The land of Anime: Tokyo, Japan

After barely surviving through my final examinations, it was a bittersweet moment finally heading to Tokyo, Japan to meet up with my roommate from UNC. I was excited to go to Japan, where I’ve wanted to go all semester, but it was also very sad leaving everyone I met in Singapore, if only for a couple of days. The morning after my final, I took a 7 hour flight to meet up with my roommate at our hostel. Upon getting into the airport, I soon figured out that it was $13 for a metro ticket and over $200 for a taxi! I was getting the suspicion that I really would be spending a lot of money.

At the hostel, I met up with my roommate and, of course, people from Canada who go to UBC (University of British Columbia). We walked around the area, really trying to get around because almost no one spoke English. Tokyo was probably the hardest place to get by without knowing the language, but we made due with tons of pointing.

During the day, Charlotte, my roommate from UNC, and I went to the Ghibli Museum and saw how some of Miyazaki’s movies were made. Although everything was in Japanese, it was still cool to walk around and see all of his drawings.

Of course, we ate some of the best sushi I’ve had in my life. It was so fresh that it melted in my mouth the second I ate it. Of course, we had to wait on line for two hours but it was worth it! To keep ourselves busy, we took shifts and walked through the Tsukiji Fish Market, where all of the fisherman would clean and sell their catches.

Lookin' good

Fish Market

So good!

Baby Squid

 At night, we walked around Shibuya and Shinjuku, which were really big/busy areas. It was crazy how everyone dressed though; all the girls were dressed like dolls and the guys were wearing suits. No matter what time in the day/night, there were always men with briefcases coming home from work on the metro.

The next day, we actually took a trip to Mt. Fuji, 2 hours outside of the city. I thought it was going to be a trek like in Myanmar, so I got prepared by putting on sunscreen, wearing shorts, and buying a huge water bottle. Little did I know (although I should have realized), it was freezing. The bus took us up to a station with a café, tourist shop, etc, and then you are supposed to trek the rest. But, again, little did we realize that the path to the summit was closed until June 30 because of all the snow! So we were unable to go to the summit. It was still pretty cool going as high up as we did though. We were around 2500 meters up, and the top of the mountain was 3700 meters.

That night, we went to an onsen, which is a Japanese hot spring/spa. It was very relaxing after a tough, cold day at Mt. Fugi. We all wore kimonos and stayed at the hot baths for over an hour.

Us in our Kimonos

The trip to Tokyo was tons of fun, but I was ready to get back to Singapore and chill with everyone for the last couple of days! My roommate was also coming back to Singapore with me, so it would be cool to show her around (and see all of the touristy things that I hadn’t done yet).