Blogging Japan: Day 2, or Getting to Know You

We woke up early our first morning, about 7 am. Scott had to go out and take care of some banking issues (Bank of America put a freeze on our accounts, lame but understandable), so Aiden and I got ready for the day and watched insane kids' shows on TV. I mean, really crazy. Like, this crazy:

We wandered around Minami-shenju for awhile until we smelled good things coming from inside a small restaurant, so we stepped inside to eat. Troy took Japanese for several years (which has been really helpful so far), and asked the man "what's good to eat?" The cook just laughed, as Troy ended up actually saying something along the lines of "what do I like to eat?" He mimed his way through showing us how to order what we wanted. For the three of us, we ordered three miso soups, one fried onion croquette, two big bowls of rice, and three hot teas. The total was $6. And here we were worried about the high cost of eating in the city. It was really awesome food too; the miso soup was the best I've ever had. It had cabbage in it along with all the regular ingredients, and that made it so much tastier. We said thank you to the cooks and decided that we'll have all our breakfasts there while we're in Tokyo.





We got on the train, and after a few missteps and backtracking made it to our sight seeing destination for today, Electric Town. It was busy, but pretty cool. Lots of anime, gadgets, DVDs and toys. Lots of shielding Aiden's eyes from cartoon boobies. The only bummer was no one wanted to eat, and I kept passing all these amazing looking food places. Next time I'm just going to pig out anyway. I can't pass this stuff up.









Our plans for tonight are to eat dinner, and hit the karaoke bar down the street. If we get enough sleep, we're planing on heading to the Tsukiji Fish Market tomorrow morning for the best sushi breakfast in the world.

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Last night ended up being so crazy that I have to write about it.

On the recommendation of the hotel staff, we went to dinner at a traditional family restaurant down the street. It was the type where you took off your shoes and kneeled on the floor in front of the table. We ordered sake and asked the owner to give us what she thought we would like. We ended up ordering a simmering hot pan, cooked on a stove on the table, of tons of veggies, tofu, and pork. It was so amazing; there aren't even words. We had a ponzu sauce to dip it into that gave it a really nice, crisp after taste.







Aiden was the star of the restaurant though; he quickly gained the attention of the chef, who continued to bring him out goodies from the kitchen and visit with him. He even got two desserts, some ice cream and then a darling little chocolate/cake piggy.



We finished dinner and walked several blocks to a temple we heard was in the area. I had no idea what to expect, and it was so beautiful beyond anything I could have imagined. I'll let the pictures do the talking here:











In another display of the amazing Japanese hospitality, a random business man took us under his wing while we were at the temple and explained every last detail of it to us. It was truly awesome; we learned things we otherwise would have had no clue about, like the fact that we happened to be here at the time of a festival for the Buddha. This is one of the only times a year that the temple is actually open to the public, and though it was closed last night, we got to do some of the rituals, like "shaking hands with the Buddha" via a long series of ropes. That was pretty special.

He took us to a game in front of the temple, where you draw a stick with a number, open the corresponding drawer, and receive your fortune. I managed to draw a good fortune, which he was very happy for me about.



We said "arigato gozaimasu" to him, dropped Aiden and Scott off at the hotel, and hit the karaoke bar around the corner. And what a little karaoke bar it was.

It was clear from the start that it was a local bar; there were about four or five old men in there, one younger guy, and the woman owner. She gave us beer and some snacks, and we ate while listening to some of the super song stylings of our new friends. Of course we had to sing as well; we got several good songs in throughout the night. Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, Mack the Knife, Like a Virgin.



Part way through, a drunk and stumbling dude came in and sat right down with us. He said he was from Czechleslovakia (here in he shall be referred to as "The Czech"), and began yelling loudly that he wanted a beer and to sing David Bowwwwwwwwieee.

He started singing, and that was about the time Lindsey turned to me and said "this guy's full of shit, he's not Czech." She was 100% right; we called him on his crap and he admitted he was from America, especially after Troy read his work visa to him and told him where he was from. He was drunk and annoying, but a relatively big guy, so we basically put up with him and his weird stories/sexual advances the rest of the night.

Jan Bo was also quite the guy, a younger Japanese man than the other guys in the bar. He challenged us to a lot of singing contests (sadly, he won them all), and also to some arm wrestling (which he also beat me at).



We walked home, and The Czech followed, mumbling that he couldn't find his hotel. He went inside ours and asked for directions; on the way out he kept saying "this place is so much nicer than mine, and cheaper!" I really hope he doesn't show up here.

Later Troy and I were sitting outside on the porch and Jan Bo wandered by and sat down in from of us. He was really trying to tell us something, but we just couldn't understand. We thought at the time that he was wanting us to get him a room here; later, Troy talked to the front desk about it. Turns out he came in and was asking to make sure that we got home ok, since The Czech had followed us. Maybe we'll run into Jan Bo again before we go and buy him a drink.



I stumbled upstairs, got into my jammies, and then decided that a cup of ramen sounded really great. I headed back down the three flights of stairs to the living room, and walked into a pretty animated conversation about Nutella between a Frenchman and the Japanese hostess here. "Do you know Nutella?!" he asked me; heck yes I know Nutella! That got me wrapped up into a two hour long visit with those two, which was really fun and enlightening, since I got to hear two different foreigners' views of America. Alex, the Frenchman, told me that I didn't seem like an American, which actually was a really nice complement considering what they had just told me.

I finally headed upstairs with my cup of noodles at 2 am, took one bite, and decided they were too spicy and just went to sleep instead. I was awakened, very unhappily though very amusingly, but a battalion of Japanese men, marching in formation in the street under my window to a bullhorn. Nice wake up call.

Needless to say, we did not make it to the fish market this morning.