When I first came here three years ago, I heard a Brasilian classmate of mine talking about how much he loves Uruguay.  He went on and on about Colonia de Sacramento - how it was just like Brasil - and after a few months in Buenos Aires, I needed to go to Uruguay to renew my tourist visa and the cheapest and least time consuming option was to check out this place otherwise known as “Colonia”.

I purchased tickets at the Buquebus offices on Cordoba 879, however there are offices all over the city.  (Check out their website for more info). Anyway, it was my first time going to Uruguay and I opted for the whole day experience including the ferry ride, a lunch and a tour.  It came out to just over 120 pesos each person.  The ferry ride was with the “slow” ferry that crawled at what seemed about two miles per hour across the River de la Plata over the course of three hours.  Both my boyfriend and I got seasick and were at the point of cabin fever on the way back and forth on this ferry.  He was totally green, and it was gross.

The lunch was - nice.  Nothing special.  In fact, there are lots of easy to find restaurants all over this tiny city with a great selection of food and ambiance.  The tour ended up being part walking tour and part busride - both pretty interesting, but nothing to write home about.

There’s another ferry that takes under an hour from Buenos Aires to Colonia, however.  It costs a little extra, but if you’re like me and get seasick easily, it’s well worth it as you don’t feel the waves as much.

Another option is to go to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay and in my opinion a large step up from Colonia, which is mostly dead during the weekdays and fills up with people renewing their tourist visas on the weekends. Montevideo is an actual city - with real nightlife and things to do, places to go and trendy restaurants to be seen at.

Over the last few years, Punta del Este - a city along the coast of Uruguay, has become the PLACE to be for Argentina’s rich and famous.  During the peak season of December through March, prices are sadly exaggerated and upon entering the city limits, dignity flies out the window for the four month nonstop show that is like “Spring Break ‘82 Reunion” mixes with “Spring Break ‘06″.

The combination is way too fake tan, botox and boob jobs for me, and there’s no surprise that the party has moved down the road to the new and exclusive village of Juan Ignacio - also recently featured in the New York Times travel section.

See the article here called “Winter in the Sun” by Paola Singer.

It seems like Juan Ignacio has a lot of charm, and it’s sad to think that in the next few years, it will be just as worn out as Punta del Este is now.  So here’s my tip.  Find a place called Punta del Diablo, Uruguay, before it too, gets trendy.  They’ve got some wonderful wildlife sanctuaries as well as a charm that extends from the warmth of the local people.  For more information visit the town’s site online.

Exploring the Tokyo Metro

One of the major things about traveling around Tokyo is the great distances that you need to cover to get from one district to the other. At first we were quite intimidated to use the Tokyo Metro mostly because we were so used to the Buenos Aires Subte with its 5 simple lines. We had seen the maps before arriving, but perhaps just hadn’t mentally prepared ourselves for trying to figure out how we were going to get to our hotel after 32 hours of travel from Buenos Aires. And to see in front of us a Metro map of all the lines going in every which direction and not a single map in Romanji (Japanese words spelled out using English letters), well, we became the typical confused tourists. You see, in Tokyo, not all of the lines are operated by the same company, and depending on the distance you might go or number of transfers you need to take, the rate varies. You need to find where you are and where you need to go (which is a challenge if the only map available is in Japanese) and purchase your ticket accordingly.

The Tokyo Metro closes around midnight and acts as the veins of the city. In fact, unlike Buenos Aires, the city definitely slows down once the metro closes for the night - just after it experiences the big rush of commuters running to catch the last train home at the end of the night.

We spent a lot of time in the Tokyo subways. Once we understood how to purchase tickets, we began exploring the city - sometimes covering two districts during one day - and returning at night to see these areas in a different light! Day passes often came in handy - although we would still end up spending almost $15 (USD) a day in transportation costs.

The Japanese are often extolled for their efficiency and certainly, the transportation system in Tokyo was no exception. In large stations that connected various metro, trains, shinkansen (bullet trains) and Japan Rail lines, you might find up to four floors in a seemingly maze-like structure of train transfers. Not to worry though, since everything was well documented and very accessible. The only downfall is that sometimes you might have to walk up to 500 meters underground (that’s like five city blocks here in Buenos Aires!!) to get from one subway to another. We figured out that on some days, out of the 12-16 hours that we were out and about walking around the city, we spent up to 4 of those hours in the subway or transferring stations or waiting for the trains. I think if they really wanted to be super efficient, they would install moving walkways to help push the people along.

Eh - perhaps that’s just selfish thinking because my feet were hurting so terribly from the blisters that I had from walking all day.

Next time… Getting outside of Tokyo and seeing Japan…

So if there’s anyone who has actually been following Buenos Aires Style, you may have noticed that this past month, I’ve had no new articles - this is not because I totally dropped off the face of the planet - I just dropped off of this SIDE of the planet - and ended up exactly on the other side - in Tokyo, Japan. So the next few articles will be some special editions of “Buenos Aires Style - in Tokyo”. Hope you enjoy!

We arrived on June 17 at the Narita Airport, had our fingerprints taken and upon arrival to the baggage claim, realized that my luggage that was supposed to go from Buenos Aires to Chicago to Tokyo took a detour to Dallas from Chicago and would not be arriving for two more days. We left the airport unphased by the turn of

events (hey, this stuff happens) and set off to the train station so that we could make our way to Asakusa where we were to stay. As we got into the train station, we were quite surprised to find no instructions on how to use the automated ticketing system. Luckily there was a bilingual, very helpful native that aided us in our first buy and showed us how to navigate the system.

After an hour ride into the city, we finally arrived at Asakusa, where we first set foot on Tokyo soil. It was around 5:00 in the afternoon - and the first thing that we noticed more than anything was the silence. Yes, there were cars on the street, there were people walking by, talking, riding bicycles, it was a moving city - but it was almost as if we were watching a video and had the sound turned way, way down. Perhaps we were so accustomed to the noise pollution of Buenos Aires that to walk through a city of very little pollution was a shock to our ears.

The second thing we noticed was the marked difference in air quality - we were totally aware that the old buses that plow down the streets of BA would send up plumes of smoke and of course that’s not good for the air quality, but wow! What a difference we could be living in BA if people and businesses actually paid attention to the amount of pollution they cause with vehicles run on older systems of fuel.

In the days that followed, we walked all over the city - spending about $20 a day on transportation alone, and going into all of the “neighborhoods” that Tokyo had to offer. We explored Asakusa, Ueno and Ginza on our second day - even going to the Museum of Modern Art and walking through the Imperial Palace Gardens. The highlight of the afternoon was taking a tour of Tiffany’s after visiting the Tokyo Forum, designed by Argentine architect Rafael Viñoli. We had lunch that day in the gardens of the Tokyo Forum - a Thai curry sold out of the back of a truck parked alongside the Forum itself.

After day one alone my feet were aching. I wore through a pair of socks that Javier had lent me and wanted so badly to change my clothes and shoes - to shower and comb my hair - so we cleaned up as much as

possible, decided to take a short siesta and go out for dinner that night.

To our eyes, fashion in Japan could only be described as “surprising”. It wasn’t weird at all but definitely unexpected. The first thing I noticed was that the quality of clothing was exceptionally high in comparison to what I was used to in Buenos Aires. The people that we saw on the subway going to and from work were dressed often in black suits or business attire - with very high quality materials used in the fabrics with modern designs. It was quite rare to see women wearing pants (as they mostly wore skirts or dresses - often in combination with knee high socks) and often you would see women walking in high heels all over the place. I felt very unfashionable walking around in my Puma trainers but what was I to do??

We WALKED the whole city!!!

Of course for energy, we needed to take in some good carbohydrates and the easiest and cheapest way to do that was to eat one of Japan’s most popular dishes - Ramen noodles! (You thought I was going to say “sushi” didn’t you?) We tried a lot of dishes apart from ramen though - there were curries and exquisite meats - of course - sushi… but not only fish- we tried chicken sashimi, chicken liver sashimi and even steak sashimi with a raw egg to top it off - thanks to our friend Yoshi - we had one of the best culinary experiences of our lives!

Next time… Getting lost in the Tokyo subway system…