levels of bitterness we can choose, and I tried level 3 and 7. I found the 7 one not too bad, but, still, I liked level 3 better. We then went back to the hotel (more like an air bnb) to check in and rest for a bit.

At dawn, we decided to go to Tokyo Sky Tree to see Tokyo at night from the top of it. The view was amazing and we got one of the staffs there taken a picture of us! Before we went back to the house, we went to taste a tempura don around Asakusa temple. I got one which has all the shirmps coated with their special sauc, and I love it so much!

Day 2

We started our second day at Tsukiji market (without Emma, sadly). The guys and I stopped at one of the sushi restuarant where we had no idea if the sushi would be good or not. Surprisingly, everything in Tokyo seemed to be tasty for us. Boss (my friend’s name) got a whole plate of Otoro (Tuna’s belly) sushi, ans he convinced me to eat it. I, who don’t like eating raw fish, had a piece of it, and it wasn’t terrible at all. (Well, I still prefer not to have them). We wandered around for a bit and got some strawberry mochi and muscat grapes (well 6 pieces for 600 Yen, holy). After that, we went to Hie Jinja and took some picture with the shine. Then, we went to see the imperial palace, but it was closed! We decided to go back home to see if Emma is okay, and I then brought Emma to the hospital while the guys went to see Tokyo university and more.

Oh, and at night, Aom, one of my classmates from my high school came say hi. We chatted for like an hour and she left to her dorm. It was amazing that, after we graduated from high school, I went to the US while she went to Japan, and we hardly met in Thailand. The world is not that big afterall if we really want to see someone.

Day 3

Shopping day! Yeah! Finally, Emma felt a little better, so we took her out. We started out breakfast at Yoshinoya, a chained restaurant that we can casually find in Bangkok. But in Japan, the shop is pretty different. They even serve like porridge and all the breakfast stuff. We then went to Ghilbi museum which is a bit out of town. The museum was super dreamy, but, unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the musuem. Then, for lunch, we went to a restaurant called Kichijoji where they serve rice in a bamboo bucket. I ordered salmon teriyaki which was simple but never disappointing me. We also wandered around that area which has a bunch of shops. Boss and Peem got beef Croquets and Tayaki. Emma and I stole them a bite, and they both were quite good! It was rainy afterwards, so we took a break at some plum tea cafe. After the rain stopped, the next stop was Meiji shrine. The shrine was probably one of the best spot in Tokyo for me. I loved how green it was and, with the drizzling rain, everything was so calm and evern more beautiful. Boss bought a lot of lucky charms for his unlucky life. I could only wish him the best. (haha) The rest of that afternoon, we spent time in Harajuku and the shopping area. Some places that we went to: Santa Monica crepe, Line shop, Tokyo Plaza, Shibuya crossing, Shibuya 109. We also went to Jola Kake for the dinner. The place serves rice with curry and a lot of topping that we could customize. I went for pork tonkatsu and curry. The restaurant was a bit tight, but their curry was the best! The last spot we went that night was Donqi shop. Emma got a lot of Gudetama pens for her sister, and, as usual, Armor and Nol didn’t seem to get anything.

Day 4

Because of the rain, we didn’t want to take a long bus to see Fuji mountain because even if we were there, there was only slight chance we could see the tip of it. Thus, we turn this trip to EATING trip! We woke up and went out since 7.30 AM to reserve a seat at Tsuta ramen at lunch. This ramen shop is very famous and if we didn’t get our tickets since in the morning, there’s no way we could taste it. Before we came back for lunch, we went to Asakusa temple and tasted a variety of snacks around the temple, such as, fried bun, strawberry milkshake, melonpan, and etc. (Oh yeah, I remember now what Armor spent most of his money on – these snacks!). Then, it was about the time for our ramen. We went back to the shop and enjoyed our Shoyu ramen with truffle seasoning, egg, and roasted pork. (Yum!) Because of the rain, we hardly went to anything outdoor. We spent most of the time going in and out a lot of shopping malls, for example, Isetan, Kinokuniya, and Uniqlo. The only place outdoor that we stopped by is the 47 ronin temple (Sengakuji). The temple was very old and charming in the rain. We walked around for one more time and then decided to go back and had dinner at family mart. That marked the end of our eating trip as we had to be headed to the airport early in the morning on the last day.