Shopping Around for a Tokyo Bus Tour

Yesterday I went on the included bus tour of downtown Tokyo. As expected it wasn't all that great. When we got to Tokyo Tower, the 333 meter tall replica of the Eiffel Tower that has been destroyed over and over again in countless Godzilla movies, it was raining. This meant looking out from the 150 meter high observatory was mostly "In this direction, on a clearer day, you could see Tokyo Disney Resort and in this direction, on a clearer day, you could see..."

The rain stopped and the sun came out when we left Tokyo Tower and moved on to the Imperial Palace, which is as you might imagine closed to the public right now. It has a handsome moat though, if you're into moats

We drove around for a while and got caught in traffic jams in some of Tokyo's more famous districts: Ginza, renowned for its high end shopping; Sibuya, renowned for its slightly less high end shopping; and Akihabara, renowned for its decidedly not so high end shopping.

Finally we stopped in Asakusa, home of the Sensoji Temple. The Senso-ji ("ji" means temple by the way) was founded in 628 CE when two fishermen pulled a religious statue out of the Sumida river. Rather than ask why someone would throw a perfectly good statue of the Kannon into the river, they decided to build a temple in its honor. This is probably one of the most visited Buddhist temples in the world, being right in the middle of Tokyo and all.

The building behind me in the picture is the Gokuden where the statue is housed. There are about a dozen other buildings at the site, including a Shinto shrine. Leading up to the Gokuden is a two block long shopping street crowded with little souvenir shops and food stalls. I was tempted to blow the budget many times, but managed to hold onto most of my yen when I discovered just about everything for sale here was made in China.

The bus tour ended and we went back to the hotel via several more famous shopping districts. There ARE other things to do in Tokyo besides shop, I swear it, and I'll write about those just as soon as I finish shopping for a cell phone with a camera in Shinjuku.

The Not So New Prince

I'm all checked into the New Takanawa Grand Prince Hotel near Shinagawa Station. The name is something of a misnomer as the hotel is anything but new. In fact its a little rundown and careworn, but the service makes up for it. Check out the freebies in the bath. Two of everything including a razor, toothbrush, comb, shower cap, Q-tips, bath gel, shampoo/conditioner and just in case you don't like the combined stuff regular shampoo and separate conditioner. Holiday Inn eat your heart out!

After settling in, getting hooked up to the internet and sending a few over due e-mails, I set out in search of the nearest youbinkyoku (Japanese post office) where they have an ATM I can use. The clerk at the front desk was very helpful giving me direction, but a little confused by the map she dug out from behind the counter. When I pulled out my printout from Google Earth her eyes lit up and she started showing me everything in the neighborhood. I had no trouble finding the tiny shop and getting some money.

Opps, I forgot to post this last night. I slept very well, no jetlag apparently! Woohoo!

Hell is an Airport Named Incheon

Never again will I book a flight that has me laying over in a place like Incheon International Airport. This place is huge and especially designed for people making connecting flights from all over Asia. They have a gazillion duty-free shops and all sorts of special services for transfer passengers like massage rooms, showers, free Internet terminals. All of which are unaccessible before 8:00am.

Unfortunately I arrived at 5:00am. I was doing really well up to that point. I think I'd managed to reset my internal clock about as well as can be done. It was early in the morning and I felt like it was early in the morning. I was awake, alert and ready for adventure. There just wasn't any to be had in Korea. For one thing they wouldn't let me out of the airport, no that's not severe enough, they wouldn't even let me out of the security area of the airport. I did manage to find one sympathetic immigration official willing to stamp my passport, but then I had nothing to do for several hours.

There were a couple of Internet terminals working, but these had been commandeered by a pair of German tweenies who were hard at work trying to load Warlord on them. One kid managed to crash his computer so he huddled up in front of the remaining one with his buddy and pretended not to understand what, "Excuse me, could you let someone else use the computer for a while," meant in English.

To make matters worse, my flight to Tokyo was delayed for an hour. Even the flight crew were mystified as we all stood at the gate and stared out at our airplane, parked just off the runway, about a hundred yards from the empty jetway. After endless phone calls and lots of arm waving, someone finally appeared outside to climb into the tractor and push the big 747 over to the gate.

LAX Terminal B Gate 110

This doesn't look like someplace where luxury 747's depart. Maybe I'm taking the bus to Japan!

Well not quite all the way to Japan, but they did put us on buses from here and drove us to some concrete bunker out beyond the runway where we had to trudge up a long series of switchback ramps to a lone doorway leading down a jetway to the nice new Boeing 777-200 that was waiting for us.

It was a very nice plane. All the seats had video screens built in and a wired remote control/phone in one of the armrests. The only issue I had was that the seats were easily six inches closer together than on a normal US commuter flight! We were really packed in there and once I wiggled my way into the window seat I was pretty much stuck there for the duration. The tiny Korean woman who sat beside me didn't have this problem. I'm sure she must be a circus performer because she managed to curl up into at least fifteen different sleeping positions throughout the night.

They had a vegetarian meal all ready for me and it was pretty good. A roasted vegetable casserole with a risotto topping, a small salad, some marinated mushrooms and fresh fruit. In the morning they brought me more roasted vegetables topped with some unidentified spicy greens, yogurt, fruit on the side and a dinner roll. I really can't complain about the meals on this flight, just the lack of legroom.

She's Off!

And so the long journey to Japan begins. That's one small step for Julie. One giant leap for this blog!

Mobile Blogging. Yeah!

This is a test. Well its actually my new Prius :)

I'm now set up to send blogs from my cell phone! At least while I'm still in the USA. I'll have to wait until I'm in Japan to see if this will also work from my rental phone. I hope so, because it'll mean I can really keep you up to date on what Julie's doing!

An Introduction

Hi! My name is Juliet Carnell and through this blog I would like to share my adventures traveling around the country and the world. I hope you'll join me here often, but there are a few things you ought to know about me before we get started. I think you’ll soon discover I’m not your typical travel blogger, I just hope that turns out to be a good thing!

I live in Annapolis, Maryland, USA, very near the place where I grew up. In the past I've done most of my traveling in the United States east of the Mississippi River. Back in the 80's I went on a long cross country train trip with a group of friends. I’ve been on two cruses to the Caribbean and one trip to London with my mother. I like flying, but hate airports. My favorite way to travel is by train and I’ll go out of my way to ride a train rather than get there any other way.

I’m a computer software engineer by trade. I’ve worked for NASA and the now defunct Digital Equipment Corporation. For the last half dozen years or so, I’ve worked at a small company developing self-ordering kiosks for the food industry. You may have seen my work at convenience stores, grocery deli counters, or cafeterias around the country. Recently we were acquired by a large multi-national conglomerate. This means I now have the resources to travel more often and to more exotic places, but at the cost of a more stressful job.

I've been a vegetarian since 1983. I don’t eat any sort of meat, including fish or poultry. I do eat eggs and dairy products in moderation. Being a vegetarian presents a whole slew of interesting problems when traveling. Since you're dining out most of the time you often don’t have many choices and little control over what goes into the preparation of your food. Part of the adventure of traveling for me is finding ways to eat well and still avoid meat. Most cultures have traditional foods that fit into a vegetarian diet, but they're often considered ‘peasant food’ and are difficult to find on restaurant menus.

I like traveling alone. I find I can be more adventurous when I’m by myself, but I like to meet new people wherever I go. You can learn a lot more about a culture by meeting its people. The Internet is a wonderful way to discover new friends all over the globe and getting to meet them face to face for the first time is one of my favorite things to do on a trip. I do sometimes travel with a companion, most often my mother, and I enjoy the different sort of experiences that creates. Another set of eyes often turn up things I would have missed.

I do hope you enjoy my travels. Please let me know what you think either by commenting here or dropping me a line at jcarnell-travels@usa.net