Sorry for the wait.... here are the next three days...Lotsa pics!

Alright, we are coming home this weekend, so I thought I'd take a break from having fun to post about all the fun I've had!

Tuesday October 10th , we caught the Shinkansen out to Kyoto... this train is freaking awesome! It was a fairly long ride; a couple of hours I believe. We took a bunch of pics, and I got one of Mt. Fuji (Fujisan) that was a bit cloudy. Seriously, these pics don't really do any of this trip justice... You could buy bento at the train station and people came up and down the aisles every 45 minutes or so with bento, beer and snacks on these little carts. It was all kind of pricey, and we had just eaten anyway. We got to Kyoto station, hopped on a subway, and were literally in front of our hotel in Kyoto within 5 minutes. The rooms were huge compared to our little “business class” rooms at Tokyo Green Ochanomizu (I just realized that our hotel's name means green tea(ocha) and(no) water(mizu)...). There were even little paper origami cranes on the pillows! Well, we dropped off our stuff and headed out. Kyoto drivers are insane. Okay, it was sort of a shock when we first came to Tokyo... people here drive like they do on the East Coast! Bicyclists follow NO rules at all, and we've all nearly been run over by bicyclists several times. I thought it was just us at first, being unused to the flow of traffic...etc, but I've seen bicyclists run into people/things here more times than I ever saw in Seattle and St. Augustine combined! Kyoto drivers are even worse, and the streets and sidewalks are smaller to boot. We had delicious bento lunches at this karaoke joint... it was 3 pm so we were the only ones in there, and it was really good. Then we walked.

Kyoto is absolutely filthy with shrines. They are everywhere, crammed in every nook and cranny that wasn't a shop or restaurant. We opted for back alleys, as usual, and eventually found our way to the enormous (and gaijin-infested) Yakasa Shrine. We bought some fortunes and wandered through the shrine grounds, over stone bridges and past enormous statues. Kyoto is one of the few cities in Japan that hasn't been destroyed, so this is all original old ancient stuff, instead of rebuilt old ancient stuff. After dining on yummy Kyoto Zenzai (a sweet adzuki bean soup with mochi)and parfait thingys, we walked and shopped our way through Kyoto, buying presents and stuff. There are a bunch of American businesses which we avoided like the plague, as the “hot American girl” look is ever present in Japan. It is really cool, however, to see a cluster of kimono clad girls in wooden geta amidst a sea of Louis Vuitton-Coach-Gap-look-alike-MTV-clones. Oh, we also made sure to go into every Japanese hiphop store... hardcore Japanese gangsta rap is something to be experienced. I'll post about fashion later.

We dropped stuff off at our hotel, and went back out in a light autumn drizzle. We ate at an automat that we dubbed “Two Funky Samurai” from the sign outside. (I apologize for not writing down names to any of these places, but if you come along with us next time I can show you where everything is!) The food was delicious. We stopped by Lawson's and I got this weird syrupy liqueur with an apricot in it, played some Animal Crossing in the hotel room and went to bed.

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Wednesday, October 11th! We all woke up early and went to Holly's Cafe, and had these cute little sandwiches, cheesecakes and coffee. We've learned that it doesn't matter how “Western” a place may seem in Japan, they always have a way of putting a unique Japanese twist on everything. We headed out to the Nishiki Market, a large indoor/outdoor market in Kyoto's downtown. So many pickles everywhere! We tasted so many things; they had just about every traditional Japanese sweet, tsukemono, fish, fruit and vegetable you could want. There was one stall just for buying fishcakes for oden, and one that was just the tamago, or rolled omelets! You can see the tamago being prepared here! My only regret, in retrospect, is that I didn't buy a knife. One of the most fascinating stalls/shops in the market was where artisans ground, tempered and cast all manner of kitchen equipment. Handmade knives of exceptional quality, strainer baskets, pots and pans... we're talking all heavy iron and steel stuff here. If I had the time and money, I would go back just to buy a knife... and maybe a sukiyaki pan. We're also talking very expensive... these guys' ancestors made swords... so a good sashimi knife would run around 30,000 to 45,000 yen. Maybe next trip. So we did some more shopping, caught a subway to Kyoto station, back on the Shinkansen and off to Tokyo. We got some cool farmland pictures, if you like looking at rice paddies as much as I do.

After making it back to Akiba, we tried out the Space Diner. Story Time! I forgot to post this, but earlier on during our first couple of days here, we wanted to check out this place, because it's called the Space Diner! It was 10:30 in the morning, and we all filed up the narrow stairs; Sandy was on point. The door was closed, so she pushed it open, and a woman was in there. The woman screamed! Like, a naked scream! Mike and I just heard the scream, and Sandy backed out hurriedly with several “gomenasai's” (apologies), and we all rushed down the stairs! Weird. We were freaked out. We couldn't figure it out, and Sandy was spooked by the strange encounter, so she didn't want to go back. The woman wasn't naked, she was just in the room... I guess she didn't expect people to come into her cafe? Whatever. So, we tried it again, it was crappy and expensive, don't bother going, end of story.

Awesome well endowed straw man!

We went to that rad toy store in Okachimachi again! We tried (unsuccessfully) to find the same conveyor belt sushi place, but couldn't, so we ate at a different one which wasn't as good. Note: go to conveyor belt sushi when it is jam packed to get the best sushi. After a long day, we went back to our hotel and to bed.

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Thursday, October 12th!

We walked around the corner from our hotel and got breakfast from a little bakery that had a bunch of weird things. The strangest by far was a piece of toast with melted cheese, four bacon strips, and a fried egg, all baked on top and packaged individually on a shelf... not a refrigerated or heated shelf, just a wooden shelf. Nearby was a toaster oven where you could heat up your food. I got tiny sandwiches and a peach pastry, and we took all this back to our hotel room, which confused the maids who were getting ready to clean. We assured them that we would eat quickly and leave, which we did.

We all hopped on a train to Asakusa, the “Old Edo” part of Tokyo. It dumped us out into an ancient marketplace, bustling with people. I bought whale jerky! They sold whale bacon too, which was cool, if you're into whale bacon. We found an amusement park, just nestled there in the middle of all the pachinko parlors and shrines. We found one entire street that was decorated in kappas, one of my favorite Japanese mythological creatures. There was one in the tile work on the sidewalk, statues of kappa everywhere, a cool stylized kappa signboard and even an obviously modified “Dancing Santa” with a kappa-suit over it. The only thing better than that would be....

...stumbling onto a tanuki shrine! I was in heaven. Here is the plaque inside, some tanuki statues, and a cool dragon fountain at the other end. Almost as good as seeing a real tanuki.

Stacked “oke”, a street view of Asakusa...

We found an enormous shrine, and took pics like a bunch of annoying gaijin. We figured it's okay to be tourists once in awhile. Here's a dude clipping away branches, a statue in little girl clothes, the huge main shrine, and a stone bridge over a little brook.

Famished, we found a mediocre ramen place. We are ramen snobs now. We walked around a bit afterwards, over a river with water taxis, saw some bum peeing just out in the open, and then found a train back to Akiba. After a short nap, we all went out to Cafe Tokyo Doll, another maid cafe. This one wasn't as uncomfortably comfortable as Cafe Chocolatte, but the maids were cute and the coffee was good. We shopped at one of our favorite places, Don Quijote, which is a 24 hour mall that sells pretty much everything, from booze to clothes to groceries to porn to video games to jewelry....you name it and they probably have it. We dined that evening on takoyaki and crepes on our favorite bench, and thus ended our busy day.

THREE DAYS!!! LOTSA PICS!!! LOTSA WORDS!!!

Okay everybody, crazy busy weekend and Kyoto trip kind of upset posting a bit, but I took a lot of good notes, so here it goes. THREE DAYS, with lots of pics... more on the way when I find time...

Saturday morning was our day to check out the Tsujiki Marketplace, one of the largest markets in all of Japan, and renown for its selection of fish, vegetables and anything else one could want from a farmer's market. We woke up early, intent on a sushi breakfast, but didn't plan enough ahead. We thought we could just hop on the right train at Tokyo station, and that was probably true, but we got turned around somehow and ended up wandering around the outskirts of Ginza. Everything was still closed, because it was early, so we walked around looking for someplace else to have breakfast when we just sort of stumbled on the subway line (Hibiya) that would take us right to Tsujiki Market! It was insane in a way I can't begin to explain. The place was packed with people and it was hot and humid. There was just about every fish you could imagine in various stages of preparation, just hours out of the ocean and neatly packed in stalls and marked for sale. There were also a variety of tsukemono (japanese pickles) and fruits and vegetables, but the main draw was obviously seafood. Huge prawns, saba, sanma, giant spiny crabs and sea urchins, piles of roe from various fish, squid and octopus... amazing. The sad part is I didn't get any good pictures, as you get kind of rushed through unless you are a buyer or delivery person. Instead, we randomly picked a stall, sat down and ordered massive amounts of sushi.

Of course, I had to try basashi, which is horse sashimi, even though it was a FISH market... It's the first place we've eaten that had it. It was okay... they seared the top with a blowtorch and salted and peppered it, and garnished it with a dollop of ground ginger. What was even more remarkable was a toss-up between the fatty tuna (toro) and the marlin. I also had scad for the first time, which was slightly sweet, and a clam miso that was loaded with clams. In all, it was a delicious breakfast.

We walked around a bit afterwards, looking at buildings, and directly north of the market was a huge Shinto shrine. Impressive, so I got some pictures of it. Afterwards, we took the train to Roppongi. Now, the Roppongi district is known as a seedy hot spot for clubbing etc. at night, but it was 10 AM, so we were treated with a different Roppongi; quaint, winding streets, little shops, and lots of money (and lots of bars...). We had some tea and coffee at a place called Koots Tea and Coffee, only finding out later that it was a Japanese chain which has a location in Bellevue and one coming to Seattle!

Roppongi is really cute during the day. We found a tiny park full of ginkgo trees and some old dude was collecting ginkgo nuts. The sounds of locusts in the trees is so cool, but I couldn't see them. We walked across the street shortly after, and found a Buddhist cemetery with a much different shrine. There were dragonflies everywhere, a shelf overflowing with oke, and one of the headstones/alters had an unusual offering on it. Incense was burning at a few, and even though it was sandwiched between two busy highways, it was very serene. Traditionally, Shinto priests oversee blessings, births, marriage and festivals... but the funeralsL are nearly always Buddhist.

It was adventure time. We hopped on a train, headed for.... um... how does Sugamo sound? We chose randomly and ended up in a cute neighborhood. After a quick lunch at a curry joint, we walked around for quite a while. We wandered down alleys and through tiny streets, just watching and taking pics of regular life. Popped into a little quickie mart and bought microwaved takoyaki, and snacked on those in a nearby park while little kids played everywhere. An old man was playing some tune on a blade of grass, and that was cool, and some guys dressed in city uniforms were blow torching a square patch of ground under a gazebo type thing. There were signs explaining it, but I have about 33% recognition when it comes to Japanese writing. We walked on some more, across a bridge over the railway tracks, and there we saw, for the first time really, litter.

Japan is clean. There is very little trash in the street, as the street cleaners are efficient and the population seems pretty conscientious about throwing trash away. However, in this neighborhood, along the side of the tracks was thrown all manner of garbage... just tossed over the rail. We noticed it was a direct path for kids coming from the train and school, and saw mostly teenagers, and noting it was mostly vending machine and fast food garbage, we came to the conclusion that teenagers are just crappy everywhere.

We suddenly heard a long horn, and down the street was a girl dressed in a blue uniform, pulling a two-wheeled cart loaded with two or three medium-sized coolers, and sporting a flag. She'd walk along, and every once in a while toot this little horn. We were all too amazed to interact with her, but she was probably selling ice cream or something. There is no lack of ice cream vendors in Japan.

Well, on the long train ride home, we passed lots of flashy lights and said “Lets get off here!”... so that is how we found Okachimachi. Street vendors selling everything from American shoes and sportswear to katsuobushi, tea, mochi and matsutake! I had to buy okonomiyaki from a street vendor, which was delicious, even though I was full. Okonomiyaki is a savory egg and flour pancake with seafood and veggies in and on it, topped with a sweet brown (okonomiyaki) sauce and mayo. Soooo good! And just 200 yen! We then found the raddest toy store on earth, 7 stories tall, with separate floors for game-related toys, gundam and action figures, tv and movie characters... I don't remember them all, I just remember the yen flying out of my pocket and toys flying into my bag!

We had to recover, so we went to a local chain called Jonathon's. They might have them in the States... it's like a Dennys, complete with noisy teenagers. Unlike a Dennys, you could buy udon, curry beef, miso, traditional Japanese breakfasts and a variety of regional things. After udon, grilled fish and iced coffee, we headed for home.

Sunday we all wanted to try Mos Burger (their slogan was “Japanese Fine Burger”), so we did. I think they puree all the burger ingredients together, and I don't know how they cook them, because the place smelled nothing like any burger joint I've been to. It just smelled like.... nothing. So we got a bit smaller than normal American burgers, tasting very different, and about seven fries each. Oh, and they don't have ketchup on the tables anywhere... or any condiment for that matter, just very salty fries. It was pretty good food, still very Japanese.

We headed back to Ueno park, and Mike and Sandy rode in a swan paddle boat. Two people allowed at a time, and I didn't really want to ride. We walked around the park, and there was some rock concert about to happen at an auditorium... folks were already lining up. I took a pic of a wanted poster we had seen posted around town. We then got on the train, headed for Harajuku.

I'm not going to comment on Harajuku, except to point out one good thrift store where both Sandy and Mike found rad clothes.

After some time, we got back on the train and headed to Okachimachi again! (I love that place.) We had excellent conveyor belt sushi at a very good price, and the basashi was even better here then at the Tsujiki Market! Did some clothes shopping, and Sandy bought shoes, then back home. We watched a rad Samurai show (movie? Series?), the highlight of which was a trailer for a stop motion animation film called “Bump of Chicken”. Sandy lost her business

Sports Day! Japanese national holiday... but really just the government businesses are closed. Monday was a curry-for-breakfast day, and the train hopping game to Odiaba! Odaiba is built on an entirely man-made island, and it's architecture is very “futuristic”. Here is a cool building., and here is another! The place is connected by a monorail, which we bought an all day pass for (800 yen). They even have a man-made beach! There was a mall called Pallet Town... (It was supposed to be “future mall”.... it's an American mall. Boo. They DID have the coolest LEGO store I had ever seen, though.) We then went to the Toyota building nearby and got to ride in the E-Com cars! They are driven by a robot brain that recognizes the road and obstacles! So cool! E-com car, prototype, another prototype and another prototype! There were lots of cool things to be seen here. The deli had weird food that looked tasty, but it was all very expensive.

Next, we checked out the nearby arcade. The highlights of this one had to be the MarioKartracing game and the Animal Crossing gashapon machines. I beat Mike at air hockey too.

There was an indoor “Amusement park” where you pay money to play with cats. Ridiculous.

We found a Toys-R-Us, and let me tell you... if you are a toy lover, GO HERE FIRST. The game selection, plushies, gashapon, action figures, gundams, legos... all cheaper and better than anywhere else, with only a few exceptions. The shelves were well stocked, and the place was packed with people. It was the coolest Toys-R-Us I'd ever been to! Afterwards, we ate takoyaki in the food court. Food courts are the same everywhere too... we could have been anywhere, except there were maybe four other white people in the whole place, and they were all German. Lots of German, Australian and British folks visiting Japan... we've only seen a handful of Americans.

We took the train to Big Sight... looked like mostly offices and restaurants, but an amazing building nonetheless. Then it was on to Toyusa, which I think is another city on Odaiba, and yet another mall surrounded by a very cool park. Tokyo has a lot of really awesome parks everywhere. We mad the trip home finally, dropped off our stuff, went out for ramen and dessert, and then back home to sleep... after all, Tuesday was our Kyoto trip!

Picture Time!

I've been taking tons of pics, so here are some of them. (Due to time constraints, I couldn't include them in the last few posts...)

Here's Sandy, leaving us for her lifelong destination... Puropuro Land...


Here's a variety of animatronic weirdness found inside...

Ice cream factory | Mice making bread | Even more mice making bread | Some electricity thing | Making chocolate | Another chocolate factory... you may want to look a little closer at this one because...


...it seems this organ grinder is peering deep into his monkey's anus. That is all.


Here was my favorite display:
Transistors and stuff!

Sandy had her picture taken with Chiffon and Kuromi, and Mike and I got ours with Bad Badtz Maru.

Here's the yummy donburi that Sandy had at "The Don". That name cracks me up. Here was my meal! (blurry)

Here are some pics of colorful houses on our rainy trip to Tama.

There were dancers, plays, a Keroppi game and everyone sang "Happy Bursday" to Kitty at the end! Happy Bursday!

Friday!

Friday morning we woke up early because it was Puropuro Land day. We had several train rides ahead of us, so we decided to wait until we got to Tama to eat. It was pouring rain, and the wind was so strong it was knocking people around. Mike's umbrella broke, and ours were on the verge, so we ducked into a convenience store and bought new, sturdy ones. After some confusion on switching lines, and worrying whether or not we were going the right way, we were finally on our way to Puropuro Land; the Sanrio amusement park.

So, the train ride took us across the more suburb, outskirt places south of Tokyo. I got some pics of the tops of some houses, which had the old style bright, colorful scalloped roofs, but we were moving too fast to get pics of anything else. We saw several shrines along the way, and forests of bamboo, and I wanted to stop the train so many times because it was all so rad. The rain continued to pour down, and they even had to delay two of the more southern lines due to heavy wind. In Tama, we ate at another curry automat, which was yum . (These places have quickly become our “fast food”, due to the fact that prices range from 250-500 yen, there is minimal communication necessary to get what you want, and they are everywhere.)

Puropuro Land is right around the corner from the train station. The regular ticket is 3000 yen, so we all went in. It's entirely indoors, and the first thing you see is, of course, the shop. It seems like Sanrio acquired a fantasy themed park and just integrated Sanrio characters, as nothing really fits. There are so many rooms just full of fantasy animatronic scenery, vending machines with yummy desserts in them, gashapon machines everywhere, and an enormous arcade upstairs. Sanrio characters wander about, as Japanese kids (and teens...and moms...and dads and boyfriends) ambush them for pictures. It is all so unbelievably cute. They had a bunch of Shinkansen merchandise, which is one of my favorite characters, so I bought a handkerchief, some Kerroppi and Badtz Maru stickers, and a (now indispensable)change purse. (A bulk of the currency you use is in change, which I disliked at first, but now I really like it.)

We caught a show there, where Daniel (Kitty's “husband” and king) is kidnapped by a creepy dude and his batwinged mistresses. At some point, the good guys pleaded with the audience for help, and tons of kids held up these red flashing globes. Then, Kitty herself, all decked out in queen garb, descended from the ceiling, and somehow, everything was alright again. There were acrobats, tumblers, and the whole host of characters, and they all paraded around and gave Kitty bouquet of flowers. It is really just too much to take in, and it overwhelms the senses. There were a few more shows with dancers and little stories and stuff, and we watched a few of those too. They had one where Badtz was basically being a jerk and trying to sabotage the game, which was pretty funny. I got my picture with him. Basically, if you like animatronic fantasy weirdness, or you love Sanrio stuff, check this place out.

Afterwards, we went to a don shop called “The Don”. Don is a bowl of rice, plus something on top of it. I had udon and katsu don with egg, with tsukemono. Sandy had a scallop, egg, nori topping on rice with miso and tsukemono, and Mike had katsu don and miso with tsukemono. Fairly mediocre. We found a store after that, like a real supermarket! It's the first actual supermarket we've seen, so we walk around and look at stuff. The cafe was packed with kids in school uniforms, and there was a sort of bread buffet near that.

We hopped back on the train in the dead center of rush hour, but it wasn't too bad. They didn't have to pack us in (I have seen them do that...). We decided to hit up Shinjuku, as I've heard a lot about it. So we got off the train and walked around, looking for an inexpensive cafe or something. Shinjuku is called the “Time Square of Tokyo”, and it all sort of reminds you of New York. There are lots of dressed up people, expensive malls, and bars. We sat down in one that, from the inside, could have been anywhere in Seattle. We all ordered coffee, and that confused the “cool guy” waiter, but they brought it anyway. There was another group of Americans in there, all bros looking to get plastered in Tokyo it seemed, and we did not feel welcome. They seemed really cold towards us, and I swear they were laughing that we didn't buy any booze. Plus, they served almost entirely American drinks anyway! We finished our bitter coffee and left quickly.

After finding a bathroom, we left Shinjuku. Maybe we'll be back, during the day when it isn't raining, maybe not. Not really my thing.

The train dropped us off in a place we have dubbed “The U District”.... college kids, music stores, etc. This place is cool, and deserves some more exploration. We walked towards our hotel, stopping at a sushi joint where the entrance was shaped like a giant sake bottle. It was a bar. We sat at a cramped bar and ordered yakitori (not good), sushi (only half of it was ok quality) and gyoza (which was ok.) Mike got the pork and potatoes, a standard Japanese “man food” type meal, which he enjoyed. Sandy got a pizza. Like, Totino's quality, straight from a freezer. Needless to say, Mike had the good meal, while Sandy and I suffered through our decisions. We retired to our hotel, a day of mediocre meals finally over.

(pics still on the way.... it's either I post stuff, or go have fun in Japan, and I choose the latter)

Thursday!

Okay, so Thursday morning we went to Denny's for breakfast. I know what you're thinking... why the hell would you go to a Denny's when Tokyo is crammed with great restaurants? Here's the thing; Denny's in Japan offers ONE typical American breakfast plate. I had udon and a “mini cobb salad”, Sandy had yogurt and fruit, a soft-boiled egg in dashi stock, shiro miso and honey caramel pancakes topped with ice-cream. Mike had yummy ramen. Denny's in Japan rocks, and I recommend checking it out, just for novelty.

We shopped around another block afterwards with predominantly action figures, gundam models and stuff like that. I mean several buildings, several stories tall full of this stuff. We went into one full of manga and manga-related knicknacks where I bought a Ghost in the Shell shirt and some other assorted goodies. We all spent quite a bit of time and money on this block. They had a 6 ft. tall Gamera, a life-size Chi, and a life-size Rei and PenPen. Tons of expensive, cheap, common and extremely rare toys were everywhere, and every place had a no picture rule :( . Oh, if you are in Akihabara, and you love old skool video games, look up Super Potato. I did get some pics of the outside, and more yen was spent here.

Then we went to Cafe Chocolatte. This particular cafe is what is known as a maid cafe, specifically catering to otaku and other male geeks, where you are served by adorable girls in skimpy French maid outfits. The services offered at these can vary, from innocent dining, to private photo booths with the “maids”, to massage and foot baths, and probably more... Anyway, ours was of the innocent tea and cake variety, but was not without an aura of sensuality not found at any dining establishment I've ever been to. Every movement is deliberate and measured, every word is carefully chosen, and every action is accompanied by a deep bow. It was strange at first, but we loved it so much we ended up staying quite some time. Sandy was the only girl in there that wasn't dressed like a maid.

We walked around a lot that day, as rain poured down, and found ourselves in a college neighborhood near Nihon University. There were guitar stores everywhere, and college kids filled the streets and street corners. People were crammed into little sake and sushi bars all over, and we strolled about looking for a “lunch” place (it was kind of late, so our lunch ended up being dinner). We found a curry joint finally, and I had really spicy curry that was delicious! The strange thing about Tokyo is how prolific Western music is. We only heard Japanese music in about 40% of the places we were in at any given time. The curry place played Queen, Kansas, etc.

Just down the alley were a few arcades, where we all played that Taiko drumming game. What a rad game! Sandy loved it the most though, and wants to go back. (we've seen a few other places with it, but they would draw an audience, which is unsettling if you are playing a game for the first time.) Mike and I played some Final Fight, and then we went across the street to a record store I was told to check out called Disk Union. Wow...just, wow. 400 yen for albums that would sell for 30 bucks in the States... I bought Boards of Canada, Manitoba, and a Japanese electronica artist that sounded rad, all on vinyl, all for 2300 yen!

It was back to the hotel to crash, as this day thoroughly wiped us out. I will post pics later, now it is time to hop on a train for Puropuro Land in Tama!

Sayonara!

Wednesday in Japan!

Okay, so Wednesday morning, we ate a traditional Japanese breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was rad, and I didn't take any pics... but I will! Broiled miso saba with tamago-yaki, shiro miso no dofu, takuan-zuke, okara, dashi braised turnip with ground chicken(yum!),sake-lees tsukemono, tiny baby sardines, rice and green tea... my god it was awesome, and just 1150 yen!

Next, we went through a fairly simple procedure at the post office withdrawing money, and hopped on the subway this time, riding it down to Ginza. Ginza is so different from Akihabara... very high-end, classy and a bit “too cool for school” for my tastes. There was a cute plushie store, which was fairly inexpensive, but none of us bought anything. Ginza has amazing architecture, a rad skybridge, a huge kabuki theater, a park where we saw Japanese apricots, and some awesome sticker tags. We saw a bunch of older women in kimonos, but it's weird to ask to take someone's picture, so we didn't.

Our feet were tired and we were starving, so we hopped back on the subway and rode it to Kanda. After wandering around back alleys and past some cool music stores (guitars and violins and cellos...), we made it back to Akihabara and sat down to the best ramen I've ever had! I had the kimchee ramen, Sandy had the wakame ramen and gyoza, and Mike had chicken ramen. They didn't have green tea (!!) but they kept the cold water coming. It's very warm here, and humid, but with enough intermittent breezes and rainstorms that it stays pleasant for the most part. Oh, we did buy cute umbrellas in Ginza, I forgot that part (EVERYONE uses umbrellas, even riding their bikes...).

Now it was time to spend money. I have pics of a bunch of stuff we bought, but I'll save bandwidth and just say those 200 yen gashapon machines are more addictive than pachinko. We took our pictures with the colonel, passed a cool little shrine (it was closed for the evening...) and stumbled upon a little European coffee shop where we proceeded to have awesome coffee. The guy running the place brewed the coffee in round glass science lab flasks under Bunsen burners! It was a sight to behold, served with tiny pots of cream.

We dropped our loot off at the hotel and headed back out for food. Walked to a yakitori joint, but it was more of a bar, so we kept looking. We found a burger place called “Freshness Burger”, but seeing the packed restaurant to the right of it, and seeing how it had NO people in it, we decided to keep walking. Eventually we settled on street vendor takoyaki! We sat on a bench and ate a ton of yummy takoyaki for really cheap. Then, we traversed a huge (vertical...everything is built up here) shopping center called Don Quixote, where we bought some more cute stuff. We were tired by that time, so back to the hotel we went. I had an Ume wine? Beer? I don't know, but it was very good. It was time once again to sleep, where I dreamed of gashapon machines.

Bunny toy I bought - the upliftingly titled “Deeppresso” - more street art - we found this guy in Ginza

Tuesday!

(Everyone make sure to browse through "Previous Posts" on the right sidebar, because I posted a bunch of stuff for Monday while you guys were sleeping... some of you)

Having gone to sleep so early the night before, we all automatically woke up around 6 AM. We headed out, looking for food at about 9 AM (I had to run back to the hotel to grab my watch and camera), and after walking around a bit, we found a Coco's Restaurant! This was not your ordinary American restaurant, which you will see from the pics. Again, no English speakers in the place, but we managed by pointing (also, I knew a couple of words, so ordered in Japanese). I had my first traditional
Japanese breakfast in a so-called “California-style” restaurant; miso with negi and yagaimo, saba in a sweet miso sauce, daikon tsukemono, hijiki, nori and a typical American salad. Sandy had the same, but replace the saba with salmon, and the salad with a big bowl of natto (I was not in a natto-for-breakfast mood). Mike had a “Hamburg Steak” with a ketchup based sauce, five french fries, fried prawns, rice and a broccoli crown for garnish. We also had tea, which involved us getting up and going to a set-up counter, picking from among a variety of awesome tea, picking out a teapot and cups and doing the whole thing ourselves.... Yuzu Sencha, and it was delicious (on a side note, Tokyo is not handi-cap accessible... we had to climb a narrow spiral stone staircase to get up to the restaurant). I also took a pic of the kids menu, which features Doremon jamming his hand into his pants/pouch! Doremon is everywhere. They had fishcakes in the kids udon with his face dyed into them.

We walked around some more, taking pictures of rad buildings (one with a tiny door!), and stumbled on a video game parlor. There were a few where winning some puzzle game would play videos of stripping girls, and there was Dig-Dug and stuff, and Mike sat down to a street-fighter style game. I found a vertical-scrolling space shooting game (shmup) where you play a flying girl instead of a spaceship. It was awesome, and I made it halfway through the second stage. Sandy tried winning panties out of a crane machine, then we left the place, headed north for Ueno park.

On the way we passed a large school group of 4 or 5 year-olds that were in yellow and orange caps. They were doing some organized parade thing and it was very cute. We went into some little electronics store to see if they had a camera to computer USB, but they only had tiny subcompact notebooks.

It was about a mile walk, and we reached a huge lake covered in what looked to me like fuki, or butterbur, standing 5-6 feet tall! We saw turtles, one with a long anteater nose! We crossed a small bridge to a shrine, and saw lots of koi, turtles and birds playing together in the water. I took some photos of the shrine, after observing a Japanese kid doing the same, and we walked around the grounds looking at all the statuary and slabs of stone riddled in kana. Then, after a while, we rounded a corner and found the Ueno zoo! It was only 600 yen to get in. The zoo was pretty big, but the enclosures are far too small. If you love animals, you benefit by being able to see everything perfectly, but at the expense of them living in tiny areas... it reminded me of zoos in the 80's. However, there were zebras, giraffes, pygmy hippos, rhinos, elephants, porcupines, an aardvark, giant pandas (Ling-ling was there!), red pandas (kawaii!) and a slew of other animals (If you really want to see more pics of animals, ask me when I get back... I'm not going to post all of them.). Also, there were five Japanese girls maybe eight years old singing and dancing around, and that was adorable.

Right outside of the zoo was a tiny amusement park! They had these huge figures of Pikachu, Doremon and An Pan Man, but they were all little kid rides. We walked on through even more of Ueno park (several museums, a zoo... this place was huge) and decided to try our luck with the cryptic JR line trains. After standing around, trying to figure out the method to go about buying a ticket, a nice lady saw us and was very helpful, pointing us in the right direction finally. You buy your ticket according to the price marked at your destination from a vending machine. An animated girl on the screen bows to you when you complete your purchase. You walk to the gate/turnstile, feed your ticket into a slot, and it marks it and spits it out on the other side. You take it and walk to the correct platform. All the signs are in English as well. Within the station are tons of little shops, lots of places to buy food and gifts and treats and stuff. There was this cute penguin everywhere, and I think it is the train mascot. We finally made it to the platform, and the trains run 4 minutes apart! They are so incredibly fast. We got on, and rode to the Tokyo station. There, you feed your ticket once again into a turnstile, never to be seen again. Oh, also there's a cute little song that plays when your train is almost there, and a tone to warn you it is about to leave. A voice in English tells you when and where to get off of the train, so there is little confusion. It is very easy after a couple of times, and the quickest way to get around. A short trip like we took was only 130 yen (about $1.30 American), but some were upwards of 1050 yen! Still, 130 yen to ride a train is ridiculously cheap.

So, we walked to the Imperial Palace Gardens and saw an amazing water display. There were all these straight edged canals cut into the stone, all modern design-esque. A giant clamshell sat in the center, and the fountains would cycle through a very cool routine, so we sat and watched. It began raining a bit, and we noticed we were next to rows of chestnut trees! Pictures were taken, but I had qualms with taking any chestnuts from the Imperial Gardens. We walked on towards the palace itself, over ancient stone bridges and a koi-filled lakes. There was a perfectly green lawn with strange pines scattered about, and some mushrooms had popped up as well! However, we didn't get far, as the palace garden interior closes early. We crossed a busy street and sat in a park adjacent to it, where I wrote my first post. It was slightly breezy and overcast, so basically perfect.

After deciding to head back to Akihabara to grab some food, we boarded the train just at rush hour. Packed, but not as bad as I've heard about them getting. There are so many people everywhere. We ate at an automat! A curry automat! A bit different from a standard old school American automat, in these you put money into a vending machine and push a button next to the food you want. Then you hand the ticket to the person at the counter. They have a grid with colored stones on a counter for the chef to see to keep track of orders somehow... Within about thirty seconds, hot yummy curry! Efficient and inexpensive, I can see why these places are everywhere. Then, off we went next door to the 6 story cosplay/porn/lingerie superstore! You could tab through hundreds of costumes from all types of anime, buy DVDs, and you get a 30% discount if you let them photograph you in costume/lingerie/etc. and put your pic on the wall! It was amazing.

We then headed to the duty free electronics store across the way, where Sandy bought a pink Sony Cybershot T10 camera, thus solving our picture posting dilemma. We walked around some more, and went back to our hotel eventually because I was a whiny baby and I wanted to take a nap. Bought some Sparkling Chardonnay in a bumpy can from a vending machine and we sat and watched a weird cooking game show. Then we slept the sleep of gods.

some pics from monday

Okay, I took tons of pics, so I'm only putting a few choice ones up for each day.

We could see this awesome apartment building out of our hotel window.

Another shot from our hotel. What's rad is the old Japanese scalloped-roof house amidst all the modern buildings. There is a lot of this everywhere.

One tiny corner of Akihabara, or "Electric City", as it is appropriately called. There is so much to do here it is quite overwhelming.

This Sega building is full of video game consoles, crane machines and smoke. Seven stories tall! Most of the patrons were 20-something guys in suits, smoking like fricken chimneys, feeding yen to those machines like there was no tomorrow.

I had to have a pic of the Taito building.

Here's the JR Line train, of which we are now pros at riding :)

More to come...

Free High Speed Internet!

Tokyo is so much cooler then I could ever explain in words... and even the pictures I've taken don't capture the immensity of the place. Yeah... as for the pics, I will post those as soon as I buy an adapter... as I absentmindedly forgot to pack it. But no worries, I've got tons of memory in my camera. (EDIT: It pays off to ask questions of the ever patient hotel staff... free internet.)

The plane ride was a piece of cake, albeit 10.5 hours long AND our first. I watched Aliens, played DS, and tracked the plane's progress on the little screen in front of me. I tried to write some music, but the dude in front of me had his seat back too far. Sandy was very uncomfortable though, because she has trouble sitting for extended periods of time.

So, a pleasantly uneventful flight, followed by landing at Narita airport. We went through immigration, customs and baggage quite effortlessly. Also, Japanese police look like superheros with their blue jumpsuits and black straps and no guns. The bathroom had an automatic sliding door that you open by pushing these huge buttons... red for close and green for open. No way to dry your hands, as you are expected to take care of that on your own (that's why they sell/hand out those little packets of tissues everywhere). After walking aimlessly for a bit, we were approached by a dude with white gloves who had a taxi, and said he could take us to our hotel. After hearing about folks getting ripped off by Japanese cabbies we were wary. We gave in finally, and he grabbed a bag (I carried ours) and he led us through a maze of escalators and people movers (cool!) and into a tiny parking lot. He ushered us into a mini-van of sorts, made up inside with frilly seat covers, and honked and swerved his way onto the highway and out of the airport. Japanese drivers are aggressive yet polite at the same time.

After quite some time (about 45 minutes or so) he found our hotel (we were worried, because he kept looking at the printout we had and consulting a little guide... while driving...). Narita is further than I thought from Tokyo, and we were surprised at the 24,500 yen price tag on the trip, but we gave him an extra 1500 as a tip (I know you don't tip at restaurants, but we were unsure about cabs and hotels... so we did). That's a bit over $260.00 American, but well worth it I assure you. (Two huge suitcases, rush hour, in a country where you don't speak the language and just getting off of a 10.5 hour flight...sure, take us to our hotel for 260 bucks.)

We confused and terrified the hotel staff, because we obviously had rooms booked, yet they couldn't find our info... they kept running in and out, looking at our printed receipt from Expedia and apologizing... finally handing us our keys. Our room is awesome, and you can see all the Akihabara buildings with their animated billboards and neon lighting up the city. The city is HUGE. Looking down from our window, surrounded by new apartments and hotels is a very old scalloped roof traditional Japanese building, just tucked away down there. The city is such a vibrant mix of old and cutting edge it baffles the mind.

So, it's about 1:30 AM our time, and like 8 PM Japan time, so we went shopping! They have a n enormous building we went into where every floor is a different hobbyist's dream... Video games on one, model Gundam on another, model trains on the next, model cars, a room full of rad Gashapon and, of all things, a room dedicated to replica firearms! Downstairs were all “Adult Entertainment” shops featuring the best in Hentai and who knows what else ?? (we skipped it for now... we'll be back though)

We walked around a bit more, went in several other shops, bought a few little things and decided it was time for food. The people spoke NO English, so we pointed a lot and we all ended up with the same (delicious!) thing... tempura veggies and prawn over rice with chilled barley tea... at about 650 yen a pop. We headed back to the hotel and fell asleep about 6 am Seattle time, but only 10 PM Japan time. Thus ended Monday/Tuesday.

Just to let everyone know...

We all made it here, its more awesome than I can imagine, and Im keeping a running journal of all of our activities as we go. Ive taken a ton of pics and you guys are all gonna flip out, as soon as we get a solid internet connection. We are now all sitting at Kinkos posting this, so its timed... and im waiting to upload all the stuff... anyway, please disregard the awful punctuation errors, as this is a Japanese keyboard, and I cant find the fricken apostrophe key...

Well, I have to go, but I will make sure and put up too much stuff to read and look at as soon as I can. Bye!