Asakusa - Best Geocache in Japan (That We Found)

In a country that has more technology than the USS Enterprise, sometimes the simplest geocaches take the cake.  While geocaching still feels like it is mostly a newer endeavor in Japan, it is nice to see that some of the creativity that would be found in certain cities in the United States is reaching overseas.

On our whirlwind tour of Tokyo, we ended up near Asakusa, so we decided to see some of the local landmarks.  Of course this meant that I needed to bust out my iPad and see if there were any geocaches in the area.  Oddly enough I was about 100 feet from the nearest, and it just so happened to be my favorite of the trip.  The cache itself is a rare example of how to perfectly hide a large-sized geocache in an incredibly busy urban area.  It is extremely easy to search for, though it was well hidden, but we were never more than about five feet from an unsuspecting muggle (non-geocacher).

The best part is that I was being actively watched by a person while I was looking for the cache.  I waited for him to look away and grabbed a box a bit smaller than a textbook from the hiding area.  The look on his face when he turned back and saw me holding some mysterious box was priceless.  I signed the log, waited for him to lose interest again, hid the box, and walked away.  Then I waited.  There is nothing more hilarious than a person who thinks they figured out some secret looking to prove their assumptions, and failing miserably.  I hid and watched for about five minutes while he searched and searched for whatever object I had hidden.  He never found it.  Win for geocaching!

Taken While Geocaching

After passing under what appears to be a giant red ball, (which of course is probably something a bit more important than I am making it out to be), we headed towards a pretty tall building off in the distance.  This was the first time while in Japan where I felt that we were in a complete tourist area.  There were vending booths with massive amounts of different trinkets and other things that were incredibly over-priced.  It was a cool area, but just way too crowded and busy for someone like myself.  

Cool Building Though

We had some great tour guides - a few friends from Danielle's time in school in Daito Bunka - and had a great day of exploring different areas in Tokyo.  

One of the weird things that westerners have trouble getting used to is that the temples and spiritual places are marked on the map with a symbol that we tend to view as quite bad.  Of course there is a long history of how the Asian symbol for the location of a temple happens to be quite similar to some flags and arm-bands of a time period that Germany does not like to talk about.  I am sure you can do the research if you so desire.  Just kidding, I did the Google search for you.  Here you go.   If you look closely at the incense sticks, you can see what I mean.

Awkward?

One of the important things to do when you travel is to try to leave your assumptions at home.  Yes, things are done differently, but you need to try your best to assimilate.  There is nothing worse than seeing that "typical" American tourist who refuses to try the local food, won't take their shoes off when they enter a building, and find anything that is different offensive.  Remember, when you travel, you are a guest, you don't make the rules.  You will be amazed at how much you can learn just by asking questions, and being open to expanding your world view.

We spent the rest of the day wandering Tokyo, enjoying bookstores, coffee-houses, and just seeing and experiencing everything we could.  

Just Watch Out Below

On Top of the World (Almost)

Standing at a whopping 634 meters (2080 feet), Tokyo Skytree dominates the skyline.  Based on some very quick and shoddy Wikipedia research, I have recently discovered that I was in the tallest tower in the world.  Not bad for an afternoon of wandering around a neighborhood in Tokyo if I do say so myself.

Upon arrival at Tokyo Skytree, you are immediately lost on the sheer immensity of the tower looming over you.  It is almost impossible to describe just how big the base support structure is as you walk through it desperately trying to find your way... to the location where you purchase a ticket for the elevator.  Up and down stairs, around corners, begging people to show you the way to the correct entrance.  It is almost impossible to find where you go to just purchase a ticket.  I remember walking around the base for about fifteen minutes until we just happened to hit the right set of escalators that took us to the line for the ticket counter.

About a half hour of interactive displays showing the progression of the downtown Skytree area from the past to current landscape greet you in the lobby, and you are offered the chance to pay for a ticket that will get you into an elevator, and take you up at a speed that should be borderline illegal to the observation deck.

After passing through a 1980's era metal detector that seems straight out of the Airplane movie series (complete with little bowl for your keys), you are able to go with about 20 other people into one of a few elevators that will take you up... fast.  Way to freakin' fast.  Your ears will pop.  You will arrive about three inches shorter than you started the trip.  You get to the top and they need to peel you off the floor.

The view is beyond comprehension.

Sadly it was Cloudy

Those are towers in the picture below.  As in towers that were so tall that they block out the radio signals.  It is a concrete jungle, and for the brief amount of time that you are in the Skytree, you are not a part of it.  It is like playing a game of Sim City and you just are there as a casual observer watching your people go about their daily lives.  You are a God.

Then your mortality is tested.  Some asshole who built the building decided it would be funny to put a plexi-fucking-glass floor.  There is something seriously wrong with the sort of person who would think that a prank like that should go into the final design.  

That is a Load of Crap!

It feels like you are in Game of Thrones or 300 and someone is going to come up behind you and kick you in some ignoble, yet amazingly slow motion gesture, to your doom.  I remember telling my wife that I was not scared of heights... yeah, screw that, I am terrified of heights.  I am beyond terrified, that plexi-glass could be rated for a million pounds, and I would not touch that with my little toe.  

I finally worked up the courage to stand on it.  I walked out over the abyss and survived.  I stopped long enough to take a picture of my feet over nothing at about 1800 feet.  

Taken Before I Peed Myself

At what I am going to guess is about 10 seconds to free-fall from that height, I am sure am glad the glass held.  I am sure that 10 seconds would give me quite the amount of time to think about what a dumb choice it was to stand on a damn piece of glass right before I became a part of the Tokyo pavement. 

What I learned:

1. Engineers can have a sick sense of humor

2. I am scared of heights

3. My wife is also scared of heights

4. HELL NO to skydiving

Yeah, Tokyo Skytree is amazing, but HELL NO!

Tsukiji Fish Market

Picture an entire neighborhood in your head, now, fill it with a curving cobble-stone floor that arcs out from some unseen central point.  Add curving rows of stalls that spiral around a center that at times is so far away that the curve appears to be a straight line.  Mix in the smells of fish, briny water, and diesel fuel.  If you take whatever you just conjured up in your mind and multiply it by about ten, you can come close to what the Tsukiji Fish Market is actually like.

According to my extensive five-minute research on the Tsukiji Fish Market on Wikipedia, it is not only the biggest fish market in the world, but also one of the biggest whole-sale markets of any type, anywhere.  Let that sink in for just a second.  Damn, that is big!

If it swims in the ocean, legal to pull to land, and somewhat safe to eat, it is at Tsukiji.  We decided to wander the busiest market on the globe, to take pictures, get in the way, and try to understand just how unfathomably big that sucker is, and we were blown away.

Slow Market Day

The market is so big that you need actual scooters to transfer product and people around the arc.  We went during the off-hours, which is closer to lunch time, and of course wandered into places that we were not supposed to visit or see.  We went in right through a loading dock, past signs that probably said something about wearing closed toed shoes and no tourists allowed.  Took pictures near signs that expressly stated  that the market was for selling fish, tourists needed to stay out of the way, and avoid pictures because they slowed down the speed at which the fish was sold to actual customers (non-rubberneckers). 

Motorcycle!

It was huge, the sounds were almost overwhelming.  I am not sure if I can even imagine the speed and drama that must unfold as the market opens at some un-Godly hour when humans are meant to be getting their R.E.M. sleep.  The floor was constantly wet, saws in motion cutting chunks of fish that must have been taken directly from Moby Dick.  The amazing speed in which a salesperson could pull a still-live eel out of a tank, nail it to a board, and render it ready for a plate was like that of a NASCAR pit crew.  You know, if a pit crew prepared sushi.

Delicious

Stopping to take pictures often put you in mortal danger.  You were constantly trying to take a picture, dodge a person shopping, jump out of the way of a speeding motorcycle, while trying to not piss off the shopkeeper who had a knife that seemed to be reminiscent of the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy.

Sushi Chef (Photo Credit 1)

If you are ever able to wake up at some inhumane hour, the market allows about 120 people to watch the auctions for some of the biggest and rarest fish ever pulled out of the oceans.  You would have to be some form of bat-shit crazy to want to be there for it at that hour, but if that is your thing, enjoy!

  5:00am Wake-Up Call?

Photo Credit 1: http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/cloud_480x480.jpg

Godzilla Destroys Tokyo

My days of breaking and entering have waned in the recent years, but old habits die hard when presented with unique opportunities.  When one is traveling around in new countries one should always be quite wary of getting in trouble with the local police.  Sometimes risks are worth it, and this was one of those times.  

My wife and I were walking around a suburb of Tokyo, visiting old temples, and sampling stores that sold specialty beans.  Yes, you read that correctly, beans.  They were delicious by the way.  They had a size that was pretty close to a lima bean, with a similar texture, but an array of flavors that would make Baskin-Robbins cry with shame, they were nothing short of delicious.  

The Magical Fruit

Japan is not just for expanding the diversity in your food intake, but also good for expanding your interaction with props in pictures of yourself.  Japan can help to take your "selfie" game to the next level.  While I realize that the next picture is not technically a "selfie," I think it should be lumped into that category just due to the sheer epic-ness of the picture.  Thanks Kawagoe! 

Hungry Hungry Hippos

Also, the following picture is just plain good advice. 

I Still Giggle About It

While I am sure that the umbrella makes sense on a Disney level, at my maturity level, it is irresistible.  Yes, on one level that umbrella does seem to just contain Winnie the Pooh, but come on!  Who thought this was a good idea?  This also leads into mannequins that we saw at many department stores.  At certain stores that were going for that "edgy" look, mannequins were given tattoos... in English.  Nothing says edgy American fashion like a mannequin with "friendship" or "cool" in a fake tattoo down one arm.  I guess this is no different than some of the "Asian" tattoos that many Americans sport.

Now, as to the potential for breaking and entering...

It is not every single day that you are walking around around a suburb of Tokyo, looking at various temples and shrines, when you see this beauty.  

Godzilla!

Over 50 years since his first sighting, he was back!  I just had to sneak into the yard, run up to the window and take a picture.  With the grace of Chris Farley in Beverly Hills Ninja, I escaped unseen.  I have since decided that I should be considered for a position in the paparazzi, as I have the ability to sneak up and take creepy photos that capture pure action.  Kikaida and Godzilla?  Illicit meeting?  I think that this photo should be sold to the National Enquirer.  I realize that this may not seem like much to the casual observer, but what are the odds of actually having a Godzilla sighting while you are in the town that he wrecked so very long ago?

Family Resemblance (Photo Credit 1)

Photo 1: https://moviewriternyu.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/godzilla.jpg 

Saitama Seibu Lions

Baseball in Japan should be considered a religious experience.  The game is a quintessential piece of Americana, but like many other "imported" phenomena, it has become a Japanese event.  While devouring Kentucky Fried Chicken and yakisoba, one can watch a game where teams are spurred on to victory by cheerleaders, and life size anime characters dancing on dugouts to time with various taiko groups in the stands.   

I am not sure when it became a goal of mine to see a baseball game in Japan, but I am extremely glad that I was able to experience this ritual first-hand.  I am guessing I made the mistake of watching Mr. Baseball with Tom Selleck at some point in my childhood.

Also, there are girls that sprint up and down the stands with kegs of beer on their backs.  

Yes, They Sprint

I was blown away, how on earth do they train for that?  These girls were the Olympians of bartenders.  It was like someone had created some form of Xena hybrid, strapped a pony keg to her back, and said "I want you to run stairs for the next three hours." 

Come to think of it, I am pretty sure that they were just a new and improved form of Japanese robotics.  I know marathon runners who would have died after doing twenty minutes of what they did.  You would catch their eye and BAM! the race was on, beer in hand in a matter of minutes.  

The game progressed as normal, but there seemed to be something off... I could not put my finger on quite what it was until I realized that it was missing the other piece of Americana - that of the drunk/angry fans.  Fans were respectful, almost to a scary level.  Both teams had a section in the outfield that was reserved for their respective taiko groups, playing ballads to lead their teams to victory.  There was no attempt to play louder than the other group, no beer cups being thrown in disgust at one-another, no jeering and heckling.  It was calm and orderly.  One group would finish their singing and playing, and then the other would pick up as soon as it was polite to do so.  

Then came a home run!

Just "Hom" in this Picture

This is when it gets wild.  Giant stuffed animals are brought to the field, cheerleaders are jumping up and down doing dances in unison on the dugouts, flowers are procured, and the batter is treated like a conquering hero.  Just the way it should be done.  

Nothing says "way to go on that two-run hit" like a carnival sized stuffed animal. 

Nothing is weirder than the seventh inning though.  Here I was expecting peanuts and cracker-jacks and people start pulling out what looks like... well... you should just see for yourself and be the judge of what they look like...

Quite the Musical Experience!

If your brain is anything like mine, those balloons sure looked odd, but I am pretty sure it was just to make them all shoot in the same direction and make that awesome whistling sound.  There were literally thousands of them going off around the stadium - and none of them were on the ground as we left. 

Polite Baseball.

Baseball turned Japanese.

Quite an Experience.  If you ever get a chance to see a game in Japan, regardless of if you are a fan or not, do it.  Where else do hot-dogs and yakisoba go together so well?  (Answer: Nowhere)

The Day I Found the Triforce in Saitama

Finding, assembling, and completing the triforce has been the obsessive quest of nerds since February 21, 1986.  I did not join this quest until I was about 13 when my family got a Nintendo 64 and the new game called Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  Life changed

Fate called me again at the age of 28 while I was walking through a suburb of Tokyo when I spotted this beauty. 

Right?!!

I freaked, I ran over to the wall of the shrine that it was placed on and immediately took a picture.  It was amazing.  I had been continually rescuing people, fighting through dungeons, and completing meaningless side-quests for so long that I had lost hope. Then, out-of-the-blue this appeared.  Destiny strikes when we least expect it!

As a quick reminder to those of you who had no childhood or were born under a rock, this is the triforce:

 Check out those graphics! 

(Photo Credit 1)

My mind is still blown!

Photo of the Author When He Found the Triforce! 

(Photo Credit 2)

1. http://www.zeldauniverse.net/2011/05/19/ocarina-of-time-vs-majoras-mask-in-igns-zelda-tournament/

2. http://www.the-arcade.ie/2014/11/geek-confessions-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time/