Tokyo Rocks & Samurai Lessons Abound - Recap

Japan Recap 30 March 2010
Well... today was... today. I will be positive.
Miscommunication, (for the 2nd time on this Japan adventure), was the root cause of missing our long-awaited "Samurai Sword Action" activity! I felt like crying. But I couldn't cry in front of the boys. I did vent for a couple of hours. But we did learn several lessons from today:

• Samurai are meticulous, and so if we want to catch the spirit of the Samurai, we need to be meticulous. That means we need to double-check all of the plans well in advance not trust what other people tell us. This trip was planned 4 months ago! All of the challenges have come down to execution of the plan.
• A family that prays together, plays together. My son woke up early enough and prayed. But he didn't wake me up. The night before, I planned on waking up,praying, and then checking the Samurai Sworn Action itinerary again. It actually had the correct time, which was different from what the tour-group told me. So that was the lesson God taught us, worship Him, on time, and the way will be easy.
• Move on. When you face a set back, yes, its good to talk it through to work it out of our systems. But then we need to move on. When we did finally let it all out, we got a call from InsideJapn Tours letting us know that they had found another Samurai experience activity in Osaka. YEAH! So although we missed the "Kill Bill" dude... we still get to learn the way of the Samurai. I forgive you InsideJapn Tours.
• Tokyo at night is great! We counted at least 5 areas that were like Time Square. Well, actually only 1 (Shibuya) that had all of the people, but 5-6 that had all of the bright lights and building-size advertisements like Time Square. But the whole city, seems very cool.

Tomorrow, insha Allah, we will catch Sushi breakfast, after Salatul Fajr, and then change hotels. Then we are planning on spending the day at Shinjuku, where they have the famous "people pushers" pushing people into the over-crowded trains! LOL.
Pray for us, we are praying for you. :)
btw... I know I promised pictures... we didn't make it to the electronic district today. Sorry. Insha Allah, tomorrow, I will try very hard to get pictures uploaded.

tokyo 1st 24 hours recap

Everyday that goes by, we are more convinced that we are just in a parallel universe. We are in New york, except everything is in Japanese! Oh yeah... and its a lot cleaner and the people are lot more calm and, well, kind.

Today's recap...

• We woke up and prayed the Muslim's morning prayer here in the hotel room.
• Got breakfast at the hotel restaurant. The food wasn't too bad, for runny eggs and pancakes. But tomorrow, we're definitely skipping the hotel's breakfast and we're going to try to do a sushi breakfast at Tokyo's famous Tukiji Fish Market.
• Although it was drizzling, it wasn't as cold as Sunday night when we arrived.
• We walked 5 minutes to the Asukusa Kannon Temple also known as the Sensō-ji (金龍山浅草寺) Temple. Besides the shrines to false deities (no offense intended but Buddha never said worship him or any other human) the temple was full of history, traditional Chinese architecture, and a cemetery garden.
• To battle the cold, we stopped at this quaint coffee shop called Sunny Cofee. The owners spoke a couple of words of English. But we were able to communicate that we wanted three hot chocolates. It was perfect from a taste and warmth perspective. It was just enough to chase away the samui (cold).
• Then we followed a different path towards the hotel. I designated Hassan Ibn as the official map-reader and location finder. Soloman is the official language guru. And me... well, I am coordinating :p
• We stumbled upon a department store called ROX. Behind it was mini-caged-soccer field, a bike parking lot, a building size arcade, and a 3-story casino. This, mind you, is within two blocks of the Temple!
• We then went to Akihabara where we marveled at the 6-story department store filled with electronics! They even had a bookstore in there. We didn't venture into the backstreets where, reportedly, the best deals on bootleg gear and anime (Japanese comics with a very adult male audience in mind). I forgot that the area had that stuff too... but fortunately, it wasn't "in your face". I was reminded later that the area has a lot of porn. Well... we didn't see it. Alhamdulillah. We did take our lunch at a Sushi restaurant who atmosphere was like Johnny Rockets.
• Before the day was over, we partook of the Shibuya shopping district, and the Maronuchi center. At the Marunouchi Building, we had dinner a at chic Chinese spot called "So Tired". The foot, ambiance, and service were all great and all of the waiters and waitresses spoke English! I was really impressed with one of the waitresses English... so much so that I concluded that she wasn't Japanese. And wouldn't you know it, she was a Korean student studying to be a translator (Korean, English, and Japanese).

Hopefully, I can get some pics up tomorrow. I guess I will have to go back to the Electronics district to get a new USB cable for my phone since it was liberated earlier (its a long story).
Tomorrow... Insha Allah, we get trained in the way of the Samurai from a the guy who did Kill Bil, Tetsuro Shimaguchi

We landed in Tokyo to fanfare.

We finally made it to Tokyo! It turned out that this was the 1st time that Emirates has flown into Tokyo Narita airport. They had a big ceremony and the media was there interviewing people. I got interviewed! How's that for a Japanese welcome!?

The driver arranged by our Tour company (InsideJapn.com) was great too. He spoke good English and he was patient with us. The Hotel (Asakusa Sunroute Hotel) is nice. Small... but nice. We had our first dinner out at a restaurant across the street from the hotel... we had a dish called "supa" It was like wheat noodles in miso soup with Chicken pieces. Delicious! It put Hassan Ibn right to sleep and Soloman went to sleep within 3 minutes! A world record!!!

Tokyo is cold! 4 degrees Celsius! Our 1st impression though... NYC with Japanese signs and people driving on the other side of the road. Asakusa, there area in tokyo where our hotel is, is very quite. The people seem friendly though.

Peace,
Hassan in Tokyo... chasing the spirit of the Samurai

Japan Hotels -Springtime in Japan 2010

Insha Allah, If I get a chance, I will, post a review of each of these hotels here.

• Tokyo - Asakusa Sunroute Hotel.
  
  
  We arrived last night. I think this hotel classifies as a capsule hotel. Meaning... the living space in the room is only about 12 feet by 12 feet. They fit three beds in the room! The bathroom is about 5 feet by 6 feet! But we read the reviews on tripadvisor.com before coming so we were prepared. THe staff is friendly. They cleaned our room while we were out... and apparently they liberated my usb to nokia cable. :( I guess they figured that I didn't need it! Good thing I left my laptop with the reception desk! ARGH. Alhamdulillah, I brought a traditional wall charger too with an all-in-one travel adapter. The room is definitely NOT a non-smoking room. But te 3rd hand smoke in the hotel is not as bad as the taxi (pronounced tack-a-see, in Japanese). Location-wise, this hotel is aw
  
• Tokyo - Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku.
• Yudanaka Onsen - Yudanaka Seifu-so.
• Osaka - Ark Hotel Osaka.
• Hakone - Ichinoyu Hatago Sengokuhara.
• Nagano - Zenkoji Tokugyobou.

Japan Trip Plans - Springbreak 2010

Insha Allah... we will eventually get to Japan. When we do, we have the following things planned:

• Taiko Lessons
• Sushi Breakfast at Tsukiji Fish Market
• Sightseeing In Tokyo
• Samurai Sword Action


The way of the samurai is one of the legends of ancient Japan which retains its romance and mystery to this day and the soul of a samurai was of course, in his sword. We are planning on trying to learn some of the basics of this ancient art, starting with basic movements, such as drawing, posing with, and swinging a sword. The two and a half hour session will be led by Tetsuro Shimaguchi, a master sword fight choreographer who is best known for his work on Quentin Tarrantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 (if you have seen the movie you are sure to remember the dramatic sword fight in an idyllic snowy Japanese garden between the Bride and O-Ren Ishii). After studying the basic moves we will see breathtaking choreographed sword fighting performed then we get to practice! We are going to try take videos. They will even let us put on the hakama, the traditional wear of the samurai.



• Bullet train rides
• Visit to the Japanese Alps
• Visit a Anime film production company - Studio Ghibli. Its like the going to 20th Century Fox or something.
  
• Hang out in Osaka
• Sightseeing In Kyoto
  
• Check out a Kyo Odori Geisha Dance show
• & last but not least.... Tokyo Disney
  

Please keep us in your prayers

Headed to the land of Samurai and Ninjas

OK... so we've been planning this trip to Japan for months. What happened to keep us from leaving the land of oil and Bedouins last night as planned? VISAS! So now I am stuck on the Saudi side of the King Fahd Causeway


But the Bahrain side of the causeway was oh so close...






OK... So let's study this situation and see what can be learned from it. I blame myself. I attempted to deal with things like a Ninja and not using my normal tedious, meticulous, thoroughly checked Samurai methods. ARGH!

Discouraged!