Japan Through The Eyes of A First-Time Traveler | Part 2

Hey there! This is the second part of my Japan tell-it-as-it-is travel series. As I've mentioned in part 1, I will be narrating our 14-day experience in the Land of the Rising Sun, in hopes that you will get to know Japan more intimately through the perspective of a first-time traveler. The highlight of the previous part was probably the food from Jollibee that we got past Customs (don't rat us out, please!). In this part, I will get you acquainted with Japan's hi-tech toilets! The toilet seat heats up automatically, there is a button that plays a "flushing" sound (in case you don't want anyone to hear you pee) and... well, you have to read on to find out what else their toilet does! Let's start.

I woke up earlier than everybody else. The first time traveler was excited, of course. With the sun shining brightly as it would at 7 am in the Philippines, I thought it was the perfect time to get up. When I looked at my phone, it was just 4 am! I witnessed first-hand the reason why the country has been dubbed the "Land of The Rising Sun." Anyways, I managed to convince myself that I should go back to sleep as it was a.) embarrassing to admit that I was pretty excited, b.) the alleged day of the posting of the board exam results!

By the time I got up again, I got ready and took my first shower in Japan. Remember the tub that I talked about in part 1? The one with a burner inside? It heated the shower in a matter of seconds! Heated until boiling! It was so hot. When you turn it off, however, the water was freezing cold! You had to pick your poison. But, we Pinoys thought of a solution! We improvised a tabo (dipper)! Our tabo was a Mayo container that we brought all the way from the Philippines. Gotta bring something that reminds us of home, right? We mixed equal parts of hot water with cold water and voila - we bathed in perfect temperature water.

The whole bunch dressed in blue and went out of the apartment as silent as humanly possible. We were to act like the Japanese, remember? Once we got out of the apartment, we let out our breaths of relief that we were now free to make whatever noise we wanted to make - or so, we thought. We took selfies and made our ways out.

_{If I told you to pay no mind to my bushy eyebrows, would that stop you from looking at them? No? At least I tried.}

We then went to the nearest station, Shin-Okubo station, and got our tickets to Ueno (I'm not so sure, but I will post a picture of the train ticket we got here, in case somebody knows).

_{Getting our tickets from the ticket machine. I told you we were all dressed in blue!}

_{Anyone here who knows where this ticket is bound for?}

Our first stop was the Ichiran Ramen house. My belly was rumbling about how hungry it's been. But, alas, fate said that it won't allow such disrespect. It declared that I shouldn't eat until I've served my time on the line. The line for one of the best ramen noodles in Japan was considerably long. But it helped that the Japanese customers were coming out at a rate of one person per five minutes. In case you guys want to know more about Ichiran Ramen House, you can check out my post about the unique food experiences that I've had in Japan. In there, I've set out the details about why the experience in this ramen house is something that you shouldn't miss for the world (or for your Japan trip)!

_{The tonkotsu (a Japanese broth made from pork marrow) ramen at Ichiran}

After eating at Ichiran, we walked around Okachimachi. We sure saw a lot of weirdness that was uniquely Japan's. Allow me to share some of them with you:

_{Don't they look good? That's because they're for your eyes only. Japan makes good fake food.}

_{We tried, n times. That sword won't fall off its ledge}

What's that? You think these aren't weird yet? Well, you asked for it.

_{Did this weird you out? It did me!}

After seeing some weird things in Okachimachi, we roamed around the streets of Akihabara and saw these:

_{Yep, that's a whole building of Uniqlo}

_{If you don't think that these are the best cheese tarts in the planet, fight me!}

_{Excuse Mario and his friends, large delivery truck. They have a star to catch.}

We eventually went inside a mall in Akihabara that sold anime action figures. It was getting dark and that meant a.) the board exam results were almost out and b.) no amount of fangirling over my favorite anime could calm me down. My tummy rumbled with the nervous beating of my heart. "Of course, you went to Japan to run away from the board exam results. Of course, you thought that Japan was a beautiful country to spend your days crying in. Of course, you'll be fine even if you fail." The feeling and thoughts overwhelmed me. The culmination of the overwhelm happened at the toilet - the one I was telling you about in the beginning of my post. Newer toilets in Japan have this set of buttons:

_{photo is from source. Even newer toilets have the automatic seat warmer, in case your butt got cold.}

Let's move on to the good parts, shall we? I took a bite off a Pablo cheesecake. It was heaven. We then went out of that building and continued to play in a gachapon store. A gachapon is a vending machine for capsule toys. You insert your coins, then you twist the knob until your capsule comes out.

_{Right before the moment of truth, we were playing with these.}

I opened my Twitter account to see if there was any news about the results until my boyfriend's brother calmly said, "Top 1 - Wayne Tandingan." "WHAT? Can you say that again, kuya?" "Top 1, Chemical Engineering Licensure Examinations - Wayne Tandingan." I saw on my Twitter feed that my classmate congratulated me too. Phew! I passed! And my boyfriend bagged the top spot!

_{photo by: Nick Mendoza. Victory pose at Akihabara.}

The parents were mighty proud of their son. Not a tinge of worry was on Mrs. Tandingan's face even when she promised to buy her son that life-sized Gundam we saw at the store. Her condition was that her son should bag the 1st place, he just did. "Where's my Gundam, nay?" Wayne jokingly asked.

_{The mighty Tandingans}

We then headed to the nearest food place, Yoshinoya, where we had our celebratory gyudon (beef bowl).

_{Our celebratory meal at Yoshinoya}

Just when we thought the day had ended, the media had other plans. People from the news were racing to get an interview with Wayne. Messages were then popping from nowhere. Wayne's relatives tripled in number that night!

_{A taste of the public figure life. We felt so important that night, the media was reaching out to us even from Japan! (Don't mind the foot?)}

My boyfriend and I became licensed chemical engineers on our second day in Japan. What will the other days bring next? Stay tuned for part 3 and thanks for reading all the way here.

With love,
@thegaillery