Back to Tokyo - Museum of Science and Emerging Technology

After a long drive back from Morioka, we arrived in Tokyo a bit early - at 6:30 AM. While this normally isn't a huge problem, our hostel's reception doesn't open until 8 AM, so we looked for a place at the station where we could have a cup of coffee and relax until it was late enough to go to the hostel.

Unfortunately for us, the early hour meant that nothing was open at the time. Nothing, that is, except Starbucks. This was probably our second time at a Starbucks during the entire trip: We don't care for the brand and it's inflated prices, but this was the only place with comfortable chairs and a place to sit, for that matter.

Now that Valentine's Day was finally over, Japanese advertising went back to normal. Or, actually, now was officially the opening of the cherry blossom season. Not that it felt like any type of spring outside (you have seen our pictures from Japan), but the cherry blossoms (which we are, unfortunately, missing) are one of the most famous Japanese tourism attractions, and a big part of national pride (which we found out when, at every town we went to, people said, "Oh, if you were only here during cherry blossom it would be so beautiful!" Whatever.)

So Starbucks actually has a huge cherry blossom-themed display, much like during Christmas season, complete with gorgeous mugs, glasses, thermoses, and other price-inflated items. They also had a special cherry blossom frappacino (frozen drink), which Talia ordered since it looked so great. It comes with whipped cream (but Talia asked not to have any), and pink-colored chocolate sprinkles on top. it was DELICIOUS! They also had a few cherry blossom cakes, but Talia forgot to take pictures of them (full of cream, not her type of cake at all).

cherry blossom frappacino

Finally, it was late enough for us to head home. We mean, back to the hostel we were at when we first arrived in Tokyo (Khaosan Tokyo Samurai). It was so awesome - we were really happy to be going back and to see our friends from reception again. We loved it so much the second time, and, in retrospect, it's good that we came back for the end of the trip, too.

When we walked in, we were greeted with smiles and happiness from our friends who were happy to see us (and Talia's strawberry hat) again. Once again, we were greeted by an Israeli flag prominently displayed at the reception desk. Our room wasn't ready yet, since it was so early, so we went upstairs to the common room to update our blog for you and gather a bit of strength before heading out to Odaiba, an island in Tokyo that we missed the first time around.

View of Odaiba from the subway

We went straight to the Museum of Science and Emerging Technology, which we both wanted to go to (*cough* geeks *cough*). It was totally awesome! We are very happy that we had a chance to stay as long as we wanted this time and didn't have to leave early.

First of all, we had discount tickets. We mentioned when we just arrived in Japan that there was a map (the orange one) that has a bunch of coupons and discounts in it, and this was one of them. Again, not a huge discount (a Dollar), but they add up, which they did for us, when you go to a few places.

Anyway, the ticket you get is a printed electronic ticket with a bar code that you scan to get in and out of the exhibitions. Included in out ticket was also a free movie, if we were interested, and one of them looked cool to us, so we got the tickets for it for later.

The nifty ticket

The first exhibition hall we walked into was about emerging technology - new things, to be clear. :-) The moment we walked in, there was a young lady there giving a hands-on presentation about super conductors. Ordinarily, a presentation might have been boring, but she had PROPS. More importantly, there were already 3 Westerners sitting there, so she was explaining everything in both Japanese and English, which we really appreciated. Even the signs showing the laws that she was showing were in both Japanese and English!

Science experience - semiconductors

This was an awesome introduction to the museum as far as we were concerned. We continued to walk around this hall and there were all kinds of displays about how to create energy (e.g. by stepping on the ground at the subway!) and lots of displays where you click buttons to see how things work - it is a very hands-on museum.

One of the informational displays

We then saw that there was a huge area that was sealed off, which is where their star robot, Asimo, was going to come out a give a show - exactly at the same time that we were supposed to be in the movie theatre. So we decided to forego the movie so we can see the robot, because - hello! - it's a ROBOT.

And we're happy we did. The robot was SO cute, and spoke and danced and pointed and walked REALLY funny. There were a zillion kids there, all talking to the robot and having a great time - it was really fun.


When the robot left us, we continued on to a display explaining how the Internet works in very easy terms - it was actually really interesting. In theory, that is, since it was only in Japanese. But the display was very interesting and we could understand what they were doing.

Asimo the robot (who also plays soccer!)

Upward and onward we went to the last 2 exhibition halls, which were about earth. Rony loved these halls, and Talia less, but still enjoyed herself, don't worry. Here there was a lot of information that we knew from high school (even Talia who could have paid more attention in class...), and, yet again, interactive displays, such as a deep-sea submarine that you can get into and touch all the buttons (that's what the guide says). The guide also instructed us to give him our cameras so he could take pictures of us inside the submarine. That was cool. :-)

Our favorite display was, most definitely, the high-energy accelerator. Rony would like to point at that the largest one in the world is in France. Done. :-)

High energy accelerator

When we first came across this display, there were about 5 or 6 teenage girls around the machine, and the one who was making the machine work was rolling the ball so hard that she couldn't stop laughing because it was so difficult. After Rony made fun of them for being weak (to Talia, not to them), he decided to do it himself. Ha! It was really hard! You need to make the ball go as fast as you can for it to go around a circle on the screen, and it shows your "strength," which really makes you try to go faster.

At one point, Talia had to take over for Rony so he could rest, but it was too much for her, too, and he took over again. Eventually, after beating the game (we think? Who remembers), he collapsed on the floor for a few minutes before we continued through the rest of the exhibitions.

We ended our visit by ordering a hot dog (guess who ordered it) and a green tea and chocolate muffin (guess who ordered that!)

After literally a few hours at the museum, we headed back to the hostel - it was already late afternoon and we hadn't slept at all the night before, so our eyes were like ping pong balls on acid.

In the evening, one of the girls who works at the hostel, the one who gives the free origami lessons, invited us to join her for dinner at a place that serves eel. Of course we accepted. :-) Along the way, we made friends with a really cute Australian couple from our hostel and they ended up joining us as well.

The food was SO delicious, and ridiculously cheap - seriously. It cost about $6. Isn't that what a small (Tall?) coffee costs at Starbucks? :-)

And that was it for that day.

Pics from our last days in Tokyo:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=620147&id=906005363&l=28e8d0fc0b

Last days (for now) in Tokyo - Shibuya, Omotesando, and the Tsukiji fish market

Since Shanainai had just arrived from the US, and we were all exhausted, we skipped the fish market that morning and slept in. By slept in we mean that we all woke up between 6:30 and 8:00 am, but at least we didn't use an alarm clock, and we did stay in bed (using the term loosely) and rest a bit until around 9:30.

After hanging out for a couple hours in the morning (after all, Talia and Shanainai have been friends for 19 years and needed some time to catch up), we headed out with our new friend from the hostel, Dave from New York City.

Our first stop was Shibuya Junction, which is basically a replica of Times Square in New York City. It's big and awesome, and a zillion people there cross the street, all at the same time, without bumping into each other. It's beautiful. After oohing and aaahing for a while, and taking some pictures, we had some lunch and started walking up and down the streets in the area.

Shibuya Junction - their version of Times Square

Our destination here was Meiji Jingo Shrine, which is in the middle of a large park. The pathway is beautiful, full of trees, and really fun to walk through. Before you reach the entrance, there are many barrels of wine (without wine), that were presented as gifts. (We think without wine, this has not been personally corroborated.)  This shrine, like most of the others, is gorgeous, and many people came to see it.

Meiji Jingu temple (lanterns)

Our next stop was the Meiji Jingo gardens, but we didn't really have the energy to go in and Shanainai went alone. Meanwhile, Talia studied the map to make sure we were able to find what we were looking for.

We then walked part of the way back and went to Omotesando street, which is compared to the Champs Elysees. We can see the comparison - it's a long and wide street, lined with trees and expensive stores. But it's not quite the same. For example, Talia is 97.7% sure that the Champs Elysees wouldn't have a store with this name:

On Omotesando street

Anyway, at this point, Talia and Shanainai were left along because this was a girly area, but they had no problem with it. :-) We stopped at a cute (albeit expensive) coffee shop and tried two of the local desserts. We have no idea what they were, but they were really delicious! After chatting for a long while (after all, we hadn't seen each other in over a year), we continued to walk down and check out the scenery.

Omotesando desserts

We turned onto one of the side streets and started randomly walking up and down the streets - they were all so beautiful and picturesque and lined with the coolest and oddest stores. We continued walking for a while, and then stopped at the Chanel store. Oh, wait, we stopped at the store after Chanel, which is called Oriental Bazaar, a store that was recommended as a good place with fairly-priced souvenirs.

At this point, we had about an hour before we had to get back to Shibuya Juntion to meet Rony and Dave and Shanainai's Japanese friend for dinner (we were planning on walking back, which was about half an hour). We started walking back and then remembered that earlier we saw some weird yelling and a big sign that said "Sale Bazaar" or something to that affect, so we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

OH EM GEE, it was insane. It must have been stock day or something equivalent (where they try to get rid of all the merchandise) because the sales were all between 50% and 90% off. Salespeople were yelling with megaphones, customers were pushing each other to the racks of clothes, and all hell had broken loose.

We found it hilarious and had to take pictures.

After looking through a couple of stores on the first floor, we decided to go upstairs to take a picture of the insanity from above. What we didn't count on was:

1) Traffic
2) Really awesome sales

We noticed, as began walking (shoving) up the stairs, that there was a line of women all up the stairs. After about 2 minutes, Talia realized that they were waiting in line to get into the store. Upon closer inspection, we saw that the store was now 90% off, so the line was somewhat understood.  As we turned the corner of the first stairs, lo behold the line extended up another flight of stairs! It was insane.

The sale is just THAT good

We really only had time to find that open space where we could take  picture of the downstairs insanity when the sight of the most incredible shirt appeared before Talia and suddenly we found ourselves spending 10 minutes waiting in line to buy this incredible shirt. And then we took the pictures.

We went downstairs and since it was suddenly raining, decided to take the subway, even though it was only one stop away. This ended up being:

1) A good decision and
2) A bad decision.

A good decision, because the rain got REAL hard while we were in the subway, and bad because it took us over 10 minutes to figure out how to get out of the station, even though we arrived a couple minutes early (this is important for Talia to point out). It probably would have taken us less time to walk there, although we would have arrived with pneumonia.

We met up with Rony, Dave, and Shanainai's friend, Ken, who is a local, and he took us to this wonderful restaurant where you order all of your food on a touch screen and everything on the menu costs 270 Yen ($3 more or less) regardless of what you order. And omigosh did we eat!

AWESOME dinner - part of it, at least

The food was delicious! Ken started us out by ordering a bunch of local foods that would interest us, and as the evening progressed we ordered more and more food. Basically, each plate is like a tapa, a small amount of food that gives you a great taste of the dish. Anyway, we had an incredible dinner and Ken ordered some local alcohol (not sake) to sample (hey - we weren't driving the metro), and then we headed back to Shibuya Junction to see Hachiko, the famous dog statue, that we missed in the morning.

Shibuya Junction at night - it really DOES look like Times Square!

The story of this dog (portrayed in the film Hachiko with Richard Gere) is that every day, the dog would greet his owner at the end of the day at Shibuya Station. One day the owner died, and every day for the next nine years the dog waited for his owner to return, until the dog died. It's a very famous legend, and a bronze statue was erected in the square to commemorate this amazing story of loyalty.

We then returned to the hostel to go to sleep because the next morning we woke up at 4:15 am to go to the Tsukiji fish market. We weren't insane, we just really wanted sushi. We mean, going to the Tsukiji fish market before the break of dawn is an experience that is highly recommended - and we could see why.

We took the 5 am metro (the first) to the fish market, and spent the next 15 minutes looking for the office where you sign up to be an observer at the tuna auction. Eventually we found it and were able to make it, even though there's a limit of 70 people, probably because it is winter and off season and freezing.

We given orange vests to wear over our clothes, which marks us as observers, and were supposed to watch an instructional video, but we arrived in the middle of it and it was in Japanese and were far away and were all "dude, it's tuna, we get it" so we were cool. :-)

At 5:30 am - don't you wish your vest was hot like ours?

We walked into the tuna auction area and it was bustling with sellers and buyers. It was a really awesome experience! Each seller had a few tunas lined up together with notes on them listing how many kilos they each weigh (some were over 100 KG!) and buyers walked through the room, cutting off the edges to check out the quality and freshness of the fish before deciding to bid on them.

Checking the tuna for quality

In case you are wondering, this is how you can tell if the tuna is of high quality of freshness: Yeah, we have no idea.

Anyway, there were a few auctioneers walking through the room, ringing a bell not unlike the Salvation Army bell to inform people that an auction was coming up. The auctioneers were hilarious. Of course, we couldn't understand the words, but the sounds they were making were priceless.

When the auction was over, we had to return the chic vests and leave the premises until at least 9. This includes the market area itself, which is only open to businesspeople until 9 am. Of course, we got lost on our way back, too, and ended up walking through incredible stands of fresh fish and seafood, of which many were still alive (creepy).

We then went to have some sushi for breakfast (for real) at a really famous sushi restaurant that can only seat 13 people at a time. We got in line around 6:30 am or so, and got in very quickly - at 8:30. Yes, we actually stood in line for 2 hours for SUSHI. But it was worth it - it was soooo delicious! The best part was making friends with Canadians in the looooong line - we ended up exchanging email addresses and everything.

Mmmm... Breakfast!

And that was it for Tokyo. After breakfast, we returned to the hostel to pack our things and check out, and catch a bullet train (about 200 KPH) to Kyoto. We were finally able to start using our Japan Rail Pass. It cost us about $700 (57,700 Yen) to use for 21 days. While this sounds expensive (and it is - we haven't yet found a winning lottery ticket on the streets), take into consideration that a single, one-way train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto costs about $150. As such, the amount of traveling we will be doing over the next 3 weeks makes the pass definitely worth the price. Our pass will actually run out before the end of our trip, but we will find alternate ways to get back to Tokyo. Is hitchhiking OK? :-)

See you from Kyoto!

Previous album from Tokyo and Nikko (we hadn't published it with the first draft):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=607350&id=906005363&l=f7ebb6de16

New album from Tokyo:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=607836&id=906005363&l=12ed0fadb0

Tokyo, Japan - AWESOME country, we're in love (with the country)

So now we're in Japan, and we have to say, we are in love. With Japan, that is. From the moment we landed, we have been greeted with nothing but an abundance of smiles and sweetness. Our first touch of Japan was at the airport, where we were delighted to discover that toilets come with remote controls - for real!

Remote control for the toilet

You can heat the seat, use the toilet as a bidet, have a loud or soft flushing sound, and probably a host of other features that we don't understand cause it was in Japanese. Even though Japan was Rony's dream, Talia got so excited that she couldn't shut up. Like for real couldn't shut up. Like it's a miracle she was able to survive without breathing for so long.

But we digress. We took the train and subway to our hostel, and to our delight, it was really close to the hostel. And our hostel, Khaosan Tokyo Samurai, was the best in the whole wide world. At least of the ones we've been to.

First of all, the people at reception are all adorable, each cuter than the next. There are tons of signs all over with directions (that you can take with you), the common area has a nice sized kitchen with everything you could possibly want, and free origami classes at night! Anyway, it was awesome, and we need to book a room for our last couple of nights in Japan, so we are going to do it once we are sure of how many nights.

Anyway, the hostel has a really cool area map that lists everything important in the area, including restaurants, and we went to eat at this incredible Japanese dish called okonomiyaki, which is kind of a mix between a pizza and a pancake. You get the raw ingredients and put it in a plastic bag where you mix it all up, and then there's a stove in the table between you and you put it on the stove and cook it.

The makings of an Okonomiyaki

Of course, we had no idea what to do, so the lady there kept coming to help us, and she was so adorable that Talia developed a ginormous crush on her that could only be satisfied by taking a picture with her, which she did. Rony did a really good job of speaking to her in basic Japanese, and even understood most of what she was saying!

The portions were huge, way too big, and since we had ordered one each, we were only able to eat half of each and we ended taking it back to the hostel and having it for lunch the next day. Even though we hadn't ordered dessert, the lady treated us to their crepes, which were really delicious (um, not as good as Rony's mom's crepes, of course), which we made ourselves too. All in all, our first (half) day in Japan was perfect.

The next day, we went to the Senjo-ji and the Five Stories Pagoda. Walking up towards the temple, we walked through the Kaminarimon (where this old guy lay on the ground to take a picture - it was awesome), which led to Nakamise Street, which is a long street full of vendors selling all kinds of items, mostly souvenirs and clothes. We didn't buy anything, but it was loads of fun, please we now have a basis with which to compare various items that we'll be purchasing later.


The experience of the temples in Japan is different than those we've seen before. First of all, at the entrance to each temple, there is a small fountain of water that is like a small waterfall with ladles, where people wash each hand and then drink and spit some of the water before they enter.

Also, the Senjo-ji temple had Omikuji, which is basically a sacred Japanese fortune lottery. People donate 100 Yen (about $1.20), shake a box, and pull out a stick that has a number on it. They then open the drawer with the corresponding number on it and pull out a piece of paper with a fortune on it that can be either good or bad. The English directions said you're supposed to take it home with you, but everyone folded it in a particular way and hung it on special ropes for it.

Senjo-ji Temple - Omikuji

After walking around the temple and the grounds for quite a long while, we started walking around the streets. We went to a certain store to try to buy Talia tickets for the Taylor Swift concert, but it was sold out. We had originally tried online months ago, but you can't buy the tickets online.

Senjo-ji Temple

We got back to hostel in the late evening, posted pics and the post about Beijing for you all to see ( :-) ), and Rony did some planning for Japan while Talia took a really fun (and free) origami class. Of course, Talia can't remember most of what she made, but it was tons of fun. She met some really nice people from Korea and Osaka, and we're going to try to meet up with the girl from Osaka while we're there.

Orginami class at the hostel

On our second full day in Tokyo, we were supposed to go to Nikko, a town about 2.5 hours away from Tokyo, but we got a bit of a late start so it wasn't really worth going to. Instead, we went to Akihabara, which is known for its electronics. Originally the plan was to get a converter for our electronic devices, but as it turns out, all of our stuff actually is OK with 100 watts, so we ended up scouting out computers.

We then went to the museum district in Ueno, a bit north of where we were. We first went to the Tokyo National Museum and spent a few interesting hours there. We then went to the Museum of Nature and Science, which was also very interesting. It was about everything from dinosaurs and other large animals, to bugs to marine life, and all kinds of stuff in between.

Museum of Nature and Science - One of the first calculators

The best part was probably the 360 Theater. It features two 5-minute films, which yesterday were about the creation of the universe and the dinosaurs. While these are two topics that most people generally know about, what was special was that you stand in the middle of the theater and hold on to a rail, and the movie screen is literally 360 degrees - that is, on top of you, on the bottom, in front, and behind.

The movies were made so well that not only did you feel like the dinosaurs were actually looking at you, but you could feel yourself moving fast and slow, up and down, and anything else they wanted us to feel. Talia even lost her balance twice! We didn't understand a word, of course, since it was a in Japanese, but it was pretty awesome.

And that was pretty much it. By the time we left the last museum, it was about 7:30 pm, so we headed back to hostel, not before stopping at the 7 Eleven to pick up some dinner (it's cheap and it's fresh and it tastes good, so why not?)

Pics from Tokyo (so far):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=605732&id=906005363&l=d144cbc623