A day of adventure and social prowess
Update: Photos uploaded! Go here to see.
Today was more eventful than anticipated, and provided a few good lessons about Tokyo/Japan:
1.) Tokyo is extremely interesting to travel around even if you don't know where you are, exactly, nor where you're going, because there are good restaurants and interesting places nearly everywhere.
2.) People in Japan are hella friendly/nice, especially if you speak Japanese and give them the opportunity to be so.
Okay, so I really already knew the second part, but I'm not sure that Dori did as well. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our day went more or less as follows:
We woke up super-early, and set out super-late, having spent too much time goofing around and then a fair amount of time planning. Breakfast was two onigiri (plum and tuna-mayonnaise).
We took the train into Tokyo and (after several transfers that took almost no time at all thanks to Japan's super-efficient subway system) ended up at the Edo-Tokyo Museum （江戸東京博物館）, a really cool museum documenting the history of Tokyo ever since it was called "Edo" under the shogunate of Tokugawa Ieyasu, up to the destruction caused by the firebombing of World War II. It was also one of the coolest history museums I've ever been to. We got an English tour guide (mostly for Dori's benefit). She was a volunteer, so the tour was free, but it was fascinating and super-detailed, and she spoke amazing English. Thanks again for a great tour, Sachiko-san! We took a few pictures- I'll post them soon.
The Edo-Tokyo Museum is in Ryougoku, a part of town with tons of sumo wrestling culture, but we skipped all of that (we were afraid of getting shiko-ed by a Yokozuna) and we went instead to Asakusa-bashi, from which we had a jaunty walk to Akihabara. In Akihabara we had some delicious ramen and Chinese-style leek-liver stirfry, and then we went exploring! We ended up buying a lot of Japanese video games, capsule toys and other games. :o) We also saw one of the notorious maid cafés. The girls outside were dressed... attractively.
Next, we went to Shinjuku and explored a bit, then down to Shibuya, where we were looking to grab some food and drinks at a good izakaya. However, problem: we knew not where a good izakaya might be found! So we sought out young Japanese people to instruct us!
First we asked a group of girls who looked "trendy," and they turned out to be quite friendly. After some deliberation, they recommended "Kachikachi-yama" (カチカチ山), which they said was both "cheap" and "nearby," two adjectives of which I'm personally quite fond. We set off in the loosely-described direction of the place, hungry and interested in delicious drinks as well.
Well, we got lost. Shibuya is complicated, dude. Cool restaurants and stores everywhere! I think we walked past it. Anyway, we decided it was time to ask someone else if they knew where it was. We saw a couple of girls about our age who looked quite distressed- they had just been accosted by two drunk salarymen who appeared to be trying very hard to persuade them to go to a bar with them. They sort of had a deer in headlights look.
We came to their rescue, totally cockblocking the drunk salarymen by walking in front of them and striking up a friendly conversation with the two girls. The salarymen shrunk back, defeated, and the girls thanked us sincerely for our help, though they knew not the location of the legendary Kachikachi-yama. Undaunted, we continued on our quest.
We came upon a group of about seven guys our age standing, talking in front of a convenience store, and I went up to them and asked if they knew of our mysterious destination. They did not, but they decided to take up our quest alongside us, and they called Tokyo Information and got the number and address of the izakaya. We were almost there! It was then that these six jolly dudes decided to walk us there, and then, once we triumphantly arrived, they decided they wanted to go inside and eat with us, which was awesome.
Mori-san, Hiro, Ryou, Kousuke, Kenji and Masa were all photographer's assistants who had worked together at the same studio while in training, and they seemed to be pretty close friends. We ordered lots of good food and giant mugs of Sapporo, and much good conversation was to be had. We ended up leaving to get back to the station just before the last train, and they refused to let us pay for the food or drinks. (We did try, I swear.) They rocked.
On the train ride back, we started up a conversation with a group of friends who had all gone to the same French language school in Tokyo, and Dori and I both spoke a little French (and a lot more Japanese) with them. They were very interesting train companions. I never had so many random conversations with strangers back when I was living in Japan. I think that Dori's presence makes it a lot easier to talk with people I don't know.
We got to a station that was kind of near our place, but it wasn't the nearest station. We decided to try to walk it anyway; however, it turns out we walked in the completely wrong direction and failed miserably to find our way. We eventually got directions, but by that point we had already walked about 2 miles and had a good 4 miles or so to go. We ended up asking a couple who had stopped to drop someone off at her house for directions; they told us it was too far and asked us to hop in their car, and they gave us a ride back. Hospitality! It was great.
We fell asleep very quickly last night. And that was yesterday.
Today was more eventful than anticipated, and provided a few good lessons about Tokyo/Japan:
1.) Tokyo is extremely interesting to travel around even if you don't know where you are, exactly, nor where you're going, because there are good restaurants and interesting places nearly everywhere.
2.) People in Japan are hella friendly/nice, especially if you speak Japanese and give them the opportunity to be so.
Okay, so I really already knew the second part, but I'm not sure that Dori did as well. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our day went more or less as follows:
We woke up super-early, and set out super-late, having spent too much time goofing around and then a fair amount of time planning. Breakfast was two onigiri (plum and tuna-mayonnaise).
We took the train into Tokyo and (after several transfers that took almost no time at all thanks to Japan's super-efficient subway system) ended up at the Edo-Tokyo Museum （江戸東京博物館）, a really cool museum documenting the history of Tokyo ever since it was called "Edo" under the shogunate of Tokugawa Ieyasu, up to the destruction caused by the firebombing of World War II. It was also one of the coolest history museums I've ever been to. We got an English tour guide (mostly for Dori's benefit). She was a volunteer, so the tour was free, but it was fascinating and super-detailed, and she spoke amazing English. Thanks again for a great tour, Sachiko-san! We took a few pictures- I'll post them soon.
The Edo-Tokyo Museum is in Ryougoku, a part of town with tons of sumo wrestling culture, but we skipped all of that (we were afraid of getting shiko-ed by a Yokozuna) and we went instead to Asakusa-bashi, from which we had a jaunty walk to Akihabara. In Akihabara we had some delicious ramen and Chinese-style leek-liver stirfry, and then we went exploring! We ended up buying a lot of Japanese video games, capsule toys and other games. :o) We also saw one of the notorious maid cafés. The girls outside were dressed... attractively.
Next, we went to Shinjuku and explored a bit, then down to Shibuya, where we were looking to grab some food and drinks at a good izakaya. However, problem: we knew not where a good izakaya might be found! So we sought out young Japanese people to instruct us!
First we asked a group of girls who looked "trendy," and they turned out to be quite friendly. After some deliberation, they recommended "Kachikachi-yama" (カチカチ山), which they said was both "cheap" and "nearby," two adjectives of which I'm personally quite fond. We set off in the loosely-described direction of the place, hungry and interested in delicious drinks as well.
Well, we got lost. Shibuya is complicated, dude. Cool restaurants and stores everywhere! I think we walked past it. Anyway, we decided it was time to ask someone else if they knew where it was. We saw a couple of girls about our age who looked quite distressed- they had just been accosted by two drunk salarymen who appeared to be trying very hard to persuade them to go to a bar with them. They sort of had a deer in headlights look.
We came to their rescue, totally cockblocking the drunk salarymen by walking in front of them and striking up a friendly conversation with the two girls. The salarymen shrunk back, defeated, and the girls thanked us sincerely for our help, though they knew not the location of the legendary Kachikachi-yama. Undaunted, we continued on our quest.
We came upon a group of about seven guys our age standing, talking in front of a convenience store, and I went up to them and asked if they knew of our mysterious destination. They did not, but they decided to take up our quest alongside us, and they called Tokyo Information and got the number and address of the izakaya. We were almost there! It was then that these six jolly dudes decided to walk us there, and then, once we triumphantly arrived, they decided they wanted to go inside and eat with us, which was awesome.
Mori-san, Hiro, Ryou, Kousuke, Kenji and Masa were all photographer's assistants who had worked together at the same studio while in training, and they seemed to be pretty close friends. We ordered lots of good food and giant mugs of Sapporo, and much good conversation was to be had. We ended up leaving to get back to the station just before the last train, and they refused to let us pay for the food or drinks. (We did try, I swear.) They rocked.
On the train ride back, we started up a conversation with a group of friends who had all gone to the same French language school in Tokyo, and Dori and I both spoke a little French (and a lot more Japanese) with them. They were very interesting train companions. I never had so many random conversations with strangers back when I was living in Japan. I think that Dori's presence makes it a lot easier to talk with people I don't know.
We got to a station that was kind of near our place, but it wasn't the nearest station. We decided to try to walk it anyway; however, it turns out we walked in the completely wrong direction and failed miserably to find our way. We eventually got directions, but by that point we had already walked about 2 miles and had a good 4 miles or so to go. We ended up asking a couple who had stopped to drop someone off at her house for directions; they told us it was too far and asked us to hop in their car, and they gave us a ride back. Hospitality! It was great.
We fell asleep very quickly last night. And that was yesterday.