Ghost Posted September 30, 2014 Author Share Posted September 30, 2014 Ghibli museum booked up for all my dates in Tokyo. Gutted Does anybody know if only certain amount get released to companies like JTB and if someone already in Japan might be able to obtain some for me? Are you staying in a hostel or at a hotel? If a hostel, check if the peeps there can help you out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 Ghibli museum booked up for all my dates in Tokyo. Gutted Does anybody know if only certain amount get released to companies like JTB and if someone already in Japan might be able to obtain some for me? Are you staying in a hostel or at a hotel? If a hostel, check if the peeps there can help you out? I have a contact in Japan who is going to book us some. He say they are available each day at 1000 yen, which is half the price JTB offered 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 before i went i looked at it, some of these travel agencies here wanted £40-50 to book it, 1000 yen is £6... didnt go in the end, didnt think the missus would appreciate it, and based on her face after spending 10 minutes in the ghibli shop (sky tree shopping centre) it was probably a good idea, she also wouldnt let me buy the blu ray boxset for £350 would say its a bit strange seeing all the ghibli gear over there, hardly anything for the films that i would consider big (other than MNT) loads of kiki stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 Tokyo is shaping up quite nicely. Ghibli Museum, a New Japan Pro Wrestling show at Korakeun and Robot Restaurant. The Japanese guy I know is also trying to take me to a Yokohama FC game but I'm with two femmes and with it being our last night there it might be pushing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 I will also be in Kyoto for a festival called Jidai Mutsari. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 i will get round to writing it up in the next few days with pics etc but im sure it was discussed on here, osaka or kyoto, not even close, kyoto is miles better, might be because i did it after shinjuku and the pace of life and everything dropped (whereas personally i found osaka to be a bit tokyo-lite) kyoto might actually have pipped tokyo in terms of how much i enjoyed it, loads to do there, definitely go to nara if you have time, the train is a JR train so you can use your rail pass and they leave every 20 minutes or so if you want somewhere to eat in tokyo try Gonpachi Nishiazabu in Roppongi, the restaurant Tarantino based the house of blue lotus or whatever it was called on, brilliant place, got an english website too i liked the look of robot restaurant but we walked through kabukicho before we found it and my attempts to convince the missus went out the window, its not a particularly seedy or dirty place but somewhere between the african men touting the prostitutes and the scores of gangs kicking about the place she didnt enjoy it at all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 got back yesterday, did 4 nights tokyo, 3 nights kyoto, 1 night hiroshima, 1 night osaka, 2 night tokyo absolutely loved it, dont want to spoil the little things for those about to go - wasnt expecting all the bakeries, or for the bakery stuff to be so good, had seen somewhere that they dont really do sandwiches, probably true based on the fillings, such as burger and rice, yogurt etc but the bread was beautiful and i ate a couple of tonkatsu (basically breaded pork with curry sauce) sandwiches, i used to work in bakery and its easily the best country ive been to for it i couldnt get my head around the fact that there were no bins, there are a couple of recycling bins dotted about (usually by vending machines) but the only place i saw general waste was on the train platforms, its the cleanest place i've ever been heated bathroom mirrors! utter genius some of the "crazy" stuff such as the plastic meals in shop windows and the electric bog seats, also genius the people in general were awesome, found it amazing how i would walk in to a shop, say hello and smile, quite often i'd have had a look round and be leaving and they'd still be talking to me... i'd politely tell some of them that i dont speak jaapnese, they'd quite happily be yapping on for a couple of minutes... its just a constant wall of noise, fast, high pitched, none of what i got in china, they weren't fussed by us, no one watched us, no one was checking out your clothes or was bothered by what you were doing, i got stopped twice for a photo (once by school kids who interviewed us for english studies, once by some young girls who wanted a photo with me, which my missus took and wasnt awkward at all..) in general i thought it was like china without any of the negatives, no beggars, no looky looky men, no hassle, the street food is clean and good, the people arent bothered by you, and there is no spitting! temples, castles and shrines all day bright city lights all night, i'll break it down in separate posts 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 (edited) tokyo - i stayed at this hotel in shinjuku - http://en.southerntower.co.jp/ it was awesome, £120 a night, right next to the south exit of the station so it was 5 minutes to the main bit, 5 minutes to yoyogi if you wanted to avoid it all and 5 minutes to shinjuku bus station, also had an amazing view of the city 1st day did meiji shrine, yoyogi park, harajuku, shibuya and then the train back to shinjuku, fair bit of walking, if you go then do the government building in shinjuku because you can go up the viewing platform for free shibuya cross was strangely disappointing, was smaller than i expected but there were a ridiculous number of people about, shinjuku is brilliant, so much going on, did try and watch the villa in the english bar chain HUB but they don't show football, watched it in an irish bar, crazy how when i went in to the bar at 11pm there were maybe 50k-100k people milling about, when i came out of the pub at 1am there were maybe 50-100 people about! i think the last train is 1am so everyone goes home ate at the capcom restaurant which was an absolute bastard to find and the service was shocking, but the food was fun and they had a load of playstations to play street fighter on whiel you waited for your food, and the cocktails were awesome 2nd day did disneyland, wasnt overly fussed about going but the missus wanted to, glad i did, it was the epitome of japanese craziness, been a long time since i went to orlando, dont remember there being organised groups of people going round in matching tshirts and gear, and i dont mean kids, i mean adults, i mean families of 4, gangs of blokes, couples, all in matching gear, including 7 girls all as the different dwarves, i'd guess based on the shops there that your average person had around £70 worth of stuff on, its a good park too, everyone sat down on tatami mats to watch the parade so you could just stand at the back and see everything perfectly next day did odaiba, which was disappointing, again did tons of walking, plenty of interesting buildings and nice open spaces and a couple of parks and the tv building is good for the view of the rainbow bridge and the statue of liberty, joypolis and the rest of the stuff, such as the toyota place, were disappointing though, also went to tokyo tower, cant remember the exact number but i think you had to walk up something like 23 floors to get to the viewing platform, after doing around 10m round odaiba there was no chance of me doing that, did walk to the gonpachi restaurant i mentioned earlier though, its apparently where tarantino visited to get the idea for kill bills fight scene, it was like tapas / antipasti, lots of little dishes like yakitori (chicken on a stick) was brilliant, one of those places where when you walk in the waitress announces you to the room and everyone cheers and shouts hello at you... 2nd visit to tokyo i stayed in asakusa, which was ok but a ball ache on the trains, found a lot of the stations around there claim to be multiple lines but in reality are separate stations as much as a kilometer apart, my hotel was opposite the sensoji temple though so ideally placed for that, the view wasnt bad either did the temple, sky tree (which took ages to queue for, hour and half to get to the 1st level, was going to be another hour for the upper level but i couldnt be bothered) went to the tokyo dome for thunder dolphin i think its like the 8th tallest roller coaster in the world, goes through a building and through the worlds only ferris wheel with no middle, and i managed to get on the front seat, possibly the best roller coaster I've ever been on also went to Ueno which was nice, the edo - tokyo museum which was very good, but brief on the war which was a shame, and then the imperial palace, which with the park and the sky scrapers of marunouchi its a nice part of the world but with the palace behind the walls it was a complete waste of time with hindsight i probably should have done shinjuku last, instead i went straight in to the madness of it all on the 1st night, everything after that (roppongi, Ueno, Asakusa etc pretty much everywhere else i went in japan on the night apart from maybe dotonbori in osaka) was a bit tame by comparison Edited September 30, 2014 by villa4europe 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 Thanks a lot for that write up mate. I'll definitely cross check all the stuff you mentioned with my plans. Are you telling me I'm not allowed to read that spoiler? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 You can if you want but it was the little things that I didn't know about before I went that was part of me enjoying it so much, it'll be different things for different people so might not be the same anyway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 kyoto - i spent 3 days in kyoto and honestly could have spent another couple there, i didnt do the 2 main tourist attractions there, the golden pavilion was nowhere near a tube line and the other big shrine was on top of a hill somewhere, as i said with tokyo we were doing 8-10m a day in walking and its very easy to out-temple yourself there because there are seemingly hundreds of them, its a really noticeable step down from tokyo, the city centre is full of little houses rather than high rise, the pace is slow, and the tourists are less diluted making it seem like there are loads of them stayed near the station with a hotel company called daiwa roynet who are really cheap but have nice hotels (stayed with them in osaka too) the station is an amazing building, its huge too, you can go up to a garden on something like the 11th floor for some good views of the city we did the fushimi inari shrine which is a load of tori (gates) they keep going and going, up a hill, in to the woods, went about half way up in a couple of hours, they go up a mountain and you could probably spend all day doing it, but there is loads of moquitos there and i got eaten alive, but the higher up you go the quieter it gets went to gion to try and find a geisha, which we were led to believe is the best place in japan to find one, and we did! to be fair i think she was with a guided tour going for a meal but it was still pretty cool, was strolling round there and stumbled across kennin-ji temple, had a zen garden and a little temple and then they had a room with this painted on the ceiling went to nijo-jo castle, the national museum which was nothing special, about 5 other temples which were all quite near the station, did the bamboo forest walk, then we went to nara, piece of piss to get to (you can use your rail pass too) and IMO its a must see, its full of deer walking around, you can buy biscuits for them and feed them, i managed to find one that bowed to me! we got interviewed by a class of kids learning English which was cool, then saw the temple (which i think is the worlds biggest timber building) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Looks wonderful, very jealous How would you compare Tokyo as a city compared to the other big cities you've been to? (I remember you saying you'd done Shanghai?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 its strange compared to shanghai, there isnt anything there that compares to pudong, there also isnt really an old bit or anything that compares to the french quarter no doubt it will change for the olympics but tokyo felt like about 4 buildings had been built there this century but its ridiculously clean and feels safer than anywhere else id been, its an assault on the senses, some amazing smells, loads of lights and what makes a big difference from say osaka which in places looks the same, its a barrage of noise, the people are also nicer and politer, but the thing with shanghai was meeting the people from the sticks who were on holiday themselves and had never met white people before, that was an amazing feeling, in tokyo they arent fussed, thought they might be interested in my clothes and fashion etc but they werent, they've got their own and in general dont care about westerners despite them loving western culture the hardest thing about it at the start which id never seen before was the number of shops / restaurants etc there are hundreds of thousands of them what you'll find is that every floor will have something different on it, so outside of a 10 floor building you'll have 10 signs with the floor reference next to them, its overwhelming and hard to grasp what everything is, also never seen the number of tiny restaurants before, 5/6 seats and queues outside and when i was driven out of shanghai i thought it was big, when i was in the sky tree looking out tokyo is insane, it just goes on forever, not sure how much of it is actually anything worth visiting, the way the wards / prefectures work means its like mini city centres everywhere 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVTuco Posted October 1, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted October 1, 2014 kyoto - i spent 3 days in kyoto and honestly could have spent another couple there, i didnt do the 2 main tourist attractions there, the golden pavilion was nowhere near a tube line and the other big shrine was on top of a hill somewhere, as i said with tokyo we were doing 8-10m a day in walking and its very easy to out-temple yourself there because there are seemingly hundreds of them, its a really noticeable step down from tokyo, the city centre is full of little houses rather than high rise, the pace is slow, and the tourists are less diluted making it seem like there are loads of them. Thank for the write up and pics villa4europe. Kyoto is to me the most interesting place I've ever been to. In Kyoto Nijo Castle is my favorite, my interest grew as I read some history books about the beginning of the Shogun era. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 the museum inside osaka castle was excellent for that stuff, basically 5 floors of the history of tokugawa (who was the ruler in nijo castle) vs toyotomi in a battle in osaka to be fair i've tried reading a bit of japanese history and its full of years of nothing really happening, there is about 40 years during feudal japan starting with nobunaga and ending with tokugawa, the meiji restoration and then the war, the social structure is fascinating but bloody hard work 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 I am rather excited! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 I was in Japan a year ago this week. Ah, your photos and stories are making me miss it even more villa4europe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Golden temple is the highlight of Kyoto .... Just saying Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 golden temple was a ball ache to get to, about 2m from the nearest station, like i said i wish id had more time in kyoto but we chose to do something else instead, nara was probably the best thing i did over there but that took up 3/4 of the day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 We just rented bicycles from our hostel and cycled around for the couple of days we were there. Good exercise and a great way to see stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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