Tokyo - Day One

It's 5 am here and I'm learning the Japanese keyboard. My flights on Asiana Airlines were both good. They served two meals from lax to Seoul and one from Seoul to Tokyo. The food was good and the service was like what the airlines in the states USED to have. Makes me wonder why a Korean airline can do it and stay in business but United can't.

I took an express train from Narita (Tokyo airport) to the Ueno Park district where my Ryokan is ( Sawanoya - Traditional Japanese Inn ). Ueno Park has the zoo, a lake and some nice temples:

The Hotel Sofitel - Five Star Deluxe in a bizarre building


Ueno Park Lake


Ueno Neighborhood Street


There was a festival going on involving Japanese men wearing very short kimono's and carrying around a temple on stilts. I showered and headed out for dinner. Unago!! This place specialized in Eel and had a decent picture menu. I ordered a bento style meal - Bento is the box plates that have compartments, etc. - with Eel, mixed tempura, a vegetable bowl and bowl of mushroom Miso. Izuei. Delicious! Washed it down with a `beeru'. The bill was a slight shocker but I confirmed with my guidebook that it was within the price range they specified (3,300 Yen / $33 ). Looks like the budget is going to be $100/day - hopefully.

My room is very small but way cool. Traditional straw mat with a simple futon bed and a table and pillow for tea service:





No AC in the main lobby (where I'm typing this from) but I have AC in my room. Breakfast is from 7:30-9 consisting of toast and eggs with free coffee or tea.

I slept fairly well. Very suprising. I thought I would be all screwed up but I'm actually feeling pretty good. Not sure what I am going to do today but manana I will head out to Kyoto most likely. I didn't get up quite earlt enough to go the Tsujiki Fish Market - maybe Wed..

More to come...cheers!

Tokyo - Day Two

It's soooo freakin' humid here. I'm dying. Next time I will come in March or April when it's cooler.

This morning I was up at 5. Made myself lots of green tea and took a stroll down to a local Ueno district temple:

Ueno Temple






Back to Sawanoya for breakfast. I chatted with some Aussies who were on their way to Italy via Japan->London->Paris. I gave them the scoop on Il Brillo Parlante and a few other tips.

After breakfast I had my first subway ride to Ginza. The subway was easy, very efficient and on time. My train from Narita last night arrived exactly on time and left within 60 seconds cuz the clock still said 1:18. I bought a day pass (Y710/$7) which seems fairly reasonable. Went down to Ginza which is the shopping district and exited right near the Apple store. The new iMac's are in and look super cool:

Apple Store - Ginza




Later, back to Ueno to check out a crazy open air market and buy my Shinkansen (Bullet Train) tickets to Kyoto. I'll be there all day tomorrow.

More later this evening...right now I'm thinkin about gettin me some Soba noodles for lunch.

mmmm....Soba noodles. Went to my host's neighborhood noodle shop recommendation. It was empty when I got there. I started with Japanese Pickles, an assortment, and some kind of fish cake which was cold and chewy. Not too bad with a little wasabi on it. The shop filled up quickly and I ended up meeting an American guy working here for a few weeks and his Japanese `friend` (female). We are going to go out for drinks later this week. Woo-hoo, made some friends already!! For my main course I had buckwheat noodles with Duck broth (\1,425/$14). The broth had duck pieces as well as little meatballs and some nice big chunks of scallions. The noodles are served cold and you throw them in your broth before slurping into your mouth. Very tasty. Towards the end they bring out the hot water your noodles were cooked in and you pour it into your broth and drink down the newly made `soup`. Lunch was about $20 total.

After lunch I walked through Ueno Park. Today was a holiday which I did not realize until the American guy told me. That explains why traffic seemed pretty reasonable in Ginza today:

More Ueno Neighborhood




Got some ice cream on my way back and watched some Sumo wrestling on TV. Trying to stay awake till 8 or so so I can get onto a normal sleep schedule (went to bed at like 6 last night I think). Tomorrow I'm off to Kyoto.

Back to my air conditioned room...

Tokyo - Day Three

Japan, the land of Artificially Intelligent Toilets. The toilet in the lobby here has a feature whereby you can play a sound to cover up the sound of the toilet flushing. hmm. cool. So I flushed and then pressed the button. The sound-to-cover-up-the-sound-of-the-toilet-flushing, was, the sound of a toilet flushing!?!? Mkay. I need to get some closure on that one later...the toilet upstairs has the heating-of-the-seat feature on all the time but I think I may have figured out how turn that one off.

New word today is Ohayo Gonzaimasu (good morning). Obviously I'm a bit behind in where I should be in learning Japanese. I've been defaulting to saying konichiwa all day and night, which is not even close.

Off to Kyoto in a few hours. I will get a good luck sign at one of the temples at put it in an auspicious location for Julie and Katie to have good luck this week. Can't wait to hear the news!!

Mike and Julie's baby news

I will finish this post when I return tonight.

I rented a family in Kyoto. Tanaka-san and Mrs. Tanaka-san were nice enough to help me when I was lost and we ended up doing a mini-Temple tour together (more good meeting-people Kharma).

The Tanaka's



There are so many temples in Kyoto that we ended up only going to 4. Very interesting but you have to see the pics - wait till I post them I guess.

Kyoto Temple Pics











View of Kyoto



The Shinkansen was very fast and efficient but for the money I was expecting a bit more for my $235. The seats were small, although comfortable, and it was just barely air conditioned adequately.

Had a great glazed donut at Starbucks in Kyoto. The service was spectacular as usual. Everywhere I have been there has been top notch service. Everyone is always polite and understanding.

The train back was uneventful and I crashed back at the Sawanoya crib at about 11:30.

Tokyo - Day Four

mmmm...donuts. I found a killer breakfast place at the Ueno train station. They have pastries and coffee in a pleasant and easy to use atmosphere. They have what I honestly think is the best donut I have ever had - it was your basic filled donut with that fine dusting of sugar on top. The filling was some kind of sweet bean paste and it was amazing. I will be starting my morning off there from now on.

Today was my first attempt at finding an address in the maze-of-death-by-no-address city. It took me an hour or more of wandering around a 5 block area of Shibuja to find an internet cafe before I actually found the building, and, it was deserted. Closed down completely. No internet. No cafe.

Headed over to Tower Records and picked up a DJ Krush CD. Now it was time to try the Kanda Yabu Soba restaurant - a legendary soba noodle shop in the Akibara/Kanda prefecture. Another hellish trial of navigation, but, this time I was ALSO starving and getting very, very crabby at every dead end and missed street. I had to sit down and munch on a Cliff Bar (brought specifically for such an occasion) and then continue on. Finally I was successfull and boy was it worth it.

Great soba meal. I ordered a wasabi umi appetizer which is grated Yam paste with wasabi. It was kinda like a glob of white paste. Not bad. Next was a tasty bowl of grilled eel in hot soup broth with soba in the bowl, instead of seperate. I could tell the Eel was grilled over wood or charcoal. Washed it all down with a large beer which turned out to be a 40.

I met up with Igor for dinner in Shibuya. Unbelievably mobbed with people. Complete madness. There's a sea of people walking everywhere on every street.


Daytime Shibuya









Jay-Walk-Street-Crossing-Of-Death-By-Mob-Of-People



We went to a izakaya, which is essentially a Japanese pub but a bit upscale with good food. This one was quite cool inside with a tiered traditional seating area on the left as you walked down an into the place. The rest of the main floor is all traditional seating and we headed over to the bar. You eat tapas style here, ordering small dishes as you like. We started off with a asparagus pork roll skewer and then a pork kim-chi spring roll. Our next sampling was of yakatori, the meat on a stick bbq. style. One of the sticks was a strange, mystery meat but otherwise pretty good. After that - sake!! My first sake since arriving. Very tasty.

Walked around Shibuya a bit afterwords...

Tokyo - Day Five

Long day today. After having my now default breakfast of coffee and best-donut-ever, I made my way over to Akibara, aka 'Electric City'. This is the spot for doing electronics shopping - nothing too impressive as I wasn't in the market for anything.

Headed over to Ebisu Garden City where the Sapporo Beer Museum is. Beer!! That was a good or bad start to the afternnon depending on how you look at it. I had a fantastic meal after sampling the Sapporo flavors at the end of the museum tour. The restaurant was on the 39th Floor of Ebisu Garden Tower and had an amazing view of the city. My seat was right on the glass, looking southeast I believe. I had to point to the fake picture food menu out front but it was spectacular. A small set of sushi including, I think, octopus and two kinds of tuna, fried tempura salmon, miso soup, rice and a cooked white fish which I think was either swordfish or halibut. delicious and quite a bargain at Yen2,500 including 3 beers and an incredible view.


Ebisu Garden City





Later I stopped by Roppongi on my way to the much more interesting area of Shinjuku. Shinjuku is similar to Shibuya but a bit more raw. Lots of shops and neon craziness with a whole section of alley way stand up bars that are so tiny they only fit a few people. Shinjuku is where the red light district of Tokyo is. i found a small bar that was open (today was a holiday) and they were playing excellent music - Wes Montgomery quartet. I had a beer and Shochu, which is a strong alchohol that was made for and by peasants as a cheaper alternative to Sake. The Japanese mix it with tea. not bad.

totally exhausted now...going up to the room to watch some Sumo or something.

Tokyo - Day Six

No1 Best Sandwich!! More on that later. First, a quick rundown of my morning.

- went to the IMperial Gardens which were closed.
- went to the shopping area of Omote-Sando, wide blvd. lined with trees and expensive shops. tried to find a cool t-shirt shop but there was nothing so low-brow. i did find Condomania, the nutty-fun-wacky condom store.
-at the end of the blvd i hit meiji-jingu shrine, really on accident, but i'm so glad i found it. hands down the best shrine/temple i have seen yet. i'll put pics up later.


Meiji-Jingu Shrine

















- lunch at Kua 'Aina sandwich shop, home of the best burger from Hawaii. No1 Best Sandwich!! It was good - a damn tasty 1/2 pound burger with onions, and, i even ate it with mayonnaise on it.

Kua 'Aina

- walked around a bit more oggling Japanese women (oh, yeah i've been doing that this whole time...) and got some Haagen-daz green tea ice cream. yummy.

came back to blog, rest and then out again for my concert in Shinjuku...

John Zorn and Bill Laswell. Excellent concert with extra loud feature! Basically four excellent musicians making lots of noise together. I sat next to a woman who worked for a Japanese blues label and currently runs her own jazz label. She also works for Y! Japan in the media unit. Well connected, she is working with Chicagoan Jim 'Rourke on a project and knows DJ Logic and DJ Krush. She was working for laswell and Zorn and so I met some people through her. Laswell's manager and a guy who is writing a biography of him - not sure why as Laswell is really not famous famous. Anyway - most fortunate seating arrangement for western tourist man at concert. She liked my music and I will send her some CD's that she can forward to various people. Got to stay for the second set for free and got a cool t-shirt...

Tokyo - Day Seven

Slept in and then went over to the Tokyo National Museum, the Asian art museum complex. Got some cool postcards and saw some interesting stuff. Japan dates back to before Ancient Greece - amazing.

Next I tried for the second time to find a restaurant/bar in Omote-sando, and, once again, I failed. I walked down the same street at least three times all the while consulting two maps and I kept getting tripped up. Amazing how after that I managed to, without trying at all, find my way to an obscure back street that I was at on Friday. So much for maps...

Went back to the room and chilled for a while and watched Sumo wrestling. I actually started to get into it. It's pretty interesting when the match gets crazy and lasts more than 30 seconds. The ceremony surrounding the actual wrestling is interesting too. Next trip I will go to see it live.

Went out to an izakaya near the hotel for dinner. Since I was only one they seated me with two guys who, I have to assume, were gay as they kept asking me if I had a girlfriend and liked baseball (there were other signs as well). I let them order and we had some interesting hand signal gesture conversations that basically went nowhere. Grilled chicken on a skewer, grilled chicken skins on a skewer, a broth based bowl of veggies, meat, fish and tofu and more grilled chicked. Drank shochu tea and beer. Akira and his friend ended up paying. woo-hoo!

Torigen Izakaya

I am now off to the airport. Sayanora Tokyo!! I will post the epilogue from phx...

Tokyo - Epilogue and list of online travel resources for Japan

Finally, the long awaited conclusion to the seminal blog publication on Tokyo. So here are some thoughts on the best and worst of Japan.

Best:
- food. yummy, tasty seafood and noodle dishes that fill you up but don't clog your arteries (except for the world's greatest, no. 1 donut!!). i LOVE that i never once had to worry about anything being cooked or served with butter, cheese, sour cream or any other nastiness.. god bless the japanese for their shunning of dairy products.
- service, service and...service. the Japanese are always polite and considerate even while they probably despise you as a tourist and / or foreigner. the facade works for me. i also believe that most japanese truly are friendly and considerate.
- efficient transport. the trains and subway were always on time while i was there. literally, to the second. very clean as well.
- architecture. if you love the japanese aesthetic the you'll obviously love japan (duh). most of the restaurants and shops have a great attention to detail but also a very simple, clean style at the same time.
- fashion. the Japanese are way into fashion, including the men (the younger set at least). they have an interesting way of combining/fusing different styles from different periods and places into one, semi-cohesive, self created statement. the knee high, school girl look has been adapted and modified by women who want the sex appeal without having to enroll in high school again.

Worst:
- crowds. everywhere. all the time. non-stop. when i returned from Kyoto it was 11pm on a Tuesday night and the station and the streets were still jam packed.
- air pollution. i saw a few people wearing masks and a lot of people seem to have bad skin problems. i'm guessing the air pollution is pretty bad there.
- tiny spaces for tiny people?? Tokyo is a vertical city. many shops and clubs are actually located 5, 10 or 20 stories up from the street so not only is space limited and expensive, but it's difficult to find or discover places that aren't street level.
- humidity. nasty, nasty, and...nasty. it was worse in August according to Igor. can't even imagine.

Tokyo links:
Media Tinker - check the archive page for all the Japan topics. Awesome photos!!
Kristen - Media Tinker

another good blog by a former Tokyo resident
Justin's Japan

Easterwood blog. More awesome photos...
easterwood.org

Another Tokyo expat blog
Wirefarm

sigh...yet another good blog (cool aesthetic and photos)
anitpixel

Suggestions for Tokyo visitors
Japan blog comments

Sake Pub Crawl!!
Where in Tokyo to Drink Good Sake

Economist's City Guide
Economist: Tokyo

USA Today Guide
USA Today: Tokyo Travel Guide

Yahoo Travel - lots of tips and links here as well as hotel offerings
Y! Tokyo

Bullet Train (Shinkansen)
Shinkansen and other Japan tips

Japan National Tourist Organization
JNTO

Language tips
15 minute Japanese...

Great Translator - you'll need the Japanese character set installed
WorldLingo

UPDATE 3/1/2005: Sumo Tournament Schedule and Tickets
Nihon Sumo Kyokai Official Grand Sumo Home Page