tokyo: jetlag

Russ, Adam, and Pierre arrived about when I expected them to on Tuesday evening, claiming they'd found the hotel without any problems. I was rather impressed since my first time in Japan it took me an hour just to figure out how to get out of the airport. However, they were rather exhausted and jetlagged, having not slept one bit on the flight from Chicago. Nevertheless I lead them out to nearby Shinjuku for some dinner and drinks. After walking around a bit, we ducked into a small yakitori spot and were directed to the upstairs room which seated 10 people at most - about the same as downstairs. This place was not big. Fortunately they did have an English menu and so I ordered a variety of skewers to snack on with a couple beers. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, but they were also completely out of it - claiming that the building was rocking back and forth... Not good. After dinner we slowly made our way back to the hotel, stopping for one more beer along the way. Though no one was particularly hungry, we were informed that generally you have to order food with drinks towards the north east, and so we got some fried tofu to keep the wait staff happy.

Wednesday started relatively early. Everyone but me was up and ready to go at 7am. After I reluctantly rolled out of bed, we headed towards Asakusa – a district with one of the nicer temples in Tokyo. Unfortunately, it was currently being renovated, but the brisk breeze and sun made it an enjoyable stroll through the temple grounds. Seeing as we hadn't really eaten much of a breakfast, we then went to a noodle shop for some soba for an early lunch. This was a typical fast food spot, where you order your meal from a vending machine that spits out a ticket with your order. You then take the ticket to the counter where they prepare your order and then call it out for you to pick up when it's ready. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense till you do it, and then you realize that, like all things in Japan, it's relatively efficient.

We then made our way onto the river boat cruise which leaves from the nearby docks and made our way south along the river towards the Hama-rikyu Gardens, which are near Ginza. After a brief stroll through the park we hopped back onto the train and went to straight to Akihabara – Tokyo's noisy electronics district. There we went from store to store exploring the weirder sides of japanese culture. Arcades, comic book stores, hobby stores, huge electronics stores and more, this is certainly one of the more entertaining areas of Tokyo to walk through. Somewhat tired from all the walking, we slowly made our way back to the Hotel, stopping for a beer and a bowl of noodles along the way.

That night we went back to Shinjuku, in the hopes that perhaps this time, everyone would be a little more awake. We started off in another yakitori type place which was rather inviting and had a nice soundtrack of blues to accompany the food and beer. Highlights included pork cheek skewers and a beverage that goes by Hoppy. Apparently (as we found out later) this is a drink for people who can’t afford beer. You get a class of Sochu and then top it off with a extremely lightly flavored beer-like beverage. It wasn’t bad, but also not that great. We continued on into Shinjuku, and popped into an Izikaya next, for a few more beers and a bit more food. This time all ordering occurred on a touchscreen at the table. Luckily, though everything on the screen was in Japanese, it also included a number of pictures, and we were given a paper menu with translations. With all this in hand we were able to order everything we wanted, though not without almost asking for the check before the meal had started. Here we got rice w/ ketchup topped with an omelet and more ketchup, sashimi, potato croquettes, beer & sake. We stayed quite a while before retreating to the hotel in anticipation of the early morning wake up call to get to Tsukiji fish market.

The next morning we woke up relatively early, checked out of the hotel and made our way to Tsukiji fish market. This is one of the most remarkable places in Tokyo, with constant commotion from 5AM to 11AM. We arrived at 7:30ish and took a stroll through the market, dodging the constant stream of carts moving to and fro, taking in all the weird sea creatures, and working up an appetite. By 8:30 we were ready for breakfast sushi and so we made our way to one of the many sushi shops around the market. Adam and Pierre got the sashimi plate, while I got the 10pc tasting. Both were very good, but Pierre and I were both scolded by the owner. Pierre had apparently poured too much soy sauce in his saucer while I was dipping the rice into the soy sauce instead of the fish... oops. Meanwhile Russ who doesn’t eat fish was promptly asked not to sit at the counter since he wasn’t ordering. The sushi was pretty good, but the owner could have been a tad bit nicer. That’s it for Tokyo for now. Next up Hiroshima for me while the others go to Kyoto for a couple days.