Our last full day in Japan. We promised ourselves we would get up early this morning, as we had a lot to do. I had stayed up too late the night before doing log files to catch up, and ended up oversleeping by about half an hour. We quickly got dressed, and raced out the door. Our plans for the day were to go to Ueno Zoo, see a lunchtime Sen to Chihiro (Miyazaki's new movie) then shop for a while, and have dinner at Ristorante Massa, Iron Chef Italian's restaurant, assuming we could get reservations. I asked the okaasan and otoosan of the ryokan where we could see the movie, and they gave us a map to a nearby theater that a guest said the movie was playing at. We thanked them and left.
We rode the HIbiya subway line one stop back to Ueno, and stopped in to Starbucks in Ueno station for breakfast, which consisted of two mocha frappucinos, an orange cranberry muffin, and a cranberry turkey sandwich. Starbucks are everywhere, and are gaining popularity fast, as they are about the ONLY non-smoking coffee shop in the country. We finished, then took the Ueno Park subway exit. This ended up being on the wrong side of the station (JR's Ueno Park exit drops you out RIGHT at Ueno Park) so we walked up a long hill to the park. Two museums are on either side as you walk into the center of the park. Molly had used the restroom, and she said as she walked past the men's room, there was a foreign man standing there with his privates hanging out. Weird.
The park was crowded, being that it was a Sunday, and we passed through the center of the park, where dozens of kids were feeding huge flocks of
pigeons. As we approached the zoo, I said, "hey, you get to see a panda in the flesh! That's hard to do!" and Molly got excited. These thoughts were quelched as we bought tickets; there was a sign stating that the giant panda was on loan to a zoo in Mexico for breeding, and wouldn't be back until March. SUCK! We were really upset!
We paid 600 yen apiece to enter the park, which seems really cheap. Ueno has a really good zoo in general; the highlights normally are the panda (which sadly was not there) and the gorillas, which have a marveolous paddock. We saw dozens of animals, including tigers,
elephants, penguins, sea lions (which were getting hand fed stinky fish), prairie dogs, bison, and macaques, among hoards of birds, bats, and other animals. It was pretty crowded as well, and a good number of kids were there with their parents. I tried calling Ristorante Massa for dinner reservations but got a weird message and no human. I figured it wasn't open yet. As we rounded the far edge of the zoo, Molly's stomach really began to hurt (it had been hurting for some time). She took some Prevacid, and waited for for a while, but it only got worse. After a while she was hunched over, trying hard to stand up straight. Right before we left the zoo I tried calling Massa again, this time paying hard attention to the message. Craaaap. It was CLOSED from the 11th to the 16th!! We wouldn't be able to eat at Masahiko Kobe's restaurant. :( That was REALLY distressing. :( Molly took some Gaviscon (an antacid) and her stomach began to feel immediately better. After a few steps she felt totally fine again, and we bought some Lamune (finally) from a nice vendor in the park. Molly wanted to buy a monkey sucker, but decided against it.
The stomach repair didn't last. Minutes later, her stomach began hurting worse than before, this time coupled with nausea. We rode the train back to Iriya, where we went down the main street towards the theater, which was unfortunately past the ryokan. Molly was doing really bad, and I told her to tell me if she needed to stop. She kept going, thinking she would be ok once we were in the movie and no longer moving. A few blocks later, we reached the shopping arcade near the Asakusa View hotel and began to search for Sen. Halfway down the arcade we had seen five theaters (two porn) and none were playing the movie. Molly was really hurting, so I told her to sit down near a depaato and I would scout out for the movie. I walked alone all the way to the end of the arcade, but there were no more theaters. It wasn't playing here. Double suck.
I returned to Molly who was sitting on the steps leading down to restaurants. I sat next to her. Her stomach was doing better now that she was sitting still, but we sat for a bit more. Suddenly a security guard came over and said we couldn't sit there. I was very disappointed and worried all at once and it took all my restraint to apologize and move on. There wasn't anywhere else to sit, and she was sick. We slowly walked back to the ryokan, where we walked inside. Our key wasn't out, so i rang the little bell. A voice said "haaaiiii..." from behind the desk. A really old woman was taking a nap behind the desk! "Ah you want a key," she said in Japanese. I said yes, and told her our room number. She gave us the key, then went back to her nap. I checked my mail to see if I had directions the the theater cloyce mentioned while molly laid down. I didn't. Molly stayed in and took a nap while I went out for nearby kaiten-zushi lunch at Nihon Umi.
Fortunately THIS was good. In under 20 minutes I had stuffed myself with 12 2-piece plates of utterly delicious sushi, the tab totaling just over 2500 yen. I stopped in to 7-11, getting a requested popsicle for Molly and a niku-man bun for me. I probably wouldn't get another chance to eat one, so I made sure to get one. Back at the ryokan, the okaasan and otoosan were back in the dining area. I told them we weren't able to see the movie because it wasn't there. The suddenly started scrambling, flipping througn newspapers to find a showing. The found several, most in Shinjuku. I told them it was fine, despite them thinking it was far. The one they tore out was supposedly right outside the east entrance of the JR station. He even gave me a marked subway map to use to get to Shinjuku, which seemed easier and cheaper than riding the JR. I thanked them a lot, then went to fetch Molly. She had just woken up, and was feeling better. She ate her popsicle, and we darted out the door at 3PM to make the 4:15 movie.
We rode the Hibiya line to Naka-Okachimachi, one stop past Ueno. We had paid 230 yen fares, thinking we were going to change lines there. We exited in Naka Okachimachi and put our tickets in the exit gate. It kicked them out the front again, as we could use them to change trains. We took a long connecting hallway to the Oodeo subway line, where we tried to use our tickets. They were refused. As it turns out, this is a totally different company! We bought new tickets for this train to Shinjuku Nishi Guchi station, and caught a glimpse of another set of foreigners who were also perplexed by this strange line change problem.
We rode the subway a number of stops and got off in Shinjuku Nishi Guchi. This is more convenient than Shinjuku station, since the subway makes a weird loop, and the two stations are connected together anyway. It would be three more stops to get basically the same station. It leaves you off just under the west entrance to the JR Shinjuku station. This was WAY easier than trying to get there on JR, although way louder too, as it's a subway. We had less than 20 minutes to get to the movie; it took most of an hour. We scrambled through the station above trying to find a way to the east entrance. There wasn't one we could find short of cutting through the JR station (again, rail passes are way useful) so we ended up taking the long way around, through the "pee hallway" (which didn't smell this time) north of the station. We trucked it around the eastern exit, looking hard for the eiga-kan. We didn't have time to figure it out, so with 10 minutes to spare, I asked the tourist office in the station. She told us it was just out the door we came in, right next to the eyeglass store. Sure enough it was about 10 feet from where we stopped looking. We took the elevator to the 7th floor, where the theater was. The woman was motioning us into the stairwell to wait. I told her we didn't have tickets yet, and she let me through to buy tickets from the counter. They were 1800 yen EACH. That's right, 30 bucks for the two of us to see a movie. It was pretty crowded, and we ended up about a floor down. The don't let people in until the time OF the movie (in this case 4:15), unlike the process in the US where you can sit in the theater sometimes around an hour before the movie. We followed the line up the stairs, and to our dismay found out there was a whole OTHER line in front of us. We managed to find seats near the back, and I went out to use the restroom right after we got them. The lights went down seconds after I walked out, and Molly said they showed a few commercials. There was a smoking area outside the restroom I had to fight my way through, then I waited in line for concessions. I got a popcorn (one size, small) and two cokes (one size, like 8 ounces in a 12 ounce cup. I kid you not) for 600 yen. As I tried to go back in the back door,a woman walked me to the side door. I don't see how this saved on light, but whatever. As I shuffled to our row (about the same legroom as Gateway in Austin) I managed to step on every foot on my way in, sumimasening my way past. The chairs are very nice, with headrest-high backs and lumbar support (although by the end of the movie,my tailbone hurt). We got two previews, one for ET and one was the Forbidden Love Episode II trailer. The screen is way smaller than the area that it could be for some reason. Go fig. The audio was decent, albeit a little quiet for my tastes.
The movie is graphically fantastic, and initially, it's really creepy and cool. By the end, however, we were really confused (the movie had subtitles, but they were in Japanese) and it really didn't have much of a climax. I'll add a synopsis on the site (or what we think happened anyway) after we get back to the US.
85% of the audience stayed put until the credits ended, and the lights were down until then, too. I'm not sure what to make of the Japanese movie-going experience, but I'll have to go with the American one, thanks.
The next task after getting out of the movie was to find Molly a snack, as she really hadn't eaten much today. I told Molly after we went through a restroom in the station underground that it's hitting me that we're leaving tomorrow, and I am just not ready. I'm really sad!! We stopped in to the Takashimaya underground, and Molly decided she'd rather just have a gelato instead of getting real food. We ordered two, a vanilla cone for Molly and a rasberry cup for me. Mine was really good, molly's was a little too strong, she said. It got better as she got through it.
We really needed a bag to take our clothes home in (so we could reserve our suitcase for stuff). We began searching Tokyu Hands, which was nearby, for bags. It's kind of like Hobby Lobby rolled in with REI. All the bags they seemed to have were worth WAY more than I wanted to spend, some upwards of 300 dollars. We gave up on that idea and walked back towards the AltaVision TV near the east exit. We found a small bag place, but there too the bags were insanely expensive. After a quick survey of the area around Alta, we thought it would be better to try the MyCity depaato, then go to Shibuya, which she hadn't seen yet. I got two pictures of
Shinjuku, then we raced inside. As it turns out, the MyCity is actually more like a mall than a depaato, and therefore finding a luggage place was impossible. Drat. We raced back downstairs with less than 1/2 an hour until the store closing deadline. We rode the JR Yamanote sen three stops to Shibuya, then took a long time trying to figure out how to exit the station. It's large and winding, and we just could not find an exit! After a bit, and getting way too close to 8PM, we found an exit that let us out to the left of the Shibuya 109 building.
I walked her in front of 109, pointing it out and looking hard for stores. We began to wander through the crowded shopping areas, looking for anything. There were more foreigners here than we'd seen anywhere in Japan; most were selling or advertising something. We passed a Shakey's Pizza, and eventually found ourselves smack dab at Tokyu Hands again, which I decided we should check again, since we were really just looking for a duffel bag. It was closing, but they didn't stop us as we trotted up the stairs to the luggage. We looked at bag after bag, but some were up to 600 dollars! We thought maybe we should just get the bag I saw in Akihabara, but eventually came upon a collapsable bag that was only about 30 dollars. This did nicely, and we bought it. I keep forgetting they always ask if you want to charge things at once, since Japanese credit cards (I've heard) charge more interest for larger purchases. They'll break things up for you into multiple charges if you want.
We left thereafter in search of food. We didn't find very much interesting right off and decided the best thing would be to go back to that Shakey's we saw earlier. We found it, went inside, and at first were going to halve a pizza, but it was easier just to get tomatoes on a cheese one. They have really weird combo pizzas, to say the least, and often they include corn. The guy who took my order was impressed with my Japanese, and said so. That's always nice. My host parents had also said it was still good, and they were surprised. I think it's finally stuck, despite not using it. We ate the pizza, which was greasy, but really good. I was also really thirsty and downed two grapefruit sodas without thinking about it. The whole tab was about 30 bucks.
As we left, I noted that even though they had normal pull doors in front, the inner door was still automatic sliding, and I guessed it was a) a throwback to shoji, and b) due to lack of space. We left there and decided that even though we weren't going to eat there, we really wanted to find at least one Iron Chef place. We looked at my hand drawn map from Sakai's restaurant, and tried the skyscraper near the station. That only had 29 floors, and La Rochelle was on the 32nd. Hrm. We tried closer to Shibuya 109, since the building in question was in a V made by two streets. From afar, we saw a tall building, so we walked to it, about 15 minutes or so. As we approached, it was a hotel, and not it either. We saw one more skyscraper, and as there weren't a plethora of tall buildings in Shibuya, tried that one. Molly's stomach was acting up again, although she took Prevacid before we ate. We made it over to the building, which was called Cross something or other, which was not the name from the web page. However, it looked
tall enough, definitely had 32 floors, and after checking the directory, confirmed La Rochelle was on the top floor. We rode the elevator up, and as soon as we got off, Molly said, "I want to go back down." It was a VERY NICE restaurant, and we were so underdressed it wasn't even funny. The maitre'd was shuffling kimonoed women into elevators and thanking them. I decided I needed some souvenier of this place, so I ducked inside, grabbed a matchbook and brochure with Sakai's picture on it, then we dove back on the elevator saying "we're doing a little sightseeing" to the maitre'd who looked very confused and only said "Irrashaima...se...."
We rode the elevator back down, I took a picture of the
directory, and we walked back to the station to ride the JR to Shinuku where we caught the Oodeo line back to Ueno-okachimachi, then the Hibiya back to Iriya. It was almost 11 when we got back, and too late to take the bath I wanted to take there in the ryokan. Sigh. We quickly went to bed, so that we could get up early, pack and be ready to shop in Akihabara at 10AM. I'm getting soba for breakfast!!