My real impressions of Tokyo

So, I made it to 7 am this morning. Not too shabby for only your second day being 13 hours ahead of your normal body's schedule. I think it partly is due to our extremely long day yesterday and partly due to the fact that we didn't go to bed until 1. Either way, I'm not complaining. Dave is still sleeping (of course) so I thought I would come down here and give some more detail on my take on Tokyo.

We both love this city. Can't explain exactly what it is, but it's amazing. When we first stepped off the plane, minus the japanese characters everywhere, it really looks like every other airport in the states. Until I got to the bathroom. I walked into the ladies room and went into the first stall, bidet. Not what I was looking for. The next stall, a small canal in the floor leading into a small hole, DEFINITELY not what I was looking for. Finally a "normal" western stall. This was my first introduction to Tokyo. But I have to say, everything is extremely clean. The bathrooms were spotless. Even the small sushi place we ate at yesterday on the side of the market was spotless. From what we've seen, they definitely take pride in their city here.

The people are also extremely friendly. On the train, everyone kind of closes their eyes and slips into their own world, however, while walking around and especially while trying to order food or get your ticket for the train, if they see you struggling even a little bit, they will just walk over and help. Whether they speak English or not. We've had some really nice people help us and last night met a clerk at the store who was hysterical. Wanted to practice his English and when he found out that we were from DC (we are still struggling as to where to tell people we're from ) he responded with 'Obama' 'Yes we can' 'Change is needed'. The tourists are also really friendly. We've run into several different groups and have gotten some useful information from them. Also led one couple to the fish market (see yesterday's blog) and gave a guy directions on how to get to the airport after only being in this town for 10 hours.

The other thing I will say about Tokyo is that everything is to the extreme. We are apparently staying in one of the more traditional areas of town named Asakusa. It's a nice area, which we will explore today and blog about later. However, when we got off the train at the Ueno station, everything was bright lights. Entire streets were lit up and huge TVs were on the sides of buildings. This was especially so in areas like Shibuya and Shinjuku. At the fish market, the smells, sounds and sites all were to the extreme. Plus, since space is such a premium, everything in the hotel room is miniature. Somehow, they are able to fit a bed, 2 trashcans, a tv, radio, coffee pot, tea set, and all the rest of the normal neccessities into a room smaller than our old storage space. It's amazing, but it works and we still have room for our luggage and to walk about.

Well, I know we like to do long posts, so I'll end here for now. I'll talk a little more tonight about the food presentation here, so just keep posted (you know who I'm referring to :) .

The longest day that ever was

First off- a question. I was born on June 12th at 3:00pm EST. When is my birthday? In 8 minutes it is June 12th here. But it is June 11th back home. And when it is June 12th at home, it will be June 13th here. Did I find the nexus of the universe? Do I not exist? I don't know. I do have a guess that they sell a laptop here smaller than Carrie's hand that do the calculations for me. Regardless, I appreciate the 4 birthday cakes before I left (technically 3 cakes and a chocolate cream pie), but I am going to do the easiest thing and just skip my birthday. I will now be 30 next year. Someone tell my gray hairs.

So, the alarm went off at 3:45 this morning. I definitely thought that without Starbucks, I would never set my alarm for that time ever again! Of course, thanks to jet lag, Carrie had been lying restless before that so we got up and out quick. What does one do in Tokyo at 5 am? The same thing that happens on the Mass turnpike when you first move to Boston- we got lost. Fortunately, I purchased the Garmin Carrie 500 and she navigated us thru the mean (friendly) streets of Tokyo to Tsukiji (Ski-gee).

Tsukiji is the famous Tokyo fish market. The most famous part is the Tuna auction. However, to get to said Tuna auctions you need to walk through the stalls of wholesale sea food (live eels, sea urchins, and enormous clams oh my!). The Garmin Carrie 500 however took us through the delivery entrance that was bustling with carts and trucks, none of whom paid any attention to our safety. When we made it past the hazards, and past the stalls, we encountered (along with the Californian couple that followed the Garmin Carrie 500) a smallish door labeled visitors entrance. We walked in to a very cold warehouse and found enormous frozen tunas on the floor. Men were walking around poking and prodding the fish, cutting a section of the tail off to see the meat, and writing in the frost that was covering the fish. Then the auction started, which consisted of a long bell ringing, one guy shouting a bunch, and a few Japanese cooks trying to appear disinterested while bidding on the fish they wanted. Take a look at the video...


We neglected to mention that it is 50 or 60 degrees, and with a steady rain. We packed for (and were dressed for) 90-100 and humid. Hmm. Cold, wet, and smelling like Tuna. There is no place like home, no place like home, no place like...Starbucks. We needed someplace warm with caffeine, and truthfully, there weren't any Japanese original coffee houses around, so we went to what we know. And we needed to wait near the fish market till 8:30 for our breakfast sushi place to open. I must say that if Starbucks USA was more like Starbucks international, my stock would be more like it was a couple years ago. But enough about that.

We didn't find the sushi place listed in our Japan tour book (note to self: don't bring books that are 4 years old). Instead, we found some random place with 2 Americans sitting there who told us what to order. Good thing, since without help we stood a good chance of eating nothing. (ok-changing the typer). Food was great and luckily we didn't do anything too stupid this time. Who knew raw fish could be so tasty at 8:30am.



After, the Garmin Carrie 500 (ok, last time this joke will be used, but remember, it came with us everywhere, thankfully) navigated us to the Hama Detached Palace Gardens nearby. The most amazing tea house was located here, along with gorgeous flowers and birds. Amidst the busy city, this place ws extremely relaxing and as Dave would put it, ''very zen''. We wondered around here for an hour or so, stepping in mud and navigating around huge puddles, but taking great pictures along the way.


We continued our tour of Japan's gardens in the rain and walked back across the area to the Imperial palace gardens (with a brief shopping stop - no mom's, haven't bought anything yet, but the stores were great). We saw a small portion of the imperial palace as well as the famous double bridge. Guess that's the closest we'll ever be to an emperor.
(author change again).
Lunch came next in Shijuku (Tokyo Times Square- except they have a lot of Times Square type places). A completely disorienting experience. Add 1 part jet lag, 1 part exhaustion, 1 part foreign country, 1 part hunger, 1 part expired book = bad time finding food. But, eventually we found a random place, got help with the ordering system from a random guy, at some random ramen noodles, and had a randomly great lunch. We mastered the art of eating with a spoon in the left hand, chopsticks in the right.

Post lunch was the most relieving experience of the day. We went home and napped. Got home and asleep at 4:30, turned off the alarm by mistake at 6, woke up at 7, got up at 7:15, and went off to dinner in Shibuya.

Dinner stunk. Ok- didn't stink- but was an 'experience.' Ordering food here has to be the most intimidating thing we've ever done. The menus are rarely in English, the staff doesn't speak a lot of English, and half the time you can't tell what the pictures are. What to do? Order beef and chicken. Can't go wrong. Or can you...

Let's start with the environment. We went to Amber Cafe by recommendation. Apparently there are two floors because the website mentioned a beautiful seating area, etc, and we sat in a 5 table space with mismatched seats and filled with smoke. Then the food came. The chicken was actually ok by my measure, really good by Carrie's. The beef. The beef. How to describe the beef. Rare. Seared on the outside. Barely. And rare. Did I mention rare- it took almost 5 minutes to chew one piece. Didn't finish it. And I always finish my food (otherwise I get sent to my room with no dessert). When we were done, the waiters came over with a Chinese menu, said something to us that we didn't understand. We looked at them, they looked at us. We think we had ordered appetizers, and they wanted us to order dinner. No clue. Still chewing beef. Check please.

Dinner part two was sad. I was so hungry, and didn't want to waste a significant portion of our budget on a second dinner. So I went to McDonalds and got a quarter-pounder. Don't judge me. I love Japanese food. I just needed something to fill me up. Stop staring.

And now we are done with the day. We are tired, and slowly realizing that our idea of fun is coming home and writing in a blog. A lot. But, you won't see the episode of Locked Up Abroad staring Dave and Carrie (knock on wood). So there. Random Pics of stuff we saw (a shrine happened upon)...

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We made it!

So we fired up the flux capacitor (if you don't know what I am talking about, just give a slight chuckle and keep reading) and zoomed 13 hours ahead of most of you. Our flights were good- we were delayed in Newark for an hour (after already waiting in the airport since 4:30 am) and missed our connection in San Fran to Tokyo. But, we were automatically rebooked on a flight two hours later- just enough time for us to purchase 2 sandwiches and a bag of chips for $25! No upgradges available (too scared to pull the fake honeymoon thing) but on both of our flights we had an empty seat next to us!

Then we got to Tokyo. Before we even left customs I got in trouble for taking pictures. Of course, I didn't know that I was in customs still- not my fault! A nice hour long train ride into the city- A great sight-seeing opportunity except we both dozed off. Tokyo was surprisingly 'familiar' when we were first walking around. There is a Starbucks here of course- they sell a Coffee Jelly Frappuccino that I am not too sure about but will probably try before I leave. Carrie did a great job of navigating us to our hotel and we took much needed showers. Then off to dinner.

Hmm. Dinner. This is when Tokyo got a little unfamiliar. We were directed by our hotel to a conveyor belt-style sushi place that hardly had an english menu (and no English speaking staff). Being sushi experts, we knew what 30% of the sushi plates that came around were. When we first sat, after identifying where the chop sticks, ginger, soy sauce, and wasabi were located, we proceeded to get our meal ready. We mixed the wasabi in with the soy sauce (the wasabi was a weird powdery version), and got eatin'. Half way thru the meal we got thirsty (it is hard to order drinks if no one knows what you are saying). We looked around, and saw someone put the wasabi in a cup and fill it with hot water. Hmm. Strange. They don't do that at Momo's in Alexandria. We exchanged strange looks with each other, and I muttered under my breath that I think we put green tea powder in our soy sauce. But what if I was wrong. Did I really want wasabi flavored tea? Carrie tried it. Tea. Not wasabi. A little bit embarrased. But, green tea soy sauce is good. Really good.

Now we are back at the hotel. No late night tonight. Some residual motion sickness and extreme tiredness. Fish market tomorrow. More sushi. Mmm.