花見

Hanami is a word that is taken very seriously by Japanese people. It involves blue tarps, bentos, selfie sticks and flowing beer. The word is difficult to translate to english because we just don't do the same thing. Hanami refers to the pastime of watching sakura flowers in bloom. Kind of like bird watching, with a little less action. Just kidding, mostly.
Anyways this pastime is well covered by the local news stations, helping people figure out the prime days to watch the gorgeous sakura in bloom. I had the chance to enjoy hanami with my family and friends, in Tokyo and Tottori. It was relaxing and beautiful. One thing I will miss the most when I leave is the way Japanese people celebrate everything with festivals and excitement. In Canada the cherry blossoms are beautiful too, but we don't stop to notice them.

Tokyo,Tokyo

Last weekend I had the chance to pop over to Tokyo for work. Pshhh, work consisted of 4.5 days in Tokyo, with only two spent at a conference. The conference itself was fairly interesting. I got to wear my suit again, which I literally NEVER wear, and I caught up with some JETs who left Vancouver with me way back 1.5 years ago. There were some motivational speakers and it left me feeling rejuvinated. I am headed back to Canada in 6 months, but I have gained valuable skills here. I am looking forward to seeing how I can use it to get a great job in the ESL market back home.

Anyways. TOKYO!! This weekend happened to fall right before Valentine's day and the 11 month anniversary of D and I, so it was a fun one:)
First things first we stayed with AirBnB, at an apartment in Roppongi Hills. The area was convenient and nice, but the flat was disgusting!! It didn't have a window, was super dirty and still cost us $130 each. I was so unimpressed. I know it is hit and miss, but this place was a huge miss. Aside from that the location was great. We spent the Saturday night at a mexican joint for a friends birthday. It was so-so as far as Mexican, but since Tottori has nothing to be had in that area I will take it! Following dinner D and I ended up at a bar called Medusa, outside Shinjuku station. It was amazing. Open every night until 4am it is atrociously expensive and is home to vaulted ceilings, giant glass chandeliers and three resident sharks. It was a smoky, expensive atmosphere, with some bottles on the menu going for well over $10,000! Probably also a place where Yakuza frequent, but who can pass up sharks?!

Sharks!!!

The next day Dan planned a whole special time for us. To start we headed past Roppongi Hills to a great lookout of the city, and of Tokyo Tower!!! Next D took us to a little restaurant called Ft. Lauderdale. The breaky menu was exquisite and included refillable coffee(unheard of in Japan!)

From there we headed to Odaiba island. This island has a ton of fun stuff to do and see, and is also a great spot to catch one of the boat cruises that can take you to different spots of Tokyo. We wandered in one of the malls, but skipped walking outside due to the heavy rain. I managed to catch a picture of the statue of liberty tho! It is a great photo op on a brighter day :)

Our boat didn't leave until about 2:30, so we stopped for Hawaiian lunch first!! It was amazing :) 

Lady Liberty

Bubble tea!! 

The boat tour was so relaxing, and by the time we got off at Akusakusa an hour later the rain had mostly cleared off and the hazy mist was burning off. We spotted a Tullys and grabbed some coffee and enjoyed the view of Tokyo Tower. It was so romantic! 

Next we decided to head to Akihabara, which is the entertainment and electronics area of Tokyo. The walk was about 3km, but we decided it would be more fun to wander the back streets then fight through the subway. If you are up for walking then Tokyo is a perfect city for it! Plus if you eat as much as us it's a good idea ;)

We saw the largest temple in Tokyo and popped into the largest electronics store in the world. We also saw the AKB48 cafe, and then we finally headed back to Shibuya for the next part of our romantic date. Dan had managed to get us into one of the Alice in Wonderland themed restaurants!! It was so fantastic and magical We literally walked through a story book page to enter the restaurant and were given cute ears to don for the meal!! It was so thoughtful and sweet. Definitely more for me than him, but the food and drinks were tasty! If you want a fun experience I definitely recomend it! You will feel like you are somewhere totally different, and the atmosphere is relaxing and fun. 

My bunny!

The waitress, AKA 'Alice'

In the days that followed we had the chance to experience more of Tokyo, enjoying coffee shops, fun restaurants, cheap happy hours and laughs with old friends. We even had the chance to meet up with a friend from University who is a head hunter in Tokyo now, that was a blast! Tokyo is such a fun city, but so overwhelming. It is nice to be back in the simple familiarity of Tottori!

Tokyo DisneyLand and DisneySea

So last weekend I headed to Tokyo for the long weekend. I added one extra day of nennkyu and met up with my bf on the Thursday night at Narita. We stayed at someones apartment through Air BnB. It was an awesome choice! The place got a great review and it was incredible. Located minutes walk from Kasai station - which is about a 15 minute bus ride directly to Disney Land and Disney Sea. The apartment was owned by a really chill guy who works at a hotel as his career - so our room came with a travelling guide, water, towels, toothbrushed etc. It was awesome! Super convenient and cheap too. A win win for what could have otherwise been expensive or inconvenient. We had planned to go to Disneyland for a long time, even though we heard horror stories about endless crowds and lineups. One of my worst days in Japan was at Universal Studios where I got on two rides in 10 hours and the highlight was eating at TGI Fridays outside of the park (although I did meet Elmo!)
Still we figured it would be a really fun memory and fun no matter what. On a scale of 1-10 I would rank USJ as a 3 and I would rank Disney as a 10!! We got to the park right when the doors opened and had printed off our tickets so we could breeze in. We managed to hit around 14 rides the first day, we ate a fancy dinner at the Blue Bayou restaurant and we watched some fireworks. It was fantastic. The longest lineup was just over an hour and the shortest was around 10 minutes - not unlike the California Disney I am used to. One really cute aspect of Tokyo Disney is that everyone carries around the Disney bear, Duffy. Duffy is so popular that there are spots marked around the park where visitors are encouraged to photograph themselves with their Duffy bear. Duffy was originally introduced in California Disney and was a total flop, so was sold off to Tokyo where, of course, the kawaii factor of a fluffy bear took over and became an instant sensation. Around 50% of the park had a Duffy something hanging off themselves, including lots of adults! It was pretty adorable. Another quirk of the Tokyo parks is the popcorn. There are tons of flavors and most people carry it around their necks in character containers. The lineups were atrocious but Dan and I gave in when we saw the milk tea flavor!

                                       

Our second day we headed to DisneySea which is a separate  park. It was a different vibe with more thrill rides, and beer!! We noticed the difference right away when the gates opened with people literally running to get fast passes for rides. The  lineups at DisneySea were slightly longer than DisneyLand, however we took advantage of fastpasses and we also chose to do single rider a few times. That meant whizzing through the line and then just, of course, riding alone. It was a small price to pay to ensure we had time to enjoy doing other things together. One of the highlights was watching a cirque de soleil type show with a jungle theme. It was in a giant theater and was a nice relaxing change to the crazyness that is Disney. We found Mexican food to eat too, and enjoyed beer which was great. It was a fabulous day. My favorite ride was Journey to the Center of the Earth because it has a fun twist at the end, but the Tower of Terror was equally exciting and we started and ended our day with it! 

 
 

After our two days at Disney we decided to spend our last full day just enjoying Tokyo. We headed to Shinjuku first and enjoyed walking around, getting purikura and playing taiko. We also stumbled across Menchies! I absolutely love Menchies and was pretty stoked to introduce Dan to the magical wonders of Menchies! I was shocked to see it but super stoked as it has been about 1 and a half years since my last Menchies experience. We shopped a bit and went down a busy street in Harajuku, and then we came to Ometesando Koffee, which is the most famed coffee shop in Tokyo. It is a bit out of the way and is literally just a tatami room, a coffee bar and one barista. Dan really enjoyed his machiatto though and thinks it was one of the best coffee's he has had. For lunch we found a legit German restaurant and enjoyed sauerkraut, sausage, beer and even Black Forest cake. It was great! We tried to go and see a film but Tokyo was packed due to the long weekend so we ended our night chatting and drinking at an izakaya. It was a fantastic weekend. A major typhoon was headed our way but we both managed to fly home safely the next morning which was a relief. Although it was a tad expensive it was a really fun experience and we both agreed that Disney might happen again before our contracts expire :)