Tokyo

Konnichiwa!

Andy and I have been having a great time here in Tokyo. Everyday we`ve encountered pockets of culture different from the next. Luckily neither of us has had much culture shock, I`ve just had a difficult time adjusting to this time zone.

We`ve walked nearly all the major districts of Tokyo starting in Shinjuku. Our first night in Shinjuku, we ordered our soba dinner from a vending machine! It was served to us in less than 2 minutes. Now that`s fast food!

Our first full day, we woke up early (from jet lag), and headed to the Tsukiji Fish Market. We got there late, about 7am, so we missed the fish auction, but we perused the market stalls that sold anything from chef knives to dried squid to green tea. Andy and I had a breakfast of sushi at 8am in the morning! It was pretty amazing. The freshest sushi in the world! The chefs were incredibly friendly and funny.

Later on, we walked down to the Hamu Rikyu Gardens, where the oldest pine tree (over 300 years old) lives. The mosquitos here are deadly, and we`ve got some huge bites to show for it. We caught the Sumida boat cruise and rode up the river under 12 different colored bridges to Asakusa where the main temple in Tokyo is. We had to stop by the Asahi brewery building and had drinks at the sky bar overlooking the district. Afterwards, we strolled the arcade that lead up to the temple gate, where Andy was interviewed by several high school girls about our trip so far.

There are distinct neighborhoods where certain industries thrive. We found Kappabashi Dori was the restaurant supply district, and I`ll be sure to remember that for future trips to Tokyo. Andy and I were looking for a traditional teppanyaki restaurant suggested by our guidebook, it took almost an hour searching for it, even asking locals for directions. The address system is very different from anywhere else, but we`ve finally figured it out. It`s not sequential, and not every street has a name. Actually, most streets don`t have names!

After our late lunch, we headed toward Ginza (the 5th Avenue of Tokyo) to check out the Sony store. I think it was rather anti-climactic for Andy. The displays weren`t as impressive as he expected, and there weren`t any really new gadgets. As we walked through Ginza we realized that the Japanese have it all, every brand name you can think of, they`ve got. There`s a huge underground corridor running through the entire district that connects all the stores. It`s mind-boggling to even understand. On top of that, every single corner houses some sort of eatery, soba, terriyaki, oden, sushi, tonkatsu, Japanized American food (looks...unappetizing), and of course French. I think they have an over infatuation with French food and culture.

On Saturday, we got an early start and headed to the Shinjuku Gyoen Gardens, which were an amazing contrast with the city. We visited the traditional Japanese portion of the garden and strolled the grounds in some much needed quiet. There was also a group of people performing a type of meditative exercise.

Before noon, we met with our free guide, Kohei, at our hotel. We hadn`t planned much for the day, and I asked him to take us anywhere he thought might be interested. Of course, we had to stop at this one particular soba house I had seen on Anthony Bourdain`s show, No Reservations. We took the Oedo line on the Tokyo Metro to Azabu-Juban, which was a lovely little neighborhood - an American equivalent of Virginia-Highlands.

The soba noodles were beyond exquisite. I almost ordered another bowl but settled for dry packs of soba to take back home with us. As we walked through the neighborhood, we came across a cute natural foods store and a soy coffeehouse.

Kohei thought it would be nice to walk up to Roppongi Hills. The "mall" was incredible. It had winding corridors of high-end shops. Think Phipps Plaza and Lenox Mall combined times about a hundred. We settled into a yasaiya or vegetable house and had drinks as Kohei and Andy swapped tips on iPhone apps.

We started getting hungry again, so Kohei took us to Tsukijishima, a little known artificial island in the Tokyo Bay that specialized in an Edo-cuisine called Monjayaki. It`s a little difficult to describe, it`s like an omelet cooked like a pancake with cabbage and corn. You can get different types of meats to go with it. It was tasty!

After our light dinner, Andy tried his hand at pachinko. Kohei described the rules of the game, and we sat there hypnotized as Andy pumped a little over ten dollars into the machine. It was loud and smoky, so we left satisfied that we hadn`t spent that much money in the parlor. We said goodbye to Kohei as it was getting dark. We went back to the hotel and called it an early night, missing out on Kabuki-cho and the Golden Gai (we`ll save it for next time).

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and went down to Harajuku to the Meiji-dori Shrine. We saw four weddings performed while at the shrine. It was a real treat! Afterwards, we went to go see the Froots, or girls who dress up on weekends. We ended up at the Togo Shrine where there was a monthly antique flea market going on. I kept wavering on a few different vintage kimono obis and decided to save my money. I wanted to be sure we didn`t get to our ryokan too late, so we headed to the Ueno area with our luggage.

I had stayed at the Ryokan Sawanoya with my mom before in 1999, and I wanted Andy to have the traditional inn experience. I think he was less than thrilled after we checked into our room. It was clearly much more provincial compared to our sleek, modern digs at the Hotel Sunroute in Shinjuku. After we settled in, we took a stroll around the neighborhood for dinner. This wasn`t an easy task. There weren`t any English menus or `faux`, plastic food to look at. We found a great sushi takeout place and took our sushi back to the ryokan. After a nice dip in the hotel bath, Andy seemed to buy into the ryokan experience a bit more albeit after a few drinks.

This morning, we got a late start, but we had reservations at noon at Bon, a fucha-ryori restaurant. They served a vegetarian, six-course lunch of winter melon soup, `eel`, tempura, and various other tidbits of delicious food bento-style.

After lunch, we took the train to Akihabara, the electronics district of Tokyo. We were inundated with games, manga, and computer goods. Yodobasi Camera was awesome, it was eight stories of cameras, computers, games, cds, and a driving range on the top floor!

On our way back from Akihabara, we stopped off at Ameyo, a lively market area selling off-brand goods and street food. We saw our first capsule hotel here! We decided to walk back to the ryokan through Ueno Park and watched as people came home from work and school. We picked up dinner at the same sushi takeout place.

We now have one full day left in Tokyo. The plan is to stroll through Ueno Park and visit some of the museums. They have several collections of Western art, as well as famous Japanese artists. If it`s not raining, we may even try renting a couple bicycles and ride up to Yanaka to visit a few temples and shrines.