Tokyo Part Two

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Trip Start Oct 12, 2005 Previous
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  Tokyo, Japan
Saturday, October 22, 2005

Our last entry on Tokyo just scratched the surface of this massive and fascinating city.

On Wednesday, we slept in and then got on the subway once again, this time heading all the way across the city to an area called Odaiba. Our destination was the Museum Of Emerging Science and Innovation where we could see ASIMO, the humanoid robot made by Honda. Matt has been fascinated by this thing for along time after seeing it on TV. So we trekked all the way across the city to check it out, only to have missed the once-a-day demo by five minutes. Oh well, at least we got to see ASIMO in person, even if all he did was look at us. While not entirely enthused with the prospect of spending the day with robots, Kristy's day was made when she encountered the robotic baby seal that responded to being petted (see movie). Cute and extremely disturbing at the same time.

01 Matt with ASIMO

That night we met up with Mogan and Kei at Tokyo Disney's Sea theme park, an activity that blew our daily budget, but was worth it. We went after 6:00 pm to take advantage of a discounted rate. The Sea theme park is specific to Japan. They also had the Magic Kingdom which looked like a carbon copy of the one in Florida (probably smaller). We thought we might find a few Disney souvenirs for the kids back home that featured kanji characters. We were surprised at how American it was. All of the souvenirs had English letters and words. Although we went in the evening, we got the sense it was a pretty popular spot with the Japanese.

On Thursday, we toured a few tokyo neighborhoods; Shinjuku (sort of like Times Square), Shibuya, and Roppongi (big ex-pat area). We had a bit of a struggle finding a lunch spot, the problem is not finding a restaurant, but choosing from the astounding multitude you have to pick from. We ended up at place that appeared to specialize in rice bowls, with various meats and other things in them. Luckily the menu has pictures, so we browse and try to pick something appealing. Matt ended up with some meat on rice with an odd cold rice porridge on top. Kristy got rice with seaweed and a soft boiled egg on top. Like all the other meals we have had here in Japan, it was quite tasty. The only exception was in the "mexican" restaurant at Tokyo Disney, which was pretty gruesome. We have become convinced that food is an obsession for the Japanese. Not only are there an unbelievable amount of restaurants, but many of the shows I see on TV seem to be about food. Speaking of food, we made it to one of those famous rotating sushi restaurants, where little plates of sushi travel along a track that everone sits in front of. You just pick your plate off the track, and then pay by the amount of plates you have

02 Kristy and a new friend

. Pretty straight forward except for the powdered green tea, which Matt mistook for wasabi powder and put into his soy sauce. Oops. At least it is better than drinking wasabi tea. It was also our cheapest meal so far, coming in at about 650 yen (about $6) for the both of us.

We spent Friday, our last full day in the Tokyo area, in Kamakura, which is a town about an hour train ride south. It is known for it's many temples, some dating from the time when it was the capital for a government controlled by samurai (a period that only lasted a few hundred years). This history may be a little fuzzy as the englidh language material they provide is a bit lacking.

We visited three of the temples. The first was a place where both parents of still born children, travelers, and women wanting "feminine beauty" can go and pray. Most notable was a giant spinning bookcase, where one grabs a handle and rotates it once around, thus gaining all the benefit of having read the buddhist scriptures. Sweet. Also at this temple were loads of school kids who seemed to have an assignment to talk in english to foreigners and have their pictures taken with them (or maybe they do it for fun - who knows). SO we did our duty and answered "where are you from?", "what is your name?", and "what is your favorite sport?" (Kristy said "Yoga" and they said "Basketball!")

Then on to a shrine with a giant Buddha

03 Movie of the Robot Seal

. There seems to be a real pissing match in Asia about who has the biggest Buddha, or who has the oldest Buddha, or who's Buddha has the most divine expression, etc. Sort of like pizza places in New York. What we like are the big Buddha's sandals, which always hang somewhere in the temple (see picture).

Then finally we visited the money-washing temple. Here you put your money in a basket, wash it in the water in a cave, and it will multply three-fold. They do not give a timeframe, however. Again at this temple there were tons of school kids, these ones the small tikes, which were kept track of because they all wear the same color hat.

We are writintg this now on the train to our next destination, Kyoto. Kyoto is famous for its...temples. Hmmm, more temples, we'll see how that goes. Also want to highly recommend the apartment in Nishi-Ogikubo where we have been staying. It's about $110 US a night and the people that run it are very nice. They actually have two apartments in the same building. The apartment we stayed in was brand new and we were its first tenants. Here's a link to their listing on vrbo: http://www.vrbo.com/71100

Are you getting sick of seeing us wearing the same clothes in these photos? We are too

04 Kei, Mogan, Kristy and Matt at Tokyo Disney Sea

! The good news is that we will soon be in warmer climates and can pull out our warm weather clothes, which look suspiciously like some of our colder climate clothes. Kristy had a dream the other night that she went into her backpack and found a few more key pieces of clothing. (New Yorks will recognize the parallel between this dream and the classic apartment dream where you suddenly find that you have a room you never noticed before!)

Stay tuned for our Kyoto / Osaka report before we leave for Hong Kong on the 25th.

Strange Japanese, part two (as requested by Lauren Hall):

Engrish: The Japanese use of english words in totally nonsensical ways. For example, a t-shirt that says:" Surf Donuts" and a girl wearing a sequined t-shirt that said "Precious Blueberry". The best so far has been a very prim and proper tea shop called Tits Cafe.

The drunk Japanese Salary Man: They love a good three piece suit and their after work sake! They are passed out in the train stations, on the street, and almost in Kristy's lap on the subway

05 Night Scene Akihabara

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Pets with weird clothes: We saw one dog whose big floppy ears where tied back to it's head with a bandana. Also a golden retriever with what looked like a maternity dress.

Restaurants: They give you a basket to place by your seat to put your bags in.

School Photographer: It seems an official photographer travels alomg on school trips and takes pictures of the kids. We have seen lots of school groups and they always have a guy with a big fancy camera following them around.

Somehow it appears that the professional baseball games in Japan preclude hitting a bucket of balls at the driving range. We think it has something to do with the proximity of the range to the baseball staduim,

.What are we reading?

Kristy - Shogun by James Clavell
Matt - Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures & Videos

06 Salaryman	07 Street in Ogikubo	08 Matt and Kids	09 Kristy and the Kids
10 The Big Buddha	11 The Big Buddha Sandals	12 Matt Washing His Money	13 School Kids
14 The Rotating Sushi Restaurant	15 A Movie of the Rotating Sushi Restauarnt

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