Road To Fuji Blog (Day Two)

August 9, 2013 — Leave a comment

Day Two:

We woke up in the capsule hotel. After showering I sent some emails and then hit the social networks. Once everyone was ready we hit the streets. We ate breakfast at Mr. Doughnut, a pretty popular doughnut chain. We were able to drop off our heavy bags at the next hotel before we roamed the streets of Tokyo. Sadly we would only be in the capsule hotel one night (wamp waaaamp)…

The currency exchange place wouldn’t open for another 45 minutes. We took that opportunity to visit a book store where Madi found a pretty awesome fashion style book and Rupert found a map of all Japan and a mini journal. We were able to get a better rate for our American dollar.

After exchanging the currency we would find a restaurant this time with no English menu. I ordered some kind of beef and rice and soup. This beef we later found out was beef tongue. The soup was really good — not sure what was in it. We headed back to the hotel to check in before heading to Shibuya.

In Shibuya we found a tattoo place called “Studio Muscat” and Rupert would make an appointment for August 3rd. We wandered a bit and took pictures of the Hachiko Dog. After taking a train to shinjiku garden we arrived at 440, to find out it closed at 430. The weather was very humid, but from the outside the garden looked very beautiful.

We would take the train back to Ginza where the hotel was located. The plan was to rest up before dinner, however a 630p nap turned into me waking back up at 2am and realize everyone else had been asleep too. I went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until the next morning.

Domonique Meeks
AmbassadorNique Productions

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DomoVlog: Road To Fuji
Ep. 1 | Ep. 2 | Ep. 3 | Ep. 4 | Ep. 5 | Ep. 6 |

Road To Fuji Blog – Welcome To Japan (Day One)

August 8, 2013 — Leave a comment

The last time I was in Japan was March 2011. This was the same time as the infamous North Japan tsunami / earthquake. This time I am not by myself, I am with the brodies, Madi, Rupert, and Dez. While I am excited to share pictures, and videos I decided to write this so that I can do my best to tell this story in greater detail. Often times the book is better than the movie, right? Haha

We landed in Tokyo after flying almost all day. We flew from SeaTac to LA around 630a Thursday morning PST and left LA for Narita at around 130p. The second flight was 10.5 hours. Delta International was actually really awesome. They had a very extensive free movie selection and even had free Showtime and $2 HBO. The food wasn’t the best but we were fed quite often. We landed around 445p Friday evening Japan time (Wow we pretty much flew for a day in a half lol including time zones). Madi, Dez and I had the same flight, but Rupert flew straight from Seattle and landed about 30 min after us.

After landing it seemed like we were in the airport forever!! Customs was no problem, we exchanged some money, and exchanged our 7 day bullet train passes at and bought our ticket from the airport to Tokyo on the Narita express (¥ 3200). The exchange rate at the airport was better than the one at the hotel but not better than the one at the currency exchange place in Tokyo. After taking the 30 minute express train we arrived in Tokyo and found our way to our capsule hotels. I quickly regretted not packing the bag with wheels as walking around Japan with an overweight backpack is no fun.. The capsule hotels actually weren’t as bad as I expected. Very spacious, wifi, shower, tv (¥2200/night or about $22). We ate at a small restaurant with an English menu. I ordered gyoza and rice and shared fried rice and sweet bread. We headed back to the our capsules, showered and slept until the next morning.