Weekend July 13-14

Weekend
Ramen Museum
Saturday, we headed for Yokohama for some trip planning in August... We went into some random university's library and got kicked out... haha s'alright. At least we have our night bus tickets booked. After that, we headed for the Ramen museum since it wasn't too far... It was pretty cool, could've been bigger. Inside the ramen museum was a recreation of... old school japan I guess. It seemed like we were outside on the streets at night with many ramen shops around. We didn't try the ramen though, they were a bit expensive. One of our travelling buddies has an authentic ramen shop near his apartment so we decided to eat there instead. Before we went we thought we would check out a garden at some station.. but turns out it was closed.. :( The ramen was really salty as warned by my friend, we had many cups of cold and refreshing water afterwards. It was great actually! The soup was really rich and I don't think I've had such great ramen before! =D

The guys that made the awesome ramen

Odawara Castle
On Thursday, we went to see Odawara Castle. It wasn’t what we
expected, wasn’t as grand as we thought it would be… The trip was a
bit expensive too. Oh well. Haha. Got a few pictures and lounged
around on the bench things on the top floor of the castle for
approximately 1 hr to get our money’s worth. XD Again, I marveled at
all of the cute souvenirs you can purchase – special souvenir hello
kitty pens are available at every touristy spot you can think of in
Japan. They’re quite expensive though – averages to about 7 – 8 bucks
CAD per piece. We all got ourselves 100 yen ice cream instead. There
were a few shrines and other spots in the area but we didn’t really
feel like seeing them so we headed for Shibuya, Tokyo – a 76 min train
ride worth 1400yen. This castle certainly punched a hole in our
wallets.

Odawara Castle

Tokyo
Compared to the quiet, serene, foresty area of Odawara, Shibuya was
its complete opposite. Crowded, loud, buildings at every corner, sales
people yelling in your ears, advertisers, and flashing lights. It was
around 5pm when we arrived and everyone has just gotten off work. We
had no idea what to do so we walked around and window shopped mostly.
We visited Shibuya 109 a huge department store filled with clothes
shops for women and girls. It’s not uncommon to see sales employees
dressed extravagantly in the specialized type clothing of the shop
that they work in. It’s also not uncommon to see them yelling into
cones to amplify their voices to advertise their shop. I noticed that
this one sales girl was nearly losing her voice. But she still kept
going! This reminds me of the lunch lady at my cafeteria at work. She
would say the same phrase over and over again (arigatou gozaimashita
onegaiitashimasu!!!) with the same enthusiasm everyday at lunch,
pausing only to help another employee having trouble with returning
their plates… I admire her, to some extent. Haha…
We were all getting tired I guess, we didn’t have a normal lunch, just
made a quick stop at the convenience store in Odawara before heading
to Tokyo. After walking around a bit we had a quick dinner at …
Yoshinoya I think. It is one of the very common and popular Japanese
chain restaurants that sell relatively cheap meals. It’s typical for a
Japanese restaurant to be crowded and small. We sat the the counter
and the employees were in front of us quickly preparing meals as
customers come in every minute to get their dinner.
After dinner we felt unsatisfied at how little we accomplished that
day so we decided to head for some karaoke. Karaoke is everywhere in
Japan. It’s probably more common than Starbucks here. Groups with more
than 5 people have discount and it’s 300 yen per half hour, that’s
around 4 CAD. We stayed for about 1.5 hrs and left satisfied.. I
think. Although I think we could’ve stayed a bit longer. One of the
conclusions I made ages ago and just confirmed again last night is I
cannot sing unfortunately. It was fun nevertheless. Headed home on a
crowded train and fell into a deep sleep.

Hustle and bustle in the world's busiest intersection