Japan Day 22 (Part II) - Akihabara, Tokyo When our MariCar tour was over, Fletch and I were both feeling pretty hungry from all the adrenalin and excitement. Most of the restaurants in Akihabara were advertising either pasta dishes (the Italian type) or random fried foods. A few times we even passed by a massive dessert served inside an entire loaf of white bread. It was all novelty to look at, but none of it was screaming eat me! Finally we found a 24-hour seafood joint. I know what you’re thinking, 24-hour raw fish sounds a little sketchy, but it
Japan Day 22 (Part I) - Akihabara, Tokyo There was just one thing left to do on our Japan wish lists: dress up as Mario Kart characters and race around the streets of downtown Tokyo in go-karts. I’m not talking about a track, or a virtual realty experience, but actual vehicles zooming around the city streets. Who wouldn’t want to turn the world’s best video game into a real-life experience? Enter MariCar, where you can live out your childhood fantasies in a city as colorful and bizarre as a Mario Kart course. (Disclaimer: MariCar is in no way associated with
Japan Day 21 - Shibuya, Tokyo Fletch and I had been on the go for 20 days. 20 days of touring around Japan, of hopping between major cities, of riding bullet trains across the country. 20 days and so many different hotels that they were all starting to blur together. I went in trying to keep notes on each hotel's differences, for the purpose of writing a post of hotel advice for other travelers. But the truth is, in the $100 per night range, all business hotels are created pretty equally. They're all clean and neat and provide an almost-too-stiff
Japan Day 20 - Himeji to Tokyo I would have happily traded the time we spent in Kyoto for an equal amount of time in Himeji, but alas, after a mere night it was already the beginning of the end, and time to make our way back to Tokyo for our final days in Japan. The trip from Himeji to Shinagawa took three and a half hours, after which we boarded the Yamamote line for Shibuya. That probably sounded like Greek, but after so many weeks riding trains across the country, we were well versed in matching up the correct lines. Shibuya
Japan Day 19 - Hiroshima to Himeji Fletch and I had saved our cheese tarts from the previous night for breakfast. They weren’t hot out of the oven anymore, but they still had the sweet richness of the best possible combination of a cheesecake and a tart. The six miniature pie crusts with creamy, cheesy goodness were gone a moment later. Hiroshima was the end of our line, but to break up the journey back to Tokyo, I had scheduled a one-night stay in the little town of Himeji, just enough time to visit the namesake castle. Miniature model of Himeji