Twenty four hours before our flight, I still had not received an email regarding check in. There was a discrepancy between the flight time on Orbitz and American Airlines' page. American Airlines showed that the flight time was 1:10, which would be problematic since I had a stopover in Chicago that left at 12. I called up and sure enough, they reschedule the flight that was supposed to be at 9:00 am into the 1:10 pm flight. I don't know how this could happen without me being notified and coming up with another set of flights. Anyhow, the best they could do was having an 8:30 flight out of Miami instead of Fort Lauderdale, which meant waking up much earlier than I had expected.
The first flight took a very roundabout route to Chicago, with us arriving thirty minutes late. The pilot cited traffic reasons for the course. We were lucky that we were in the same terminal as the connecting flight, which was on its final boarding by the time we arrived at the gate.
The second flight was very comfortable and flew by. I apologize for the pun. I ended up sleeping a bit and then watching the movie Brigsby Bear, which had intrigued me at some point previously when searching for movies to watch. It ended up being very different than I expected, but was very enjoyable.
We arrived in Narita Airport, Tokyo, a few minutes ahead of schedule. There wasn't a single person in line where we needed to exchange our vouchers for our two week rail pass, which was great. We arrive at our hotel a little past 7, in Shinjuku, an area of Tokyo on the west side.
We went out to dinner. I had bookmarked some places ahead of time. The first place was highly rated, but tiny inside. There was a long wait outside, and with it being freezing and us being hungry, we moved on. I found a local place that was empty and served Udon soup, a favorite of mine. Miles ended up liking the soup much more than the noodles.
We went home and went to bed shortly after, at 9:30. I set the alarm for 8 am and we left at 9. Our first stop was to the Ghibli Museum. Sutiod Ghibli makes Japanese cartoons for kids. We've seen a handful. They are often beautiful, though I find their plots lacking. In any case, the place was small, but extremely well crafted. We were not allowed to take pictures inside. The first room near the entrance had extremely cool special effects in its exhibits. It is hard to explain with words, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Miles had a good time and even insisted that I go into the bathroom to see the art on the wall.
We traveled back to Shinjuku and then a little south to Harajuku to go to the Tokyo Snake Center. Nestled in the 8th floor of a building near the train station, this little cafe had snake "attendants" that are placed on the table.
After getting some very good hot chocolate, Miles held two different snakes. One was a Japanese local.
For lunch, just a block away was the Kawaii Monster Cafe. It got mixed reviews, but people said that it was mostly for the unique atmosphere as well as the colorful dessert. I ordered some fries which looked to have some interestingly colored dipping sauces. I tried them all. For dessert, we tasted three different dishes. I liked the colorful cake the most. While eating, they had a monster come out to dance with the girls in funky outfits. Everything was nice except for the service, which was the worst I've had yet in Japan.
We ran over to the nearby Meiji Jingu shrine, for Miles' first view of a Japanese Temple.
Unfortunately, as we got closer, we found out that the temple seemed to be undergoing restoration, and there wasn't much to be seen. We walked in the nearby gardens but there really wasn't much to see.
Next, we headed to a cat cafe. Unfortunately, we were turned away because they had an age minimum of 13. Miles was really disappointed, but I told him that I had a backup cat cafe planned in case this one turned us away.
We returned to the hotel, where we found a robot stationed in the lobby. The robot danced to some songs and had an odd conversation with us, where it seemed like it wasn't paying too much attention to our responses to its queries. Still, it was a neat experience.
We grabbed our show vouchers from our room and headed out to see the Robot Restaurant show. We went down a winding and colorful set of staircases, down to a small, but wide room. We were in the first row, in the back corner. Overall, I thought the show was good. There were dancers and a seemingly endless stream of almost parade floats, one more creative than the next. Miles seemed to enjoy himself. Near the end we were given glowstick wands to move to the music. Miles showed the woman sitting next to him how to turn it on and switch the colors.
On the way home, I passed an interesting storefront. I wish there was more creativity in American storefronts.
Tomorrow, we have a few sights to see in town and then we will be headed to our next destination, Yamagata.
No comments:
Post a Comment