Just 2 American Kids: Ari and Andy visit! Part 1

July 18- 29 found us hosting our third round of visitors (how exciting!)! This time is was my older sister Ari and her husband, Andy. We packed as much of Japan in to their trip as possible- and I think we were pretty successful, if I do say so myself! Part 1 (this post) covers Mt. Fuji and Tokyo and the following post (Part 2) will be the rest of their trip (Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Iwakuni, and Kitakyushu)

Ari and Andy literally hit the ground running because as soon as they landed in Narita and cleared customs, they caught a train to meet us at Shinagawa station in Tokyo. From there, we almost immediately boarded train #1 (of 3) that would take us out to Kawaguchiko at the base of Mt. Fuji.

We got in to Kawaguchiko 2.5 hours later, checked into our (Japanese style) hostel for the night- Kawaguchiko Station Inn- and introduced Ari and Andy to some of our favorite noms from 7/11 then pretty much called it a night. We had a big day ahead of us what with climbing Fuji and all!

Andy and Ari & our first daytime glimpse of Fuji-san! (at 6:30 am!)

The next morning, we left our bags at the hostel and boarded a bus shortly before 7am that would take us to Station 5 on Mt. Fuji. We hiked the (Fuji)Yoshida trail, which I have been told is the most popular trail.

The view from where the bus dropped us off.

Such a gorgeous day!!

After hiking about 20 minutes we were already above the cloud line!

The top doesn't look so far, does it? (It's only about 4km away but straight-up!)

And then the weather started changing. Good-bye, gorgeous view!

This is what the trail looks like. Climbing rock.

A station 7 hut airing out their futon mattresses from the night before

Station 7 was where Nick and I chose to turn around [doctor's orders! although it was still hard to do :'( ]. Ari and Andy's camera had unfortunately stopped working already and so we sent them onwards with mine and agreed upon a meeting point for later.

Here they are at (or very near) the summit (about 1pm or so)! They made it!! Congrats :D

Ari said she had some altitude sickness so once they go up there, they didn't spend too much time nosing around but turned around and headed down.

Aaaand the trail down- all loose gravel.

Nick and I had hiked down to station 5 to get the stamps and got a nice warm bowl of udon on the mountain before heading back to the hostel to lounge and wait for them.

They returned triumphantly around 6 or so, we took showers and then trained the 2.5 hours back to Tokyo. We made one pit stop in Shinjuku for dinner before finding our hotel. We hoped to find some delicious yakitori (chicken on a stick) in Piss Alley (pictured below) but it was close to 11 pm already on a Friday night and it was PACKED.

We were a bit too hungry to be picky so we settled for ramen, yakisoba (noodles) and gyoza (potstickers). It still hit the spot!

After a crazy full first day, we allowed ourselves to sleep in the next morning until about 10am. We had a cafe breakfast at the Doutor (Japanese coffee chain) and headed out to Harajuku to start the day.

Waiting for the subway...

Harajuku is famous for its 'Harajuku girls' who dress in the highest of fashion and go out to strut their stuff on Takeshitedori. Fashion is personal opinion, right?

Harajuku girls

Anyways, we also found lots of treasures at the shops!

Balloon flip-flops! but these balloons were the toughness of the toy grapes.

The panda head lays over your derriere...

Someone famous! We think... There were lots of Japanese people taking photos so we did too.

Crepe Break! at one of the many crepe stands along the way.

This may be my favorite Engrish yet: All you gives need real thing love.

"Hey guys! We were there!"

After we exhausted Takeshitedori, we set out to find Meji Shrine- not a difficult task since we were pretty close already- and so we soon found it. But along the way we were asked by another foreigner if we knew where the Brazilian Day Festival was happening. (Do we look Brazilian?! lol)
No, we had not heard anything about it but then another passerby chimed in and said it was at Yoyogi Park, nearby.
A Brazil Day Fest? Nearby? Our interest was piqued. But for now, we had found the Meji.

Heehee Ari wore capris to climb Fuji!

Cleansing ourselves to go in to the shrine

There were a lot of tourists and even a wedding processional! So beautiful!

Paparazzi! The wedding party posing for a group photo.

Our tummies were soon rumbling for lunch so we set out to find this Brazil fest. We found Yoyogi Park easy enough and it only took a little bit of walking and the 'follow the crowd' technique to find the festival.

A sign at an entrance to Yoyogi park. Since we can't read the words, we like to take the pictures literally.

Sweet success!

Ari and Andy tried fried octopus balls! (No, just octopus tentacle, not testicle.)

We got a little ahead of ourselves in the thought of food and ended up eating at the food stands we found first- so mostly Japanese festival food which, while still delicious, was not the plethora of Brazilian food we found after.

A classic "one of these things is not like the other" I Spy

Then we walked through a very ritzy area to find the Blue Note Tokyo for Andy.

The show that night was over $200 per person so we politely declined and just poked our heads around the lobby a bit.

Next, we got back on the subway to Shinjuku to check out Golden Gai, a famous pub district, for happy hour. (Happy hour is not observed by the Japanese but we were ready to sit down and enjoy one anyways.)

Saw this great ad at the subway station: "Ghost Negotiator"

Daytime sights of Shinjuku

We again found it pretty easily (after consulting the map above). And the map below is our destination: Golden Gai! So many bars!! BUT they are all about the size of a Al's Diner (or a hallway, for those of you who haven't been to Al's in Minneapolis).

Narrow roads, narrower alleys.

Andy was as big as a doorway, Nick's feet were as big as the steps.

Japan may not have Happy Hour but it does not have 'bar close' either. Fun while you are drinking but this meant that when we showed up at 5 pm, we were about 7 hours to early to see any action. Or the inside of any of the bars as they were all still closed or just starting to clean up from the night before.

Nick asking if the bar was open yet. It was decidedly not.

As a consolation we found a friendly cat with beautiful sea foam colored eyes.

Of course he wouldn't look at the camera.

As a secondary consolation, we found a British bar to meet our needs.

Dusk was almost upon us as we finished our happy hour- the perfect time to see a city from above! So we meandered over to the Metropolitan Government Offices for a free view of Tokyo from above.

We were treated to a beautifully colored sunset.

The city just goes on and on and on...

Andy found the Kanji interpretation of his name and nickname at one of the souvenir shops.

Andrew: Peaceful Effort Dragon

Andy: Peaceful Start Calm

Next we had wanted to train to Shibuya to get dinner, see the lights, and maybe sing some karaoke but fate had a different plan in mind. We accidentally took the train in the wrong direction (or was it the wrong train all together?) and ended up at Ikebukuro. Nick thought he recognized the name as being where he had stayed when he took his FE exam last fall and he knew of a good restaurant there so we left the station.

After leaving the station, we realized this was not the place of which Nick was thinking. And, for a Saturday night, it was pretty dead. Not quite what we were looking for. But since we were here (and hungry again) we wanted to at least find a restaurant here. We ended up finding a Sushi-Go-Round (where the sushi is on a conveyor belt that circles the restaurant and you pay buy the color and number of plates you eat) but it turned out to be pretty mediocre. Ari and Andy had fun being first timers but Nick and I knew there was better stuff out there. Oh well. It served.

After dinner, we were still willing to give Ikebukuro a chance; we thought we could at least find a video game arcade, right?!

Nope.
So we finally gave up on Ikebukuro and headed back to the hotel. We got off a few subway stops early though and walked the rest of the way in hopes of finding something fun on the walk back but our hotel was apparently in a quieter part of Tokyo. Oh well, it had still be a very full day!

Day 3: We let ourselves sleep in again and had gelato sand for breakfast!

Well Nick did anyways. It was 2 scoops of gelato on a bun. Breakfast of champions!

We spent the morning exploring Ginza, a shopping district famous for high end stores. At one point we wandered past a Fender store and Andy, of course, wanted to check it out. We willingly obliged him. After thoroughly inspecting all the bases, he asked to play one. And the clerk went behind the case to get him one!

I can't remember the specs on this guitar so I will refrain from commenting...

Next up, but still in Ginza, we finally make it to an electronics display store- the Sony store! They were having a special exhibition on the underwater wildlife of Okinawa and had a very large tank of fishes in front of the store.

After ogling for a solid 10 minutes at all le fishes, we finally noticed this guy! (Do you see him in the photo above, too?!)

Moray eel= total creeper!

The Sony Store had cutting edge versions of every type of technology- TVs, cameras, phones, headphones, computers, you name it! So it was kind of like a very large (7 stories), only Sony-product Best Buy. No robots though :(

After that we rode the train across Rainbow Bridge to Odiba Island for an Indian Buffet Lunch overlooking the bay, bridge, and Tokyo at Decks (a mall).

It was delicious going down but then it hit us like Indian food usually hits the bowels.

So after a bathroom break we explored some of the shops at Decks and then waded in the bay.

Nick's favorite find from Decks.

At the train station we had seen a sign for an Oktoberfest celebration happening right now on Odiba. Curious (since Oktoberfest is traditionally a September celebration) and ready to continue our international experiences, we decided to check it out.

It was indeed Oktoberfest! With biersteins, biermadchens, biertisches, bratwurst and (almost) German beer!

It was very expensive ($20 for each of these liters plus a $20 deposit on the mug) but it was sure nice to sit in the shade and be in one place for a while.

(Don't worry, I didn't drink any)

Afterwards, Ari and I explored a mall nearby. We found some more great Engrish.

It had been a really hot day and we were pretty close to the hotel, so we trained back, took a late siesta at the hotel, and got ready for a night out of being nerdy in Akihabara!

And good ol' Akihabara, we finally found our arcade! We introduced Ari and Andy to our favorite games: Taiko drum, Mai Mai, 4D zombie killing, and the photo booths and we found a few new ones too!

So yup, this happened again!

Day 5: After those mornings of sleeping in, we got off to an extra early start at 4:15am to make it to the Tsukiji Fish Auction. I had strategically picked our hotel for its key location- only a 15 minute walk- to the Fish Market. We arrived by 4:30 and group 1 was already full so we were put in group 2 (of 2) for the 6:15am auction. (It's an actual tuna auction so they limit the number of tourists who can enter the auction area.)

So excited but so early!

After waiting- in Nick's case napping- we finally were able to enter the auction! I was quite excited as this was something I missed the first around Tokyo and had wanted to do ever since.