Tokyo Trip: Day0123
From www.ChopStork.com
Day One (12/23 to 24/04)
Peterman and I rode a plane for a long time. But it was a brand new cool plane. It had screens in each seat. A lot of planes have that now, you say. Aaaah, but you could tell these screens you wanted to watch your movie any time you wanted! And pause and rewind. It's like Tivo on a plane! And, you could play games against other people on the plane. Peterman and I enjoyed quite a few games of Reversi (aka Othello) while sipping our Chilean Cabernet. We arrived in Narita too soon, cuz we didn't get to watch all our movies.
After a two hour drive home from the airport - the airport's far and traffic sucked - we had some dinner, walked around Roppongi, and went to sleep. And then woke up at 4 in the morning. Jet rug. I thought I would get "the other" jet lag, but I seem to be pooping fine. The other jet lag might be healthier in my case*.
-A.J.
Day Two (12/25/04)
So uh, it's hard to sleep in when your body thinks it's 3 in the afternoon. A.J. and my first full day in Tokyo. It also happens to be christmas day at the Maher household. A couple of things that are probably different than other families christmas: 1. You can't understand what anyone is saying 2. The Maher's are super generous and supplied me with my first ever stocking. I have all kinds of Japanese candy I might be willing to share with you if you are nice to me. 3. The Maher cats like to flip over remote control cars. 4. The family won't wait to open presents for anyone, too bad if your dad isn't downstairs yet, christmas presents must proceed.
After a breakfast of ochazuke (rice with green tea and seaweed and salmon) we were headed to the sword museum in the neighborhood of Shinjuku. One important note about Japan, new years is a big deal. So big in fact that sword museums close from Dec. 25 to Jan. 4. Strike one for the good guys. So we just decided to walk around. But first things first. We needed 136 Yen Sushi (basically $1 sushi per plate). Super good. The hot tea is piped to your table. Cool.
Next we head off to find the Hanazono Shrine. Not as easy to find as you might think. Question: How many college educated people does it take to find a shrine in Shinjuku? Answer: More than A.J., DP, and Hampton. It's not good when your Japanese friends can't read the signs either. Fortunately we made it. There are some important rules when visiting shrines. Apparently the sign translater was from the junior varsity.
Off to find some Pachinko. Of course we pass 50 pachinko places when we are looking for a shrine, but we can't find one when we are looking for them. Finally we stumble onto a place. Step 1. Find 3 machines next to each other. Step 2. figure out where to put the money in. Step 3. Figure out how to get the balls out of the machine. Step 4. hit every button possible and pretend you know exactly what you are doing. Step 5. lose every ball you have in 4 minutes. Nice!
Finally we decide to do something productive and get some good pictures of a garden. Shinjuku-Gyoen Garden was the one chosen. Japanese important fact number 2 for the day: some parks in Japan close at 4:30. But we did get a really nice view through the sharp fence.
Final statistics for day 2: $35 worth of dollar sushi eaten, 0 sword museums visited, 0 gardens/parks visited, 5000 pachinko balls lost in 4 minutes, 1 hot drink and 5 cold drinks bought from vending machines, 1 Kanji learned: "big". All in all a pretty good day.
-DP
Day Three (12/26/04)
Yet another day in the land of the rising sun. A little trivia: the word Japan in Japanese is composed of two characters, the sun character, and the origin character, meaning where the sun originates. If you really want to impress your friends you can tell them the origin character is also the character for book. Breakfast is a bowl of rice with karashi mentaiko or codfish eggs on top. What exctiting activity will the protagonists of this story do today? AJ and Hampton need to renew their Japanese drivers licenses. We are off to the Japanese DMV.
The entire Maher family* packed in the trusty car (with the steering wheel on the right side) with the japanese tunes cranked. After some spirited discussion of how to get to said DMV we finally made it. Readers, it brings warmth to my heart to know that one country's bureaucracy is just as big a pain in the ass as anothers. After the better part of an hour the Maher brothers returned semi-victorious from the other room. The bureaucracy would not be beaten easily however, and a return trip to the DMV is necessary to pick up the licenses tomorrow. However this "quiet time" allowed me to read up on Kyoto. Hopefully we can get our act together and visit there later in our saga. Which brings us to the next adventure. We all piled back into the car and headed to the Sanno Hotel (an American Military Hotel).
After showing ID at the front gate we were all allowed into the Sanno Hotel, where American military personnel stay. They had some good stores to buy Japanese wares. They had an excellent wood block print art selection and AJ and I picked up some prints. I might be done with the majority of my gift shopping on day 3. Thank God! After Hampton tried on a reversible woman's hat, we decided it was probably time to leave. Off to lunch.
After pulling into a not-parking-space with half of our car blocking the pedestrian cross walk (thank god for diplomatic plates) we all walked to the family favorite lunch spot for some Gyoza. It was an excellent meal. I highly recommend it if you are in Harajuku. It was time to visit the pride and joy of Japan, the toy store.
Now I've been to a lot of toy stores in my life, but very few of them have been 5 stories tall. My overall impression is that Japanse people prefer their toys to move. Almost everything was battery operated and moving: from crazy creatures in a box that appear when you knock on it, to plants that sway, to head bobbers, to remote controlled soccer playing robots. There were star wars legos (the AT-AT for you dorks out there), but I couldn't afford the $240. My personal favorite was the toy stuffed animal camp fire. I can't do it justice but just imagine 3 fuzzy fleece logs attached to a yellow and red furry animal that resembles a camp fire. Don't ask me?!!! Now we had to move on to our serious shopping. The samurai sword store.
We entered the store, and I instantly knew I was not going to be able to afford these swords. The sales person was extremely friendly and helpful, but when he pulled out the white gloves for us to hold the swords, we all knew we were in trouble. New swords are not allowed to be made in Japan any more, but these swords were identical to the orginal ones with the exception that the blades weren't forged. So after you cut a couple peoples heads off you aren't going to be able to sharpen your sword. However the handles were real shark skin, and all the braiding was pure silk. They were beautiful. Maybe next time I'm in Japan I'll have the $800. So back to "The Compound" we went, another day of seeing the sites, hearing the sounds, and smelling the smells in Tokyo. For those keeping track I've learned the following characters in Japanese: mountain, river, mouth, sun, book/origin, six, three, and goods. AJ also showed me the character for beer but my feeble brain couldn't remember the 3 characters. Tomorrow I will make it a priority.
PS. Ask AJ or I sometime what happens when a christmas tree falls from the 11th floor of a building. It's a pretty interesting sight.
*Not quite the entire family. AJ's sister was out clubbing until 4:30 am the night before so she couldn't quite make it to the DMV. On a side note she has been out all night twice since we have been here, making her much, much cooler than AJ and myself.
-DP
