Mission Complete!

This post is purely for my own preening. My goal for January was to post more often (especially since I had half of January off and a lot of back stories to write about).

Once I got to 23 posts in 22 days, I thought "hell, might as well have 31 posts in 31 days."

I hope it wasn't too obvious that I was stretching for stories there at the end, but I have managed to reach my new and improved goal. This here is post 31!

Don't get your hopes up, though... I will try not to be as lazy as I was towards the end of last year, but I have no intention of posting quite this much again in the near future. Phew...

Oh, and don't be shy out there. If you are reading the blog and want to leave a reply, feel free. I know my grandmother reads this blog, but its always nice to know that others drop in on occasion too. :)

(Michelle gets the prize for being the only person to post on this month! I was very happy. - Wait, I take that back. Someone posted a link to porn, too. So Michelle and Porn Guy posted. Porn Guy has been blocked.)

Here's to another year of adventures.

Piranha Cafe

Some times you accidentally find the most wonderful places.

Today is Sunday in Japan and our favorite cafe, Cafe Kei, is closed on Sunday. This has often resulted in caffeine withdrawal for us on this day of rest. I had, however, noticed a little cafe that wasn't ever too busy close to the local grocery store. A few Sundays ago, I specifically looked to see if it was open and was happy to see that it was. Perfect! We had a place to get coffee on Sunday.

This morning, Russell and I set off to try it out. Unfortunately, when we arrived it was closed. We looked at the times posted and all it said was that it opened at 11:30am and was closed on holidays and Mondays. That meant it should be open at 12:00 on a Sunday, right? No luck. They must have stayed home today.

In the meantime, Russell had assumed that I was talking about a different cafe that he had spotted some time back. We walked around another corner and found Piranha Cafe. it looked cute but small. I wasn't sure if there were any seats inside, but we went in anyway. It turned out there were seats in the back. The host was a bit taken aback to see two foreigners walk in, but he hid it quickly and burst into "gracious host" mode. He had a very cute apron and Pageboy cap on. We took a seat.

Once we sat down, we took in our surroundings a bit. The cafe was cute with lots of sketches of happy piranhas with big teeth, some photography hung on the walls and little knick knacks and funny things to look at. There was a book on people who look like their cats, a sign to the bathroom that read "Ou et le toilet?" followed by directions in Japanese. There was also a random cable poking through the wall about a half inch and a question mark and arrow pointing to it painted on the wall. The place had a lot of character.

So did the host. We ordered a coffee and a latte. We could hear him grinding the beans and, steaming the milk and all the things you would expect to hear from someone who was actually making your cup of coffee from scratch. He came back after a few minutes with little trays. Each tray had a two heart-shaped short break cookies, a smiley-faced spoon and a cup of coffee. My latte had a smiley face design on the top. (See photo). It was adorable. When we left, he was just pulling some fresh-baked cookies out of the oven.



The restaurant also offered a variety of food. There was curry and rice, chicken and cheese bagels, hamburg steak with tomato sauce. In short, we will have to go back to sample the lunch fare before too long. The coffee was excellent and definitely warrants further trips.

We now have a favorite Sunday cafe!

Oh, and the piranha cups are for sale. I really want one. I'm hoping Russell gets me one for my coming birthday, but we established during Christmas that if I ask directly, he won't get it for me. I'm not falling for that again! I will have to be more crafty...

Taxes

Oh Man.

Taxes are going to be extra crazy this year. I worked in the US for 3 months and now here in Japan for 9 months. Russell worked all in the US but was living in Japan... We get tax help for Russell's half from his company, but they won't do my taxes. How does that work for filing jointly?

Japanese taxes are apparently done early in the year (the deadline to get tax info in to the tax preparer was last weekend) so we are starting to sort this out. I was told that we would get a bill in the mail for the taxes we owe to Japan - but the US Embassy for Japan has information that suggests I need to fill out paperwork first to figure out what I owe (just like I would in the U.S.) Of course, I have to file in the U.S. too...

I don't think they make a Turbo Tax edition for stuff like this...

Is it time I break down and approach a tax preparer? Where do I find one that can help with Japan and the US?

Ugh.

At least having to gather information for Russell has put this all on our radar early. I wouldn't want to be figuring this out right before the deadline.

Dessert Soup

For our Christmas party back in December, I went looking for stocking stuffers at the local grocery store. The criteria was 1. cheap and 2. bulky. There was an end display with cute little packages decorated with a chestnut, so I assumed they were little chestnut cakes (which are fairly common around this time of year. They were less than a dollar each and fairly big, so I got one for everyone.

At the party, one of my conversation partners made a comment to the effect of, "huh, this is interesting" when she saw the cake. I thought, what's so interesting? These things are everywhere.

Then Russell and I decided to eat ours a few days later. When we opened the package there wasn't a cake inside, but what looked like a cake covered in waffle cone. I took a bite. Inside, I was surprised to find a fine (and messy) powder. Not what I was expecting. Russell had had enough with the surprises and decided to actually read the packaging while I continued to delicately eat powder out of the middle of the waffle cone coating.

It turns out these were in no way cakes. They were, in fact, a kind of dessert soup. The idea was to break up the waffle outside and drop the powder filling and waffle bits into a mug. Then fill with hot water and enjoy the sweet treat. We tried this next, and it was tasty. Different than anything I have had before, but tasty.

We bought another round recently and this time I documented it with pictures.

Party Games

Last week the International Student Club at our school hosted a New Year's party for all of the students. This was a big success from last year, so I was looking forward to it. It started a bit late, though, so I didn't stay for the whole thing.

What I did catch was pretty fun. At the beginning there was a long table covered in food and more food being prepared. There were some girls making wontons by hand, a Thai girl making spicy Thai soup, and another girl from China making a broth for the wontons.

While we were waiting for the soups to finish, the hostess (and president of the club) called on two teachers to help with a game of "name that Chinese character." Japanese kanji are based off of Chinese characters - so there are often similarities and some kanji are exactly the same as the original Chinese script. Japanese, however, developed a pair of syllable systems that allowed them to show tense and aspect and all those good things. With the two writing systems combined, one really only needs about 2,000 kanji to be literate in Japanese. Chinese is based solely on characters and requires more like 10,000 for proficiency (or so I'm told). Some characters have changed significantly since the original character system was introduced to Japan from China, so there are a great many basic characters that Japanese people don't know. Perfect for a trivia game!

We were all invited to participate.

The part I found especially amusing was that before every character was shown, the entire room would yell (in Japanese, of course) "Kanji Game, Go!" or something to that effect. The "Go" would be punctuated by a fist in the air and the kanji would be revealed. This took no explanation. Everyone knew exactly what to do. You don't generally see that kind of a) enthusiasm and b)coordination in university trivia games in the U.S. I tried to take pictures every time they did this, but my shutter was slow and I usually caught people looking less than enthusiastic. Please assume that they were very enthusiastic a half second before the shot you see now.

The food was delicious. I got to try both soups before I ducked out and they were wonderful. The Thai soup was my favorite, but it was a bit too spicy for most of the people present. I had a double helping and was wishing Russell was there to have some too.

Remembering our first hospital trip

It has been several weeks since we visited the hospital, but I have been meaning to write about it.

First off, had we not both been sick at the time, I think I can safely say we would have thoroughly enjoyed the visit. It was the picture of efficiency and quality care. I hope that some day the U.S. can upgrade to such a system.

Here's how it worked:

We walked in the door and were greeted by friendly volunteers who quickly busied themselves with other people. I suspect the thought of helping a pair of barely-standing foreigners who may or may not know any Japanese was a bit intimidating. Beyond the volunteers was a wide open room with lots of comfortable seating (like enough for at least 100, maybe 200 people) and some front desks. One desk said "First time patient" in English under the Japanese, so we went there. The lady directed us to the forms near the entrance that we needed to fill out since it was our first visit. We filled out the forms and returned them to her. She had us sit down and in about 10 minutes she had made Russell a card with his name and registration number and she directed him to take it to the internal medicine room.

In a row along one end of the hospital were a variety of different kinds of doctors. Internal medicine, ear nose and throat, heart, etc. We went to internal medicine, gave them Russell's card , filled out a form about the reason for the visit, and sat down again. After about another 10-15 minutes they called him back and he was shown to a doctor behind a curtain (there was a row of curtains in the back room.) The doctor looked over his symptoms, did doctory things, chatted with Russell a bit about why he was living in Kobe, how he liked it, etc, and then told him he probably had a stomach virus but they would run some blood tests to be sure. Russell was sent down the hall to have his blood drawn.

In the blood drawing room he walked right up, stuck out his arm, got his blood drawn and was told to check back in with internal medicine in about 40 minutes and the tests would be in. After about 30 minutes, the nurse from internal medicine came looking for Russell (since he had been easy to spot). Russell went back to talk to the doctor again and was told what the blood tests had shown (pretty much what was expected) and Russell was prescribed medication.

Through all these steps, Russell had a blue folder that he took to each station. Each station would add information and paperwork and send it to the next destination. At the end, we took the folder to the processing window and put it in the appropriately marked box. After about 10 minutes Russell's name was called (with about 10 others) to pay the cashier (his bill had been prepared). "Paying the cashier" meant getting in line for one of four ATM-like machines, entering his registration number and paying the balance for his visit. The balance included the cost of the doctor, blood work and prescription.

Since Russell has to claim all doctors expenses with his insurance in the US, his total was the same as an uninsured Japanese person - and still only came to $160. After we had paid, we sat down again to wait for his prescription, but then realized that the number that had printed on the receipt - the number we were to use to claim his prescription - had already been posted on the electronic pharmacy board. We claimed the prescription and went home. All together, it took about two hours. A lot of that was because it was Russell's first visit and he had to wait for blood work.

Considering we had to do all of this in a foreign language, and while both of us were sick, we expected the worst. We were very thankful to find that things were made as simple as possible for us. I liked that the doctor stays in one place and the patients go to them. I also liked that the front desk finds out what your problem is and sends you to someone who specializes in that general area (though the doctors aren't specialists in the same way doctors specialize in the US, from what I hear). I liked that the lines were short and the doctor unhurried. And I LOVED that the full cost was so low. I am definitely won over to socialized medicine.

Garbage Police

If you have been reading this blog from the beginning, you know something about the garbage system in Japan. At least, you know about Kobe (which is way tamer than some parts of Japan).

As a refresher, we take "burnable" garbage (eg anything food based, paper based, or plastic that has been in contact with food) out on Monday and Thursday. We take non-burnable (clothing, broken household items and non-food related plastic) out on every other Tuesday, and we take bottles and cans out on every other Wednesday. It took some getting used to.

We did, however, make a concerted effort to get used to the garbage sorting routine. We also have tried to be perfect neighbors by never putting garbage out the night before. (Even though it has to be out by 8am on the designated morning). If you put your garbage out the night before it is unsightly and may get scavenged by passing crows, cats, etc.

We had heard rumor that there are police who's job it is to enforce the garbage rules, but we have never seen any.

On the other side of town, my co-worker has been trying to be good, but occasionally breaking the rules. She occasionally puts her garbage out the night before (hopefully when no one is looking) and was pretty much going by the rule of thumb that everything is burnable if you get it hot enough. She was worried that she might get caught, and I don't think she broke the rules TOO often, but I was a little worried that she might piss off her neighbors.

Then it happened.

Last week, she was visited by the garbage police. She got a knock on her door and found an officer on the other side. He told her that she had put her garbage in the wrong pile (each residence has a designated area to take their trash. These areas are spaced about a block away from each other, but even if it is more convenient to use a different pile, you have to use your designated pile.

My co-worker's father had just been visiting, so she explained that he had probably been the one to mistake the piles. Her Japanese is not exactly fluent, so she also explained that she was a foreigner and didn't know any better.

This is the best part.

The office informed her that he knew she was a foreigner because he had seen a post-card from her home country in the garbage she had thrown out. My co-worker was horrified. Not only had the police tracked her down, he had gone through her garbage. Of course, that is how he had tracked down the culprit, but the thought of having her trash rifled has set her on the straight and narrow. No more bending the rules for her... even if technically, this one wasn't her fault.

Russell and I are also being extra careful.

I wish they would introduce plastic recycling to this part of Kobe. I never know for sure whether to put it in burnables or not... I hate to think of inhaling the results of a big plastic bonfire... I hope its okay to wash it and put it in non-burnables...

I guess the trash police will let us know if it isn't.

Back to the Grind

Its 11:30pm on Sunday night. Back to work I go tomorrow. After such a nice long winter vacation, and in spite of illness, I'm just not interested in working anymore. The fact that we only have one more week left of classes before finals week makes things a bit more intense than normal, too. That doesn't help.

I look forward to the end of finals when I can start coming home and just veging out. I'll still have plenty of work to do (text book writing hell) but I'll be able to leave it all on my desk come 5:30. I've gotten way too use to that here in Japan. I get cranky when I have to bring work home for grading or prep work.

So spoiled.

Valentine's Day is Approaching

Before coming to Japan, Russell and I had some idea that Valentine's day was kind of big here - and not celebrated in the way we were used to. From what we could tell, TV shows (live action and animated) that take place in a high school always have to have an episode for Valentine's Day.

From this early form of research, we had gathered that women are expected to make home-made chocolate to give to boys. Not just their boyfriends (who of course get the most special chocolate) but to all the boys - at least those in their social circle. In a typical Valentine's episode, the girl has a boy she's interested in but is too shy to confess to. She puts her heart and soul into making super amazing chocolates for him for Valentine's day and then confesses while practically throwing the gift at him. Depending on whether the show is a comedy or a drama, this can turn out different ways. Inedible chocolate, true love, accidentally switching chocolate boxes with the ones you meant to give your enemy. Etc. I imagine buying chocolate is just as common or more so, but its a lot harder to make a 40 minute plot out of standing in line to buy boxed chocolate.

I'm still not sure exactly sure how many boys the typical girl usually provides chocolate for. I know that women are expected to give chocolate to the men they work with once they leave school and start a career. It is hard for me to imagine girls in high school making chocolate for all the boys in their class... but who knows. While making chocolate for the man you love is suppose to be super romantic and a way to show off your domestic prowess, having to give chocolate to all the men around you is a bit of a nuisance at times (from what I hear). Apparently non-boyfriend chocolate has a special name - "giri-choco" or "obligation chocolate." As in, "I'm only giving this to you out of cultural obligation."

As far as I know (and I will know more come February 14th) boys are not expected to do anything except enjoy their chocolate on Valentine's Day. There is a Japanese holiday to balance that inequity, though. White Day is a day for men to return the favor by giving treats to the girls that gave them chocolate. One report I heard was that the treats are traditionally marshmallows. Not home made, of course.


I don't think the girls are buying the "equality" of the holidays. Even so, there is a serious gearing up at the moment for Valentine's Day. All of the stores (including convenience stores) have end displays with chocolate, supplies, moulds, recipes and decorative boxes. Today I found an end display with cooking supplies at the local Daiei (similar to Fred Meyer or Walmart), an aisle with boxes and wrappers for presenting your home made chocolates at the dollar store, and an end display of books and magazines with recipes and guides at the local bookstore. The season is upon us.

I also especially liked the display window outside of LOFT. Aside from being festive, it had the slogan "Girls be ambitious" included - a reference to "Boys be ambitious." Those were the parting words of a man from Massachussettes who helped found Hokkaido University back in the 1800s. They were meant to show that the torch was being passed to the Japanese leadership to continue progressing with the school. I see the phrase periodically throughout Japan. It seems to have struck a serious chord, culturally. The fact that it is being applied to women on the prowl for romance... classic.

Cat Cafe!

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of my Christmas presents this year was a gift certificate to a local cat cafe. Now speaking form experience, a cat cafe is a business where you can go hang out with and play with cats. Presumably you can also buy drinks, though no one was.

This particular cat cafe had an enclosed entryway where we left our shoes, read the house rules, and were given a number that connected us to the record book of entry times. The rules said that we could take pictures, but no flash, we were not to wake up sleeping kitties, we were not to bring food or toys for the kitties (though we could use the toys provided) and, sadly, we were not allowed to pick the kitties up.

When we first went in, we put our bags and coats in a locker and then went to see the cats. It was one big room with a variety of cat climing structures, shelves for cats to sit on, couches for cats and people to sit on, a kotatsu (heated table) in the back corner and about 12 people. There were young couples, a family with a toddler, and middle-aged women. There were also two young workers. One was vigorously brushing a tom cat who was very much enjoying himself. There were about 12 cats. Each had a bio on the wall with his picture, name, breed and personal information.

Things were a bit awkward at first. A lot of the cats were sleeping or out of reach. People would stand up, go over the cat structure, pet the cats in reach, and then go back to their chair so as not to hog the critters. Things livened up, though, when one of the middle aged ladies bought some cat treats.

As you can see from the picture, there was a cabinet on the wall - perfect for lounging - with a sign on the front. It says that you can pay 100 yen (about $1) for cat treats and you can pay 300 yen ($3) for "special" cat treats.

As soon as the cats heard the cabinet open, they all came to life. The lady with the treats was swarmed by a wave of anxious felines. She started handing out little bits of kibble as fast as she could go. The orange tom cat who had been on the grooming table was right up front and would attack her hand as soon as she stretched it out with a treat. He often snagged the treat before it reached the intended recipient.

Having seen how excited the cats got over regular treats, the woman's friend decided to splurge on the special treats. It turned out special treats included little dried fish mixed in with the kibble. The woman became a cat tree. She was accosted from all angles. One cat jumped up onto her shoulder (she was sitting at the time). He was continually pulled off her and continued to jump up onto her and try to crawl down her arm to the cup of treats. He often stuffed his head right in (at which point the staff would pull him off again. The woman was a bit shaken by the extent of the attention and passed the treats to her friend, who was a bit faster distributing the treats. She also covered the top of the cup with her palm so there would be no face-dunking. It was quite a scene.

Once all the cats were out and about, it was more fun. At one point the black cat that had been climbing all over the lady with the treats jumped up onto the staff desk and snatched a pink Stitch puppet before running off with it. The puppet was a cat toy, so that was no problem, but the staff remarked that this cat had never shown interest in the puppet before. He was interested now, though - biting, growling, rolling around. The treat ladies went over and put the puppet on to fight back. That went well. Eventually they moved on to another cat and I took over the puppet. The treats had clearly energized our little black friend. He fought the puppet for a good 20 minutes. When he seemed to lose interest, I put the puppet down, but once the puppet was motionless, the cat jumped it again and started growling and rolling and jumping like before.

All in all, it was a fun trip. It was sad that we couldn't hold the cats, though. It definitely didn't scratch that cat-snuggling itch to just play with and pet the cats. They were cute, though, and it was a fun hour.

Russell's New Flame

Russell has a new love in his life. Its a Japanese TV Show about Heavy Metal music hosted by Marty Friedman of Megadeth (who lives in Tokyo and speaks fluent, if heavily accented Japanese). Its called Rock Fujiyama and is a variety show centered around rock and heavy metal music with a dose of Japanese culture thrown in the mix. The bits I heard were of Marty playing a short riff and his co-host (I think) trying to guess the song.

Russell's been glued to the show for two days. It was only on air for a year. Even so, there seem to be many, many episodes. Every time Russell tries to get me to watch it he brings up what an awesome guitar player Mr. Friedman is. I'm a bit too square for it, thought.

Russell is confined to his earphones.

I have to admit, after reading about the show it sounds more interesting than I had gathered from overhearing it. Plus. Russell's hypnosis suggests its worth a peek - even if you don't speak Japanese.

I believe you can find episodes on YouTube.

Fun from the Coop

And by Coop I mean "Cooperative grocery store" not the chicken variety.

I don't know if Coops in Japan are really cooperative grocery stores or not. They feel about on par with the good quality convenience stores that can be found. They are small, have a little of everything, but basically just the basics in the local brand. There does tend to be a bit healthier meat choices and we can get brown rice in decent quantities there, but there isn't much that would be off the beaten path at a normal grocery.

The one thing that seems semi-conscientious about the coop is that you aren't given grocery bags. You can get them, but you have to ask for them specifically and pay for them. Its nice. I use my chico bag (a bag that folts up into a tiny purse-friendly bundle) to shop there. I have forgotten it on occasion and had to make due stuffing my purse full and carrying the rest in my arms like a dork. I'm too proud (or silly, probably) to pay for a plastic bag.

That said, I have found some interesting things at the coop of late.

1st interesting thing: I wanted to get some personal size ice creams there (we have been craving ice cream in spite of the frigid cold outside) and I suspected that in Japan there would be a good selection of individual serving sizes. I was right! I passed over the toffee, vanilla, chocolate and mattcha ice cream and landed on the sweet potato pie ice cream. Awesome!

Later in the evening, when we were in the mood for dessert, we each took out our single serving and opened it up. It was pretty interesting. There was sweet potato flavored ice cream on the bottom with a sweet potato "pie" mash on the top. Japan doesn't do sweet potato pie - or any pie, really, but they do have a lot of sweet potato desserts. I guess it is similar in taste to sweet potato pie but without all the spices. There were even little chunks of crust in the ice cream and pecan chunks sprinkled on top.

The combination of the slightly gritty pie topping with the creamy ice cream was so-so, but the taste was awesome. I would definitely choose this again. The novelty alone gets a thumbs up.

My next favorite find was in the children's toy vending machine outside the store. One of the machines had cat tail cell phone decorations. The idea is that by putting one of these on your cell phone, it will look like there is a cat in your pocket. The tails are stuffed and a bit short for a real cat (though the local wild variety rarely seems to have a full length tail, truth be told). I was hoping for the fluffy tail, so I gave it a shot. No dice. I got the boring, not so fluffy white tail. I gave it to Russell.

Here is a picture of Russell with a fluffy white cat tail. I don't think he was amused.

Local Fauna

On the way home from the train station tonight I had an interesting run-in with the local fauna. A ferret went scampering across my path and down into a gutter just around the corner from 7-11. It was a pretty ferret, too. Its fur was all red and fluffy.

I wasn't sure if this was someone's escaped pet or if Japan actually was the native home of tawny pole cats. I checked online when I got home. I did find a blog post from someone in Osaka who said the only wildlife they ever see in the city was cats, dogs, and ferrets. It appears to be a case of escape/pet dumping. I don't think this one was too wild. He looked far too cuddly.

I refrained from cuddling for good measure, though.

Sorry - no picture. He was a fast bugger.

Public television at its best

Watching TV.

Current channel: A lady in a chef's outfit playing piano and singing a al Elton John (in English) with a gorgeous violin player front and center playing her heart out (dressed in a pink sequined chinese dress). In the back ground? A man dressed in black with a fake chinese-style mustache mimicking karate moves between gong hits.

Quality entertainment.

Cafe Kei

Today I had the day off, but Russell had to work. Around lunch, though, we decided to get out of the house. We went to Cafe Kei - the cafe I have mentioned several times before. Kei is the owner (about our age) and we suspect the cook is her mother. Recently, her sister joined the team too.

From the beginning, Cafe Kei has had funky artwork in the walls all by the same artist. The signature said Psi. About the time Kei's sister showed up, Kei showed us a book of art that had just been published featuring sculptures by Psi. It turned out that Psi was her sister - or rather, her sister's alias. We also discovered in the bio of the book, that "Psi" was a competitive golfer. Who knew!

Since her sister has been around, we have been seeing a number of art project cropping up around the cafe. At first it was small decorations made out of coffee grounds. Then at Christmas a rather large Jasmine plant was turned into a Christmas tree of sorts with colored circles clothespinned to the fat leaves like ornaments and 5 yen coins (the circles with the holes in them) hung on the little buds that came out of the branches. It was super cute.


After the New Year's break, we were treated to a new surprise - a large beautiful mural on the wall. I love it. It makes the cafe feel a bit quirkier and more comfortable. The Jasmine plant is also still on display, though it is now a "money tree" meant to encourage money to find its way into the store. I believe the new mural is along the same theme. It is hard to see in the picture I posted, but there are also 5 yen coins hung on the wall like leaves of the branches that are painted. Its even better in person. My picture doesn't do it justice.

So Cafe Kei is getting cooler all the time. I hope their money tree brings them lots of good fortune!

Winter is upon us

Nothing big to share, but I thought I would do a short post.

Russell and I are no longer sick and now back to work - so life is going back into its (less blog-able) familiar patterns. It did snow in Kobe (kind of) yesterday. The temperatures have been around the low 40s and occasionally the 30s for some time, but not usually freezing. Yesterday was clearly pretty cold, though, as I made my way to work.

Sometime around 2:00 - and in spite of the sunny day - my coworker came over and said, "Is it snowing??" I almost didn't look. Of course, not, its sunny outside. There aren't even any clouds! But sure enough. IT was like someone was throwing salt off the roof and the wind was throwing it all over the place. The snow flakes were super tiny and light. They were getting blown every direction. It was definitely snow, though.

Once I had confirmed it for her, my coworker started to get very excited. She is from Singapore and has never seen snow before. This was her first experience. Now I hope we get a real snow storm - even if it doesn't stick - so she can see what real snow is like.

Otherwise, my students are all actively comparing potential study abroad schools for next year. Its very lively in the office these days. Its a nice change. This term things got really quiet. No one was coming in for conversation practice. Now we can't get them to leave us alone.

When it snows it pours? Uh... When it snows it dumps?
Never mind.

Score for Lunch!

Russell came through on his lunch selection of the day. He has been using Tabelog ("Tabe" (食べ）is the root of "eat" in Japanese). So Tabelog is where you go to find ratings on good places to eat near you. I cannot recommend this site enough if you are in Japan and hungry. Russell is hooked and we rarely eat at non-Tabelog restaurant anymore. There's just so many good restaurants to choose from. There was a restaurant that he had noticed in our neighborhood before and he wanted to try. Unfortunately, the entrance was none to clearly marked and while we had found a sign for the restaurant (Saint Marc), we were nervous about wandering around the premises looking for the entrance.

Today, Russell saw the listing on Tabelog again and decided to finally find the place. I came along - I mean, good food is a strong motivator for me.

We found the sign again and the expansive white retaining wall that seemed to barricade the building behind it. We saw an entrance for Saint Marc Furniture, but that didn't seem to be what we were looking for. We wandered up the side of the retaining wall and found a staircase. At the top of the staircase we could smell bread, so we knew we were getting close. Around the corner, we found the entrance. Saint Marc is both a baker and restaurant. We entered at the bakery and were directed to go up the stairs to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself is very cozy but was bordering on snooty. We were a little worried about what prices would turn out to be. Italian wine was displayed everywhere as well as Italian wine magazines. Fresh from our omurice fiasco in Ginza, we were feeling a bit twichy - but Tabelog had never led us too far astray, so we stuck it out.

As it turned out, Saint Marc was awesome. The food ran about $16 for lunch - so not the kind of place we plan to eat at often - but also not completely ridiculous. The food was extraordinary. The portion size was modest but adequate (good for not over-gorging, American style).

I never quite understood what Russell ordered (it was beef with a dipping sauce, but I can't explain beyond that.) I had the Japanese style hamburg steak (hamburg steak with Japanese seasonings and a shiso leaf with grated daikon on top). There were also two large steak fries and about 10 pasta salad noodles on the side. It sounds small, but it was just right and absolutely delicious.

Both Russell and I ordered our meals with the bread and drink set. This turned out to be the most awesome part. Since there was a bakery downstairs, they made sure to constantly bake small batches of fresh bread rolls. There was a waitress whose job it was to retrieve the fresh rolls and bring them around to every table as they came out of the oven. During our stay at the restaurant she visited 4-5 times and offered around 10 different varieties of breads. You could take as much as you wanted (though we tried not to overdo it TOO much.). The bread was all delicious and eating piping hot bread from the oven was a treat I have not had in a very long time. Quite the luxury.

Our drinks (hot coffee and hot tea) came out after lunch and lingering over our cups allowed for maximum enjoyment of the bread service, which just kept coming, even though our main course was long finished.

Five stars.

(Sorry for using another stolen image - I forgot to take pictures I was enjoying lunch so much!)

Illness Strikes

We left Nagoya on New Year's Day and used our Juu Hachi Kippu to make our way back to Kobe. By early evening we were home and quite pleased with our adventure. I believe Russell's comment was somewhere along the lines of, "Yay! We went somewhere!"

So what have we been doing since New Year's?

Being sick!

It turns out that while spending around 12 hours on trains with strangers is cheap, it's quite a challenge for the old immune system. Russell got sick first, and while our first assumption was that I had poisoned him by okaying the milk that had been in our fridge since before we left for Tokyo, we later went to the doctor and determined that it was something a bit stronger than sour milk. I will have to post about Japanese hospitals soon. They are pretty awesome.

To cut to the chase, though, Russell got medicine. About that time I started getting sick, too. Not the same sick, but something else. I suspect I later gave Russell what I had, because as he stayed sick a long time with a wide range of symptoms. I got better faster, but then did too much one day, got tired, and had a relapse. It has now been a full week and we are only now starting to feel normal again. Normal is good, though. Very good. Monday is a national holiday, too, so we have a long weekend to rest and make sure we are all better.

The snowy picture at the top of the post was taken from the train somewhere around Gifu - between Nagoya and Kobe. It was farther north than Nagoya and got hit harder by the snow I mentioned in an earlier post. It was beautiful scenery.

New Year's

While New Year's Eve may have seemed a little subdued by Western standards, New Years Day is special. While Westerners are nursing hangovers, families across Japan go to their local shrine to pray for a good new year along with other activities to ascertain or bolster one's luck.

I went to a shrine with one of my conversation partners and here's what we did -

First, we went to the main shrine. We each threw in a coin (I have heard that 5 yen coins are the most lucky because they are in the shape of a circle, but my friend told me that a one yen or ten yen coin is fine), clapped our hands twice, prayed, and then bowed to the shrine. After that, we went to get our fortunes told. At many shrines, you can pay 100-200 yen (about a dollar or two) to get your fortune. I have written about this before. There is a wooden box with sticks in it. You roll the box around noisily to mix up the sticks and then you shake the box until one of the sticks comes out the hole in the bottom. You report the number to the booth and they give you a slip of paper with your fortune on it.

The first thing you look for is what level of fortune you get. There are twelve levels of luck you can get ranging from Great Blessing to Great Curse. The fortune then specifies different aspects of your fortune for a variety of areas. Usually there are things like family, travel, work and health - and there can be any number of other categories that can be specified. If you have Great Blessing, the news is basically all good. As you get lower and lower luck, though, you may find some good and some bad, with Great Curse being pretty much all bad. If you get a good fortune and you want to keep it, you take it home with you. If you get a bad fortune, you can tie it to a tree (or conveniently provided strings) in hopes that the bad luck will stay at the tree.

Fortune in hand, we also had the chance to buy some personal protection amulets on the way out. You can get an amulet for health, to improve your studying, to give you strength in competitions, for safe driving, for safe pregnancies, etc. They tend to come as little satchels, sometimes with the name of the shrine where you got it and often with characters indicating what the amulet does.

I also saw a lot of people walking around with decorative arrows. According to Wikipedia, those are a type of amulet to aid in the fight against bad luck. I have only seen them in association with New Year's, though, so far.

In any case, all charged up with good luck, we were ready to take on the new year.

In reality, Russell and I did not quite follow tradition this year. We didn't know what tradition was, yet. We did know that many people would go to their local shrine on New Year's Day, and we knew it would be okay for us to visit as well. We also had a feeling that anywhere we found throngs of people, we would also find food carts and could continue our vigil for roasted sweet potatoes.

So off to the Shrine we went. We were in Nagoya, so we made the trek to Atsuta Shrine. Once we got close we saw many families walking together and the crowd got bigger as we approached the main exit. We also discovered food carts lining the walk to the shrine. Score for breakfast! The Atsuta shrine has quite a lot of space and two entrances - so one had been designated an entrance, and another an exit to help with the flow of people. As we entered we eventually came to a large build-up of people that had come to a complete stop. We were a little nervous because we didn't know what to do at a shrine on New Year's yet and we weren't there with anything who could explain. We tried to follow the crowd, though. As it turned out, the reason everyone was at a stop was to allow the previous throng of people to filter out before the next wave crashed. Once the grounds were starting to thin, a woman with a giant sign asking people to please wait patiently. stepped out of the way and let everyone pour in to the shrine. The central shrine for praying and the out buildings for fortunes and for amulets were nicely spaced to allow for a lot of people to make their way around to all areas without too much jostling. Russell and I stepped aside, watched for a bit, took a picture to show we had been there, and then left. I felt a little sheepish, but it was impressive to see so many people. It was also impressive to see Atsuta shrine. It has spacious grounds and is surrounded by very old trees. The trees give it a very solemn feel I wouldn't expect for a shrine in the middle of such an urban city. It was a nice feeling, though.

The trip I described earlier - the one where I went to the shrine with my conversation partner, actually happened about a week later in Kobe at Ikuta Shrine. So a little late on the good luck, but we should be set now.

Happy New Year!

(Note the first image is of Ikuta Shrine and was taken from Google Images. Imagine it overrun with people.)

Seishuun Juu Hachi Kippu

The day after Disneyland we made our way into the sprawl of Tokyo to visit my host family. We spent the whole day chatting with them. They were pretty shocked at how well Russell spoke Japanese now (especially considering the last time they saw him he spoke exactly zero Japanese). When I say "we" chatted all day, I mean mostly just Russell chatted all day. He was a champ. He covered topics from history to politics to artificial intelligence, no problem. He was REALLY tired by the end of it. Well done, Russell.

The next day was New Years Eve. We had done some investigating on the Seishuun Juu Hachi Kippu (Youth 18 Ticket) that my colleague had told us about. This is a special rail pass that is available to people in Japan only during long holidays. It is designed to allow young people (who probably don't have much money) a way to travel around Japan and gain more of an appreciation for their own country. As far as we can tell, though, the tickets are available to anyone during holiday times, so anyone can choose to buy them. The good part is that you pay $120 for 5 people day tickets. That means either one person can travel 5 full days as much as they want, or 5 people can travel one day as much as they want, or anything in between. Considering it cost us $120 for one person to take the bullet train from Kobe to Tokyo, that seemed like a pretty excellent deal. The downside is that you can only take normal trains - none of the faster variety bullet trains or even rapid trains on the regular train routes. You are stuck with local trains and express trains. Being cheap, however, that was just fine with us. We bought our ticket and jumped on the Tokkaido train line which would eventually get us to the Kansai region of Japan (where Kobe is). Sometimes we were lucky and were able to sit, other times we were no so lucky and spent a good hour or two standing. It was good that we had that day after Disneyland of mostly sitting with my host family.

Since we had 5 tickets and a whole lot of Japan to explore between Tokyo and Kobe, we decided to stop half way and divide the trip in two. Russell booked a hotel in Nagoya for New Years Eve. Nagoya is the fourth largest city in Japan and home to Toyota and Honda (and possibly Nissan?). Apparently Nagoya was heavily bombed during World War II, which eventually led to the city recreating itself in a more modern, western style. There are big, wide roads and plenty of urban scenery and many if Japan's largest companies.

Our first surprise when we arrived in the city was that it was snowing! We hadn't seen any snow at all in Japan yet (and don't have too much hope of seeing a lot in Kobe). It was fun to see some white to celebrate New Years. While the snow was just starting to speckle down (no sticking) I made sure to take a picture to prove it actually happened.

We arrived at night (and on a national holiday) so none of the tourist attractions were open, but we did attempt to find the nightlife in the city for New Years.

Tried to.

While our hotel happened to be situated in one of the purported nightlife centers of Nagoya, it was absolutely dead when we went out to celebrate. I was suspecting that this might be the case (though I half anticipated a few hard-core partiers to still be out. It turns out that New Years in Japan is a family holiday. Everyone is traveling before the holiday to get home to their families (much like Christmas or Thanksgiving in the U.S.) From what I gather, it is typical to have a family hot pot for dinner and watch the national broadcast New Years special on TV. The whole binge drinking thing - while certainly present in Japan, seems to be put on hold for that one night when so many other countries take to the streets to get sloshed. Go figure.

I have to admit, though, a hotpot and TV special is more appealing to me.

I guess its not so far from what Russell and I actually ended up doing. There were a few restaurants open (a very few) so we chose a yakiniku place (grilled meat) and headed in. There was a group of guys out celebrating a friend's birthday and us. The waiters were very attentive. The marinated meat we grilled up was the best I have yet had. It was amazingly good. There were a number of unidentifiable meats eaten that night, but they were so good we didn't bother to find out what they were. We left with very full bellies and very big smiles.

The next stop was the convenience store (luckily those are 24 hours year round) where we stocked up on snacks for the long night ahead and some mini bottles of whiskey. We then went back to our hotel at about 9pm.

On with the public broadcast New Years special! We spent the evening curled up on our hotel bed watching female singers compete with male singers while hosted by famous TV and movie personalities. Even Abe Hiroshi (Russell) was there. We ate snacks, drank whiskey and generally had a good time. I would, in fact, rank it among some of my favorite New Year's Eves ever.

Disney Tokyo Sea

Russell and I had no intention of ever going to anything Disney during our stay in Japan. As I have been working here, though, my mind began to change. This is mostly because whenever one of my students said they had spent the weekend/ vacation in Tokyo and I asked them what they had done, they unanimously responded "go to Disneyland." We were also constantly getting Disney treats as omiyage (gifts you bring back when you go on vacation). When I asked students what I should do in Tokyo, they always said, "go to Disneyland!" I started to feel like there must be some magic left in Disney Tokyo. Clearly it still enchanted my 19 and 20 year old students (boys and girls) in a way I wouldn't expect to see in the U.S. I decided I was officially curious and informed Russell that he should be too. To make things a little bit easier on both of us (we hoped) we picked the Disneyland sister resort, Disney Tokyo Sea.

The two resorts are right next to each other and share hotels. One is a very close model of the classic Anaheim Disneyland and the other is a secondary resort with new attractions - some are at least loosely connected to water. For example, there is a Little Mermaid, under the sea area, they moved the 20,000 leagues under the sea ride to this side of the park and they have a lovely little recreation of Cape Cod (that one I wasn't expecting). They also have an Aladdin corner, an Indiana Jones corner, a tomorrow land-esque corner (with different rides) and the Tower of Terror.

To start this story out, you have to understand that both Russell and I are, at our core cheapskates. We are willing to splurge on some things some times (like tickets to a theme park we are suspicious of), but we quickly draw the line when expenses seem ridiculous.

When we got off the Tokyo train station that lead to Disneyland, there was a clearly marked path that led right to the Disney Monorail. Russell had fond memories of the monorail in Disney World, Florida, so we were happy to follow the crowd. It turned out, however, that you had to pay $5 each for round trip ticket on the monorail. We knew the front gate was walking distance, but there were conveniently no signs to show us the way.

We were up to the challenge.

We broke out our iphone maps and tried to figure out what the fastest way to Disney Tokyo Sea was. The maps didn't show exactly where the entrance was, but we were pretty sure we could skirt the parks to the East and get there eventually. It had to be better than shelling out $10. So we started walking. Note the picture of Russell NOT taking the monorail. This needn't have been such a long hike because there was an (unmarked) path that went right down the middle of the parks to the front gate. Instead we walked all around the circumference of Disneyland and the Cirque du Soleil venue next to it before finding the center walk that eventually took us to the front gate. We were a little footsore, but very proud that Disneyland hadn't gotten our money. Until they got it in the form of ticket fare - but, you know, we were expecting that expense.

My hackles were already up over the monorail, so I may have started the whole adventure biased, but about 20 minutes into the park I was kind of ready to go. I didn't say anything to Russell because I had dragged him to the park against his will in the first place. While I knew that Disney was a well-oiled money-sucking machine, it really hits its stride in Japan. The builders of Tokyo Japan clearly had a different business plan than Walt in 1955. Where the Anaheim resort is still trying to catch up (and battling space restrictions, Tokyo Disney Sea (and I would guess Tokyo Disneyland as well) could really capitalize. There were gift shops at every corner. Kiosks, restaurants, specialty items you could only get in one store - which meant many people spent most of their time in Disneyland shopping through all the stores to see what was special in this next one. It was amazing. One of the most irritating parts (and one I think is shared by Disneyland in Anaheim) were the $15 popcorn buckets. If you wanted popcorn or caramel corn, you had to buy a cartoon character bucket for $15. After you had the bucket, though, you could refill it for only $7 dollars! What a deal! Of course, after smelling popcorn at every turn for 5+ hours you really start to crave it. We did hold out, though it was a bitter victory.

Russell did succumb to the sausage baguettes being sold from another vendor, though. After waiting in line 30-45 minutes to get one, he decided it would be wise to get two. He couldn't eat them both , though, so he insisted on stashing one in my purse for later. Great. While it isn't the greatest picture, this one shows the crowds, the fleece mouse ears and the line for sausage. See if you can spot Russell.

One thing I had heard from my students and was interested in checking for myself on this trip was that people love buying ears at Disneyland. At Disneyland in California, you can get the Mickey and Minnie ears, the Goofy hats, etc, but I had heard that it was really quite common to buy a different set of ears every time you visit Tokyo Disneyland. One of my students, when preparing a cultural survey to give Americans in Oregon about Disneyland asked: "How many ears do you have?" Which, as you can imagine, met with some puzzled looks.



So I was curious - just how many ear options are there in Disney Tokyo and do people really buy them in droves? The answer? There seem to be seasonal ears (somehow I shouldn't have been surprised) and some standards (like the Mickey and Minnie ear headbands. The big hit this season were the fleece hood/ mouse ears (in black, white and pink leopard spot). Note picture. While only about a quarter of the people in the park were wearing ears (which is still pretty impressive) there was no age or gender group that seemed more likely to be wearing them. We saw teenage girls and boys wearing ears, young children, 50-something year old couples. There seemed to be a widespread appeal. That I was also not expecting. My favorite was the teenage boy in goth make-up who had tied a daffy-duck stuffed animal to his head with a bow.

So what did we actually DO? We were in the park from about 10am to 5 pm and we went on 4 "rides." These included a boat tour of the park (we could walk right on in the morning, so we went for it), an acrobatic jungle production (no plot, but pretty), the spinning shells (like teacups that you can't actually spin for yourself, and the big one - Journey to the Center of the Earth. The last one was the only roller coaster we saw. Once we had spotted it, we tried to get Fast Track tickets but they were already sold out for the day. 3 hour wait in line? Meh. Might as well. At least it was free!

After standing on concrete for 3 hours we were definitely ready to go home. There was only one more thing I had to do before I could leave the park. I had to figure out where people were all getting this Disney Bear-thing. All day long I had seen this non-descript stuffed bear in the arms of nearly ever female that passed us. The only sign that it had anything to do with Disney was the Disney silhouette paw print on the bottom feet. But EVERYONE had one (albeit in different costumes). Even more people than had ears. While were were standing in line we looked it up on the Internet. It turns out, the bear's name is "Duffy" and he was a gift from Minnie to Mickey so he wouldn't be lonely while the two of them were apart. The bear was completely created as something to turn around and sell and while it failed to capture the American consumers' hearts, it had found a home in Japan. Now that I know what it is, I have spotted them outside of the park as well.

So where were they getting them? Why, Cape Cod of course!! There was one store in the park that sold Duffy bears and it had a line out the door and around the corner of people waiting to get in. I took a picture, but it was dark and you can't see anything.

While the lines (all over the park) seemed daunting to us, they weren't that much worse that in California and Tokyo Disney Sea clearly has a much larger capacity than Disneyland in Anaheim. There were huge numbers of people in the park, but they seemed well distributed. The regular large shows also seemed to help draw crowds around the park throughout the day to help keep ride lines down - plus, there was all that shopping to do.

Russell and I walked back to the train.

Shibuya

As I mentioned before, Shibuya is known as a nightlife spot in Tokyo. It also seems to be a shopping hub, but we were only really there in the evening, so that's the side we saw. Our hotel was about a 20 minute walk away (close enough to walk, but far enough to be nice and quiet). The first night, we walked over just to see what the place was like. It was certainly crowded. One crosswalk in particular is especially impressive as it is flooded with pedestrians from all directions for a few minutes periodically. I wanted to get a picture, but my iphone camera is no good at night.

We browsed around in some of the shops and generally people watched. Then we used Russell's restaurant finder and located a little izakaya that was known for its special yakitori (grilled chicken). We went off in search of it. It took quite a bit of work to find the place beause it was so small and out of the way. We got close with Google maps, but almost had to give up when Russell spotted it down a tiny alley. We ducked in.




At first, there seemed to be the stereotypical, music screetching to a halt, everyone in the place turning to stare, moment when foreigners arrive. But the place was run by an elderly couple who had had foreigners before (once) and the lady was very quick to make us feel welcome and start chatting with us. Music back on, locals go back to whatever they were doing. The owners asked us if we had found the place on the Internet, and we admitted we had. They seemed very pleased. The food was delicious and we had a good time.

Russell and I had made plans to see my host family on our last day in Tokyo, so we looked over our schedule and decided that we would be brave and go to Tokyo Disney the next day.

Changing Hotels

I won't keep you in suspense any longer. We did manage to find a bed every night of our Tokyo adventure. Our next three nights were spent at a hotel just south of one of the well established nightlife districts: Shibuya.

Before we headed to our new hotel, we decided to head south of Ueno and explore one of the best known districts to Americans: Akihabara. This neighborhood is famous for all things geeky and nerdy. It is the home of electronics mega stores, parts stores with every electronic bit you could hope for, comic book (manga) stores, and comic book figurine stores. Akihabara also has a reputation for people dressed in outlandish costumes, "maid cafes" or cafes where the hostesses dress up in frilly maid costumes, etc.

Unfortunately, we chose early Monday morning to drop by. I imagine that this is probably the tamest time you an imagine for this district. We just didn't think it through. Nothing opened until 11am, so we spent about an hour getting our bearings and eating donuts. At 11, we started browsing shops. Russell had spotted a used Mac store, so we started there. It was three floors of tightly packed Mac stuff. The first floor was ipods and iphones, the next floor was laptops and the top floor was desktops and displays. The prices were excellent, they had a good selection of older models and brand new models. It was actually quite impressive. I took a picture of one corner. My apologies to the poor guy in the shot.

We also found a nice selection of oscilloscopes at another store and store after store after store of plastic manga and anime figurines. We tried to find a board game store (it seemed like a good place to look) but we never located one. That is to say, we located a store that sells board games, but it had four or five branches of all sorts of games, hobbies, figurines, etc. and we weren't able to figure out which one had the games in it.

As for gawking at local geeks (something everyone had recommended) - we really didn't see too much out of the ordinary. There were a bunch of young tourists and guys in business suits, but that was about it for people watching. Again. Early monday morning.

After Akihabara, we continued south to the Ginza district. This district is famous for quite the opposite clientele. Namely, the wealthy elite. This is the place to find streets and streets lined with top end designer names and people out doing some serious shopping (or tourists doing some serious window gazing). The costumes changed from jeans and t-shirts to pumps and furs. We had found a recommended restaurant in our guidebook that featured Omurice. That's the chicken fried rice seasoned with catsup and covered in a thin egg omelet. I have often heard omurice referred to as Japanese comfort food and it is a lunch-time standard at many restaurants - usually for $5-$10. We love omurice, so recommended omurice drew us right in. We headed for the 5th floor of the Shiseido building.

As you can probably guess, this was no ordinary omurice restaurant. First, we were not allowed to operate the elevator ourselves, but were escorted by be-gloved hostesses. When we arrived we had to wait for about 15 minutes before having our coats checked and being escorted to a table set with fine china and silver. Our waiter was wearing tails. Seriously. A bottle of water cost $6 and a (small) bottle of Perrier cost $8. I know, because they were the cheapest drinks on the menu and so that's what Russell and I ordered. When we were given the real menu, we quickly searched out omurice and found it to also be the cheapest dish on the menu - at $30. This is for something flavored with catsup. It was gorgeously presented, with the egg perfectly even and tucked in on the edges, but the taste was far inferior to the omurice we get down the street from our apartment. The sauce poured over the top could have come straight from Chef Boyardee. I was disappointed.

Conclusion: This appeared to be the kind of restaurant where very wealthy grandmother's take their picky grandchildren. We could come to no other conclusion. Oh, and misguided tourists. They clearly get those too.

It was quite an experience. We did share the elevator down with a group of elderly ladies who were absolutely taken with Russell. Once they realized he spoke Japanese the whole elevator erupted with giggling.

Bellies full and wallets lighter, we headed to our new hotel. Russell had managed to find it on the internet (not so hard, as it turns out) and had called to make sure the reservations had actually gone through. The new hotel was more what you would expect from a Western style hotel, but it also doubled as a spa during the day - which meant we had access to the fancy public bath downstairs. There was also a nice breakfast spread every morning - and for a reasonable price. We were very pleased and starting to feel much more relaxed about our Tokyo adventure.

First Two Nights in Tokyo

We managed to get tickets for the bullet train with no problem. I had no idea they came so regularly - several every hour. They are on a different rail system than the local trains, so I wasn't ever very aware of the bullet trains before. The train was comfortable and fast - just as we had been promised. There are apparently domestic flights that are cheaper, but we really wanted the experience - at least once. It was fun. I recommend it.

At some point along the way - I can't remember when, Russell called a hotel out of a travel book we had bought the night before. They had room for the next two nights, but were booked solid after that. We decided to take what we could get and figure out the rest of the nights later. The hotel we had found was a ryokan, which is a kind of more traditional inn. This one was not a fancy once - it was just a traditional style room with tatami mats and a lovely fluffy futon. There was also a low table with a map of the area and an electric teapot. That was it. So what would have made it a fancy Ryokan? At least one meal and a hot spring for soaking before going to bed. Doesn;t that sound nice? We didn't end up in one of those this time, though. Alas. The fluffy futon was great, though. Much better than the alternatives we had been trying not to imagine.

So we had a two day grace period before we had to find our next bed. We decided to explore!

By the time we found the hotel it was already evening. We decided to go for a walk, find some food and figure out the lay of the land. We were situated right next to Ueno Park which, among other things, has a well known zoo and is bordered by a large variety of important museums. It was a pretty nice place to land when touring Tokyo. We walked to the other side of the park (everything was closed by then) and found the nightlife district on the other side.


We quickly found a busy street (Ameyoko) with tons of little shops. The street was absolutely packed and bustling as people bought things for the end of the year. We walked along in the flow of people, bought some grilled mochi to snack on and eventually decided to find an izakaya where we could get out of the crowd and have something to eat. We found a nice looking place in an alley off of the main road. When we tried to go in, though (and despite the many open booths) the waiter came hustling towards us, smiling in a friendly manner, and saying, "no, no. No room" and pushing us right out the door. Since the waiter wasn't willing to offer an explanation, we were both pretty sure it was because we were foreigners. We were both pretty bummed out about that, but then we were walking down another alley (which was full of izakayas) and a lady practically dragged us into her store. Appreciative of the change, we went along with it and ate there. The food was good, and Russell even got to do some translating for a young couple that spoke Chinese and English, but no Japanese. We went back to the hotel feeling redeemed.

Once we were back in our hotel we decided that we weren't ready to turn in yet. We went back out into the neighborhood on our side of the park and looked around there. Eventually we happened on a whisky bar with a very friendly bar tender who wanted to tell us all about his whisky, and some regulars who at first gave us confused looks and then discovered Russell could speak Japanese and started joking around with him. In the end we asked the bartender for a recommendation that would be similar to the 12 year Yoichi I've been getting fond of. He came up with another Japanese whisky that Russell had heard of and later informed me would be expensive. It was, but not as bad as Russell had feared. About $20 per glass.

Did I mention we managed to burn through a lot of money on this trip? Yay for vacations!


The next day we decided to start out with a trip to a museum that the guide book said was THE museum to see if you are only going to see one in Tokyo. We walked over, went in, and started looking around. It had the decided feel of being a much larger collection where the museum curator had chosen only the best pieces to highlight whatever they want to the guest to focus on. While this seems like the way a museum should be run, I'm not sure I have ever been to one that was so clearly doing that. They had amazing artwork, metalwork, crafts, etc. on display, but you often only saw one amazing piece - not a whole display jammed full of them. Many of the pieces throughout the museum were connected to the new year, too, which gave the impression that maybe at other times of the year, we would find completely different displays. Maybe that's not the case - after all, New Years is a very important time in Japan and it makes sense that a lot of art would revolve around that time, but it still gave the museum a nice atmosphere. It felt like what we were seeing might be hidden away again in another month.


Both Russell and I were so taken with the central building of the museum that after a quick rest to eat lunch, we went back to see all the auxiliary buildings. It turned out that these were not as interesting. Most of the buildings were even spaces for other things that werent happening that day, and when we did find nooks of artwork, it tended to be a small nook. We did a lot of walking and were very tired, but were still mostly thinking about the cool things we had seen in the central building.


By the time we left the museum we were both tired and decided not to go to the zoo after all. We had had enough of being on our feet. After a bit of a rest, though, we headed off to a neighboring neighborhood - Asakusa. The guide book described this neighborhood as being as close as you could get anymore to what it may have been like in the Edo period - not because the streets are anything like old Edo - but because the buildings are still old fashioned and made of wood and there are many small shops. We decided to check it out. The area was definitely full of people. It had a generally seedier feel than the other parts of Tokyo we had been in, but there was tons of activity and the shops were fun to look at (though too tightly packed to bother going into.


At some point we got hungry and Russell pulled out his phone to search for good food in the area. This turned out to be an excellent tool. The first place he spotted was a highly rated taiyaki shop. Tai means "sea bream" (like the fish) and yaki - as you have likely figured out by now, means "grilled". This is not a grilled fish, though. Not exactly. Taiyaki is like a very think waffle layer with the middle filled with red bean paste (which is very sweet). The grilling molds for taiyaki are shaped like the fish that gives it the name. This particular shop had a line outside of it when we arrived (always a good sign) and ended up being about a 15-20 minute wait as the taiyaki man very carefully grilled two taiyaki at a time. The end result was worth it, though. The outer waffle part was very think and crispy and the red bean paste was clearly homemade with lots of beany chunks. It was delicious and has spoiled me forever on Taiyaki. No other compare. (Though I will continue to grudgingly eat as many of any variety of Taiyaki that I can get).

Next we headed back into the center of shops and found the restaurant area. We ducked into one place that had hot wine advertised. It was a cross between mulled wine (with not quite as much spice) and sangria (with easily that much citrus, if not more). The end result was delicious and made up for standing in the cold for 20 minutes (and it was cold out). Across the way was another taiyaki place. We hit it up later.

We also managed to find a good place for dinner, though I have forgotten where we ended up. In the end, we tumbled back to our hotel to rest our aching feet and find a place to stay for the next few nights.

*secret: it didn't really dawn on me to take many pictures in Tokyo. To make the blog more interesting, I have stolen most of the images from Google Images. I hope no one cares.*