Tokyo: Day 2

(Nick) I'll start today with some commentary on Japanese culture. Well, maybe not an interesting observation, but it made my morning. You see, it seems I'm tall. And white. As it turns out, that combination isn't too common in Tokyo. Not unheard of, of course; we've seen plenty of European and American faces around. But still, I guess I stand out in a crowd. Most Japanese are incredibly polite, so they glance up at me and then move on; a few stare briefly. This morning, we were walking toward a subway station when I noticed a gaggle of (well, 3) school girls, in the classic Japanese schoolgirl uniforms. When I glanced around, one waved at me to get my attention. Then the three of them said "Hello!" in unison. I replied with a startled Ohayo, and they giggled. Yeah, giggled. It was strange, but very entertaining.

Meguro:
With the goal of working our way up the region west and southwest of central Tokyo, we started at the bottom, Meguro. It turns out there isn't much down there, though it was a really cool area. If I were to live in Tokyo, that's the kind of neighborhood that would be friendly, quiet, but with plenty of small eateries and the normal small shops.

Tokyo has pretty rivers! This is Meguro-gawa ("gawa" means river, as Jerry pointed out). We went to this nifty modern art museum housed in a complex also containing a pool, community center, and daycare. There were kids, and trees, and a couple interesting freestanding bits of architecture, such as this bell thingie:


I like it. And then I got us lost on a long walk in many directions, trying to get to Ebisu from Meguro. They're maybe 3/4 of a mile apart, but with the winding, disconnected streets, lack of signage (most small streets in Tokyo don't have names), and my terrible sense of direction, Jerry nearly killed me. On the upside, there are vending machines all over, including in the residential area we were wandering in (later identified as Ebisu-Minami). We ended up at the Yebisu Garden Place where we had a very delicious and beautiful lunch.

Here's the thing about lunch; the prices seemed (well, are!) very reasonable. Most entrees were in the 1500-2000 yen range (about $13-$17), and it was Japanese food, which is what we wanted. Going in, it seemed perfectly normal, but then they took us into the back room. It extended down this long gentle terracing, with tables on these terraces. In the middle of the room was a rock garden with a fountain and flowers. Beautiful, I declare! Downside: we ordered using the point-and-pray method. We were able to understand the coffee-or-tea question, at least, but my answer of "iced coffee" led to some confusion. I needed the ice; we were sweaty from hiking in the warm weather.

The food arrived. Here's how it looked:

Isn't it amazing? Just a work of art. And delicious. Considering that tax and gratuity are included in the cost, this was such a cheap meal. I never thought I'd say this about Japan, but the food is cheaper than LA for even better quality and service. One weirdness: they leave a check and you're expected to take it to a cashier up front, Denny's style, even in a very nice place.

After lunch, since we were in the grounds of the former Yebisu brewery (owned by Sapporo for 40 years now), we visited the free beer museum.

It was nice, but brief. The highlight for me (being me) was the cheap beer tasting room. 200 yen ($1.70) for a Yebisu black? That's a good price. It was 400 yen for a sampler of four half glasses, but I avoided that, given that we just ate and had some walking to do.


Shibuya:

It's Jerry, and I'm going to finish the rest of our day. After we left Yebisu Beer Museum, we headed off to Shibuya. The first thing we wanted to see when we got there was the famous statue of Hachiko, the dog...and here's a blurry picture of him:


The story goes that Hachiko's master was a professor and one day, his master left to go to work but never returned. But for the 10 years following his master's death, Hachiko would return to the Shibuya station to wait for him. I guess the residents were so moved by this that they built a statue of him. Apparently, it's a very popular meeting place.

We then started our Shibuya journey by crossing the street:





It's a very big street with tons of people walking through it. I couldn't get a picture of the swarm of oncoming walkers becuase I was too busy trying not to run into any. We visited a few stores including an arcade place that housed Pachinko, a popular game involving balls falling down a machine. I was tempted to play, but really didn't know where to start.

After walking around a bit, we wandered through the Love Hotel Hill, which is known for their hotels offering "rests" to those interested in a hotel room for a few hours. The interesting part about this area is that it's completely filled with these hotels and they are all very different from the outside...some of them were quite odd in design, but they were all unique.

Oh, and along our walk, we came across this store:

When I first saw the sign, I read "Three Minutes Happiness" and I can't remember the accompanying tagline, but the combination really suggested a different type of store than what it really was--a clothing store.

We decided to go back to the hotel after our trip to Shibuya. For dinner, we went to a Tempura House that was mentioned in both of our travel guides and was also recommended by the hotel conceirge. It was a fair walk, but sooooo worth it. The tempura came out fresh and hot and the prices were really good considering what we were being served. On the way back to the hotel, we saw more Pachinko arcades, which is starting to become tempting...

Oh, and neither of us have mentioned that while waiting in the immigration line at the Tokyo-Narita airport, we noticed a Japanese girl who was crying while talking to some man. Neither of us recognized who he was, but I overheard someone ahead of me saying that it was Orlando Bloom...and it was! And at one point, he was two feet away from us since he was on the other side of the Tensabarrier of the winding line. Once we left immigration and went to the main area trying to find a Citibank ATM, we noticed a huge crowd of people surrounding some doors. And then we heard women screaming and that was when we realized that all these people were waiting to see Orlando Bloom. We actually started walking to the other side of the terminal, not because we were trying to avoid the crowd, but because we were still trying to find the Citibank ATM. And while we were walking, a bunch of Papparazzi came running past us to go to what appeared to be another exit out of baggage claim. And there were also a huge crowd surrounding those doors.

So that was our celebrity story...tomorrow, we're going to try to see the Fish Market, although I'm not sure we want to wake up that early.