More of Tokyo Day 1

It's pretty amazing how every sliver of space is put to use in this city. We were walking around in the Akihabara district and I notice a line of shops was built into and under an overpass and bridge. The bridge supports formed the main walls of the buildings. Also, every alley way, no matter how narrow or winding, had shops and signs just like the main streets. The taxi driver that Aiko hired for us took a couple short cuts through some of these back alleys as he drove us around the city. I'm sure he did it to avoid heavy traffic on the main streets, but both Angie and I were glad he did so we could see a little more of what city life is like here in Tokyo.



I posted earlier that while it was hot and humid, it wasn't oppressively so. Wrong. It was crazy hot yesterday and felt like a sauna at times. Everyone had small hand towels or handkerchiefs to keep the sweat at bay. Hopefully today will be a little more comfortable. On the other hand, we know Beijing is going to be hotter and more humid. I don't see that we could ever get used to this kind of weather. I don't think the Japanese are all that used to it either. Every shop, car and indoor space had the air conditioning on high and cold.

One of the things Angie and I both noticed about being surrounded by so many people but not being able to understand what they are saying is that it is very easy to allow the din to become almost white noise and ignore it. It was interesting when we'd be walking around and all the sudden hear a snippet of English conversation. Even if it was quiet and from a distance, it would grab our attention.

A couple other things:

The taxi doors are automated and controlled by the driver. I kept opening and closing them out of habit and the driver seemed to be getting a little irritated with me. It took 3 or 4 times before I started to remember to let the door alone.

The crows sound different. They look the same, but aren't as harsh sounding.

While we were walking around Shinjuku last night, there were people standing out in the walkways handing out flyers and menus trying to get people into their shops. We weren't the target market apparently because we didn't get handed anything.

There was a 3-person jazz group performing outside one of the entrances to Shinjuku station. They were actually pretty good. It was a little odd to be hearing soft jazz in a crowd of people with construction going on and heavy traffic on the street.



Today, we're heading out into the suburbs on the train. Hopefully it will be a little cooler.

First Day in Tokyo

Well, we had a good night's sleep, but still were up at 3:30-4:00 am. We tried to go back to sleep, but ended up getting up and going to the Fitness Room at 5:00 am ish. It's a small, not very well ventilated room, but it has a great view, a water vending machine and we managed to get in a good workout on a combination of stair stepping machines and treadmills.

We had no idea what to do for breakfast, so we wimped out and ordered room service.

We had made arrangements to meet up with Scott's friend from high school, Aiko, at 10:00 am. She surprised us and showed up with a hired car for the day. Air-conditioned, thankfully. Her husband works for a large company and often entertains foreigners and insisted that she do so. It was wonderful! It's so hot and humid here that it was nice to drive around, see stuff, get out and walk around but have the nice air-conditioned car to come back to. Plus the driver was extremely knowledgeable and was able to help Aiko out with our questions.

First, we drove around a district famous for being full of tech shops. We got out and walked through a couple of shops. One was for toys and was awesome. I love the way shops are here in Tokyo. They seem to focus on one single item and line both major roads and alleyways. They are also bright, colorful and crowded with merchandise. It's fun to go in and browse. The shopkeepers don't seem to need to know English if you are holding merchandise in one hand and yen in another. They get what you want!

Next we drove over to Akakusa Kannon Temple and Nakamise Shopping Arcade. Scott has some nice pictures. The Temple gate has a huge lantern and is protected by the gods of Wind and Thunder. Once you pass the gates, you enter the shopping arcade. It's a little like Pike Place Market on steroids. Plenty of stuff to buy, snacks to try. Aiko bought us some fresh made rice crackers and some sort of sweet that had batter on the outside and some sort of sweet bean paste on the inside. Yes, I tried both. I liked the rice crackers best.



Past the market, we entered the actual Temple. It is a working Buddhist Temple. They had a "wishing well" sort of area where you could toss in coins and make a wish. We wished to get our hands of some Closing Ceremony tickets! Scott also had his fortune told. You shake a container of sticks with numbers on them and then pull one out. Scott's literally flew out of the container and hit him in the face. He received a good fortune that said his wish would be granted. Yay!

Next, because Scott had expressed an interest, we stopped by an arena where small sumo competitions are held. They don't have any matches going on now and all the matches in September are completely sold out. Scott has a great picture of him as a sumo. We went inside to a small sumo museum and Scott got an autograph handprint of the grand champion sumo.



Next we went to the Toyko Central Train Station. It's being a bit remodeled, but it was built based on a train station Amsterdam according to Aiko. Very traditional European design. Speaking of architecture, Tokyo has some very eclectic architecture and some very amazing buildings. It's interesting to see a cutting edge building right next to one that's been around for hundreds of years. More European designed stuff than I would have expected.

Next we had lunch. We had tempura and it was good. I managed to use chopsticks for the whole lunch. Scott had to switch to a fork. Scott ate raw tuna and I, da-da-da, ate shrimp. It was very nice. I've noticed that a lot of the restaurant seem to serve a single type of food and are very small - maybe seating 20-30 - and then there will be like 15 different restaurants in one place. They also have you sit on chairs outside the restaurant if they don't have a table available.

After lunch we walked around the Imperial Palace. They don't let you go very far into the grounds because the Imperial family lives on the grounds. The ground are extremely well maintained. There are a series of gates, walls and moat-like ponds throughout the grounds.



Lastly, we headed over to the Toyko Tower. It looks like the Eiffel Tower just painted bright orange and white. We rode the elevator to the first observation area and Scott took pictures. The line to go up to the top observation was way too long. After looking around, we went to go ride the elevators down. However, the line was very long so we decided to walk down the stairs. Not our brightest idea given the heat, but we made it to the bottom. My legs were shaking and weak when we made it down.



Aiko then dropped us off at the hotel. She needed to get home for something. We arranged to meet up again the next day. Her daughter, Sally, may be joining us tomorrow. We are going to take the train to the old Capital (we think).

We both were in need of a shower. So we went to our room, showered and fell asleep. I think maybe the remains of jet lag.

We got up about 6:00 pm determined not to utilize room service and went out to forage for food. We had hoped to catch the subway and head to Shibuya, where a famous intersection is. It is the neon crazy intersection you always see on T.V. We did pretty good in that we eventually found the station for the subway, however, we were unable to determine how to buy a ticket or where to go to actually get on the subway. There were no English ticket vending machines to help us out and everyone looked too busy to help us. Being still kind of tired, we elected to pass on Shibuya and headed to a local shopping mall, Times Square. It's like 14 floors of stores, booths, and food. Kind of overwhelming and all the salespeople are extremely deferential and it made us a bit uncomfortable.



We tried to find food, but it was very difficult to find a menu in English and I'm way too picky and timid about food. We ended up making our way back to the hotel and eating at one of the restaurants in the basement of the hotel. It was a buffet style restaurant and I ended up eating a lovely white curry that was extremely tasty. I tried some other things but didn't find anything else I liked. I even passed on the desserts (I know!). I tried a couple, but they weren't very sweet and tasted a bit funky to me.

It was then off to bed so we could rest up for tomorrow.