A Week in Tokyo pt. 1/2

The other day I went to Tokyo for the 7th time.  You'd think I'd be tired of it, huh? ~_^  Or that it wouldn't be a big deal, or that I'd have run out of things to do already?  I thought so.  WELL, WE'D ALL BE WRONG.  This time, my fiance's brother his family accompanied us on a 1 week adventure through and around Japan's megatropolis.  It was a long week, so I'm splitting this up into 2 posts.

At the start of the trip, my fiance and I were already a little tired from our Hokkaido adventures.  After arriving back in Shimane we had a mere 1 day break before heading back out on Wednesday the 28th.  But Tokyo isn't the place to go if you're feeling tired, what with the dependency on public transportation and walking everywhere.  So we kept our hopes high and flew out early in the morning, only to look at our watches and find it was nearly 12 by the time we rendezvoused with her brother, his wife, and their 3 kids and were heading to the hotel.  We'd be staying right next to the imperial palace, and you can bet that's the first place we tried to go.  Yeah, "tried."  Apparently the palace is closed most of the year; I think they just don't like foreigners. :/  After exploring the area, we found sakura (cherry blossoms) on the verge of blooming, a concert hall, and even a sakura matsuri (festival) in preparation just down the street.  We were also close to Tokyo Tower, so we hit that up before concluding our first day.

Thursday was the day the kids were waiting for, the happiest place... um, in the depths of the cold and heartless Tokyo city (please note not everything written in this blog reflect the author's true feelings, and are primarily intended to set up the situational atmosphere, though some readers are bound to agree with these artificial sentiments): Tokyo Disneyland!  For my fiance and I, this would be our first time... in 3 and a half years.  It hadn't changed that much - still felt the same as America Disneyland and Disney World, complete with long lines (probably from kids on Spring Break).  We attempted to go on as many rides and attractions (read: with 45 min. or less wait lines), and got to see It's a Small World, Captain EO with 3D Michael Jackson, and racing cars.  That's about it, apart from lunch and walking around. haha  In Tokyo, you get used to walking around a lot, and we never missed a chance to make up for it with calorie intake. :D  That night we dined in Tokyo Station, and then did some shopping before checking out for the night.

The next day we were feeling pretty exhausted, so we spent the morning in our hotel rooms taking our sweet time.  We were warming up for the next BIG exploration, something we reserved tickets for MONTHS (2, at most) in advance.  If Thursday was for the kids, Friday was... well, also for the kids, but for the adults too, maybe especially me: the Studio Ghibli Museum!!  Unfortunately for you guys, they don't let you take pictures inside or else I would have taken at least a hundred more.  SPOILERS: there were tons of drawings, models and designs of how they make cartoons, materials used to reference for drawings, a real cat bus, a free short movie, and much much more.  It was truly one of my highlights of the trip.  After the museum, we picked up some KFC and then returned to the sakura matsuri near the hotel for some festivities, which seemed to have either left or not yet come apart from the food tents... oh well, the food was pretty good. lol

The next day was Saturday, a day we (some of us) dedicated primarily to shopping.  What's a Tokyo trip without a good wallet diet, eh?  Breakfast was at a nearby book cafe, lunch was within a huge mall in Ikebukuro called Namja town (gyoza stadium ftw), and dinner was at Harajuku - the fashion capital of Tokyo, perhaps Japan.  We bought plenty of things to keep us happy for a couple weeks, and noticed that it was a bit cold walking around everywhere.  The fam wanted to climb Mt. Fuji at some point, but at this point we all but gave up on that idea if it was hard enough to simply walk in the streets.  Turns out it's actually closed for climbing now, so that was a wise choice.

Instead of Fuji, we hit up some other places including the park, the zoo, and a man-made island.  Stay turned for... PART 2!

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Hokkaido Niseko Boarding

Oh, Hokkaido... with your 1-story-high snow, its quality like a powdery milk, and with your actual milk that tastes quite a bit better than a mouthful of said-milky snow after your first snowboarding face-plant.  How I wish we had more time together, before a plane ticket and lack of funds stole us away.  Sigh desu.

My fiance and I visited Hokkaido for the first time a couple weeks ago for some intense snowboarding and R&R.  Don't know Hokkaido?  Take a look at a map of Japan - it's that island way up north.  Looks huge, right?  The Japanese think so to, until I point out that it's actually no bigger than New York.  The mountain we chose for the extended weekend was Niseko, famed as one of Hokkaido's biggest and baddest for snowboarding.  Then we reserved the Green Leaf Hotel in Niseko Village for ski-on-ski-off awesomeness.

Shortly after flying into Sapporo on Thursday the 22nd, we met with my fiance's brother, his wife, and their 5-month-old daughter.  Since our first meeting in December, their daughter had grown to be able to move her head quite freely, and enjoyed making baby babble that she was only beginning to do 3 months back.  It was interesting to watch as she experienced many firsts in her life: first time in Japan, or any foreign country, or anywhere outside Guam, or anywhere on a plane, first time seeing snow, touching snow, eating snow (Father of the Year), etc.  We all got to experience eating ice cream for the first time, but I think No-chan liked it most of all.

When we arrived at Green Leaf in the late afternoon, we were already itching to snowboard.  So my fiance volunteered to watch No-chan, and the rest of us went to Niseko Hirafu to check out "the best night boarding in Japan" (source: fiance's bro).  The lower trails were alright, but being late March it had already gotten a little icy.  Stupid March.  We made our way as high as we could go, and finally we hit the powder.  People had been telling me how the quality of snow in Hokkaido put the snow from everywhere else to shame, and I finally got a taste of what they meant.  Even outside the best time of the season (Jan. and Feb.), it was so hard to mess up because the soft snow was cushioning the board from every angle.

The next day was our first full day of boarding.  My fiance and I went out in the morning, and after a couple frustrating runs near the bottom (including getting lost while walking between trains lol) we checked-in for lunch.  Man, just as icy as the night before; this wasn't the Hokkaido experience I was expecting.  After lunch, I finally made it nearly to the top with my fiance's brother and found the sweet snowboarding conditions like the night before.  When in doubt, just go further up, yeah?  Niseko is split up into 4 parts - Niseko Village, Grand Hirafu, Hanazono, and Annupuri - and though you can access all on a single all-mountain-pass, you need to get pretty high before you can switch to another part. We switched to Hirafu and got dinner in the cool town below, and then I went right back out with my fiance's brother to night board.

Saturday was our Sapporo sightseeing day, an official break from snowboarding.  We took a taxi early in the morning to the station, and then a train into the city of beer and ramen fame.  Turns out that taxis are the cheapest and most convenient method of transportation when you're in a group of 4, so we went to a fish market for breakfast, the Sapporo factory mall for shopping, ramen street for lunch, the TV tower, and finally back to the station for a bit more shopping.  I must say that I was quite impressed with the food.  The sashimi was pretty good, but ramen and surprisingly Sapporo beer were delicious (though I'd recommend sticking to the standard tap, not the cans or Classic or any other flavors, and feel free to have it with some cheese made from that quality Hokkaido Jersey milk ^_~).

Our last full day was the next day, Sunday, so we devoted it to boarding.  My goal was to get all the way to the top of the mountain.  After stuffing ourselves with viking (read: Japanese for buffet) breakfast, the morning saw a couple practice runs and the end of my camera battery.  Finally, my fiance's brother and I decided to make the climb to the top right before lunch.  Wait, the climb?  Yeah, at Niseko, the final ascent has no lifts because the top of the mountain is home to god spirits.  That's right, this is god territory (watch more Gibli if you don't believe me).  The actual climb takes about 20 minutes, so using our boards as hiking sticks we slowly made our way.  Not going to lie, it was a bit exhausting, but we finally made it!  Our reward?  Lots of fog that made it so you couldn't see 10 ft down the mountain. x.X  But we took some pictures, talked to the other 3 guys we met, and pointed our boards down the mountain.  Now THIS was the powder, guys.  I can say without doubt that it was the pinnacle snowboarding experience of my life, though I know were it January or February it would have been much sweeter.

We got some yakiniku (self-bbq beef) for dinner in Hirafu, and prepared for our return to normality the next day.  It would be a short-lived normality, however.  For our week-trip to Tokyo with my fiance's other brother's family was about to begin...

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