On this Day 5 we finally visited Tokyo! We stayed there overnight, but kept our Osaka home base at the same time, so we just brought a few extra clothes along. Unfortunately for my dad, he had to carry the clothes bag. Unfortunately for the rest of us, he kept throwing a tantrum about having to carry it. We woke up later than usual, and didn’t leave our room until 10AM. We first headed to Nagoya for the annual Atsuta Shrine Festival, the second largest religious festival in Japan. While researching for places to go on our trip, I wanted to find special, unique things to do that wouldn’t just be the usual stuff like shopping and famous buildings. So I searched up events that would occur during our trip. The Atsuta Shrine Festival was one of the few things I found. More so than the Kobe excursion, which turned out decent, I was really hoping for good things from Atsuta, as it was the other itinerary item specifically prepared by me. Atsuta Shrine is a pretty famous religious site in Japan. It is apparently the home of a famous imperial sword, one of the three royal treasures of Japan that have been around for hundreds of years. However, they don’t let the public see the sword, so it might just be myth. As for the festival, besides the usual booths and food, there were supposed to be martial arts demonstrations and the like. At night would be fireworks. We got off the train at Nagoya Station. At first, we followed some young people, thinking they were going to the same place as us. However, this turned out to not be the case, as they were probably students at Nagoya University. I asked a young person for directions in Japanese, and while I did not understand all the Japanese directions, I got the general gist of the direction. Also, we had Google Maps. We eventually found the shrine, which appeared to be several city blocks big, and corralled around by lots of trees, akin to a Stern Grove type of setup. You couldn’t see through the trees to the shrine because the trees were so dense. Around the outside of this large area there were booths just being set up. They mostly were food booths, and most of the food booths served sweets. There was one hilarious booth selling boba drinks sold in IV pouches, with the tube coming off the bottom. We finally went into the wooded area to find even more booths. My dad commented that there were endless booths. We turned a corner and eventually found our way to a building that was a combo restaurant and souvenir shop. Outside, people were cooking food, so we bought some. We got some stir-fry noodles, a weird egg thing sandwiched between thin rice crackers, and a hot dog. The hot dog tasted weird, and I thought it might be fake vegan meat. This would make sense, since this was a religious location. My dad said it tasted fine. Then we went walking and found the central plaza where they would hold the martial arts demonstrations. Off to one side was a little display room of flower arrangements. See one below. At the far end of the plaza was a fenced off area. The fenced off area seemed like perhaps the most sacred part of the shrine or something. A lot of people were gathered around the martial arts ring. Then, you could hear chanting in the distance. Some kind of procession was approaching! Eventually we saw them come through into the plaza. It was a parade of mostly men holding up big white flags with big bold Japanese characters in black ink. They proceeded up to the fenced off area. There they kowtowed. Then, they came toward the martial arts ring. They then started to come out, four at a time in two pairs, and demonstrated martial arts. Some used fans, edged weapons, staffs, even an umbrella. The most striking thing were the battle cries. They made all kinds of strange whoops that sounded comical to my ears. We stuck around for 15-ish minutes, and then went off to get some more food. We went back to the souvenir shop for the backdoor noodle restaurant. I ordered some noodles that included an egg on top in the picture. My mom had tsukemen. We all got the same noodles. They were on the thick side, and flat. They were like the flatness of Chinese ho fun, but thicker like Italian pasta. My mom seemed to like these noodles so much, she later said it was her favorite meal in Japan. I was surprised to see that my dish was essentially a salad with noodles. Besides noodles, which were mixed with a thin peanut sauce, there were a bunch of cold, raw vegetables, as well as my raw egg. I was hoping for a hot noodle dish. Despite my disappointment at that aspect, the dish did taste good. I am not a salad person, but as a salad, I might say it was one of my favorites that I’ve tasted. After that, we left, and took the long train ride to Tokyo. I am not sure why, but Tokyo didn’t look that good to me, as we approached. It wasn’t that much more impressive than Osaka. We took another train to Shin-Okubo Station. When we got outside, it was nearly 6PM. The sun was almost setting. I saw a girl who seemed to be waiting for someone. Admittedly, I thought the girls here were not as good-looking as they were in Osaka. Anyways, back out in the street, it took me a minute to get my bearings, but then we eventually found our hotel, which turned out to be right next to Okubo Station. We rang the bell for the receptionist to come. We got our room and slippers. We were sharing showers and bathrooms with two or three other families. Internally, I was glad that we would only be staying one night. Our room had two bunk beds. We just lazed around for half an hour. Then we had to get going. We walked to Shinjuku I think? We passed by a building labeled “Scientology,” as well as some homeless people under the overpass. That is when my dad started getting interested in reading about the Japanese economy. We eventually got to Kabuki-cho. We bought a fried-potato-covered hot dog. It was alright. We also saw the Godzilla that moves every hour on the hour. Next, we went to look for Ichiran Ramen, the ramen restaurant that Cari had heard so much about. We found it, but had to wait in line for 45 minutes to an hour. I was pissed, because I was hungry, and Mommy and Daddy were yelling at me because I didn’t want to throw trash into a recycle bin. Anyways, we waited in line for the freaking elevator. Then we waited in line again to order at the machine. Then we waited in line again to be seated. There was an amusing video promoting their pre-packaged noodles and broth that could be purchased. The video was showing people eating the noodles in the freezing snow and at home by yourself, saying that you could now eat the famous noodles wherever you wanted! I wanted to buy some for nai-nai, my landlord, because she eats Chinese ramen for lunch at least three days a week. When we got to the front of the line, they gave us a sheet to ask how we wanted our noodles and soup cooked, as well as a menu to order extra toppings or dessert. I just went for normal everything, and no extra toppings or dessert. Finally, we got our seats. The gimmick with this restaurant is you sit facing a wall, with a divider separating you from the people sitting next to you also facing the wall. A roll-up blind allows you a path of transfer to the kitchen behind the wall. You could get water from a little dispenser in the left corner, and the other corner had a bunch of pieces of paper that you could write your review on. Or at least that’s what I thought the sign said. Thus I had my mind focused on reviewing the meal. After several minutes of waiting, we got the toppings, and finally the noodles. From first taste, I was struck by the soup. It was perfect! So much pork umami, with spiciness and everything. The soup was a 10/10. The next thing that caught me was that the noodles were different from the usual curly ramen noodles that I was used to. I eventually gave them a 7/10 because, even though I wasn’t sure if I liked these different noodles, they were well-cooked. The pork slices were a bit too thick, though they tasted good. Black fungus was fine, not especially good or bad. Finally, they had an egg (which of course is always good), though more cooked than I would like. I drank all the soup, which I normally never do with noodle soup of any kind. When we finally got out, my mom had already bought two packages of the ramen. My dad didn’t like it, to the point that he didn’t even finish it! At this point, we were really tired, particularly my mom. But now, we walked all the way to the Japan Prefectural Government Building, which has an observatory floor at the top. There we saw the skyline. I wasn’t that into it, I liked what we saw in Kobe better. There was the gift shop, with a bunch of stuff. Anyways, I was just kind of done for the day. So next, with Mommy being so tired, we looked for the train station, which we were able to take with our JR passes. Finally, we went to sleep. The next day, we would finally be going to the place that was the catalyst for the whole trip.
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AuthorI was born and raised in San Francisco, California. I am proud of my Chinese heritage, and I think my background gives me a unique edge on this vast field of opinion. As a self-proclaimed music historian, I have loved pop music ever since I first heard it. These are my opinions on some of the recent albums and songs that are making a splash in the industry. Archives
December 2020
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