Tokyo final installment

Acclimatizing to our new time zone took awhile. Sandee needed to take naps mid afternoon or was staring at me, willing me to wake up at 5am in the morning after having read for a few hours.

That leads to us being on the streets before the coffee shops open and thus depriving me of my wake-up brew.

After our first morning expedition to the Tsukiji fish market and all following first day activities reported before, we woke up our second day and took a subway ride to the famous electronics neighborhood called Akihabara,

The anime maids

where we arrived long before 10am, when most establishments open for business, finding an early crowd of "anime" devotees lining up, in of course an orderly fashion, for their favorite cafe, where they would be able to enjoy the company of "maids" (young girls dressed in and with the make up of people's favorite game icons).

There they also supposedly can enjoy the computer games in the company of those living icons. When we returned late in the day we encountered the girls as well as the game devotees clad in their prized possessions. A whole glass walled conference space with a crowd seated on the floor was entertained with lectures about their passion.

We then ventured to the Meiji Temple where we witnessed weddings and Shinto rituals. We surely hope that our ritual prayer offerings and the prayer written on our devotional tablet will come true. Considering that Shinto recognizes 18 million gods we should have a reasonable chance of receiving our wish.

A walk in the Meiji emperors gardens was calming and Sandee got the chance to have a peanut eaten by a little bird out of her hand. The metro station was crowded with people holding signs up and many ladies passed us by with "come here" Tshirts. The unanswered mysteries of the East.

We use a reloadable pass when traveling on public transportation which is valid for the whole country. And one can pay with the card for entrance fees to parks and theaters, as well as on taxis. Efficient, I almost thought I was in the Netherlands.

In the evening after a mid afternoon slumber we went to a ramen shop. Local street food is specialized, whether it is ramen or sushi or japanese steak or tempura. Many of these establishments use coin machines and pictorial menus to order. After depositing enough money in the coin machine a colored token handed to the chef behind the counter will indicate what you ordered

We made the mistake of allowing garlic, which turned out to be a spoonful of raw garlic dumped into our bowls, making the ramen almost inedible.

Another night we ventured out to seat ourselves in a japanese only establishment with no pictures and muttered: "sashimi". They suggested another item in Japanese to which we said "hai". It turned out to be tempura.

In our quest to try food we entered for Sunday lunch a place after getting lost near an international hospital called St Luke's and there I tried, after a regular tuna tartar, a 6 dollar piece of sushi called "Ark". I found later that it was a prized red clam that is a provider of lots of hemoglobin, something my doctor says I don't have enough of. But at those prizes? To offset the expense I took another unknown entity a "shiokara" sushi for a buck. That turned out to be boiled squid entrails.

 

After visiting Tokyo's most famous Buddhist Senso-ji temple which was way too commercial for us, we found in an alley a food place that sold a lunch menu for ten bucks each, that included 12 oz of beer, 1 gyusugi and 5 takoyaki balls

To be safe I ordered the other lunch option with beer that consisted out of 3 pieces of fried chicken and fries with ketchup. Sandee took one whiff of my takoyaki balls and waived them away. When back at the hotel the Internet told me that I had one stick of beef tendon and 5 octopus tentacle balls. And people always tell me that once you visit Japan, Japanese food in the USA is below par! I must admit though the stuff was hot and chewy and the flour crust was tasty. So as long as you don't look it up it may be a grand experience.

We ventured into a park nearby our hotel to board the local waterbus on the Semida River that divides Tokyo in north and south sections. Beautiful views at high prices, so we abandoned the trip early.

Everywhere in downtown Tokyo at major pedestrian crossings are bowing crossing guards. Never visit the imperial gardens on Mondays or Fridays, because you won't be able to cross the moat into the gardens. We witnessed however ongoing processions of tour guides with their guide flag up high in the air bringing 50 or more Japanese or maybe Chinese or maybe Koreans, in any way Asians, to the moat where the cameras start clicking picturing dirty water and a stone wall.

 

Why oh why do they do that?

For those of you that wonder what happened during our visit at the Happy Tipsy English meeting? Not much, we met in a 800 sq ft apartment where about 10 Japanese youngsters and a Canadian owner of the apartment meet monthly. They talked to us in English that was way too good and none of them got tipsy. But Sandee had someone write a note about her allergy issue. A very handy note we now use wherever we dine as we don't know what we eat most of the time.

Our next blog is about the Shinkansen and Hiroshima.

 

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