I got a snack at Mistukoshi then headed back to Ueno. On account of the rain I skipped the park, but I’ll probably look at it tomororw before I leave for Narita. Instead I visited a toystore, then looked for the Tengu I saw yesterday. I failed, but I hope that it was just hidden because it was closed. I’ll try to look it up at the hotel. I then slogged down to Kappabashi Dori o see if I could find a bento box to buy – but nothing I liked for less than 30 bucks. I think i can do better than that at home, and not have to worry about it breaking in transit. Feet sore. I stopped in the cafe to rest a bit before returning to the hotel.
Joan’s directions were spot on for for this one. I hope the food is as gooda s I believe it will be.
Rainin gtoday – sort of sad but oh well. I visisted the east garden of the Imperial Palace. It has neat ruins of Edo Castle in it. On account of the weather, not too many photos. Well, so be it. I strolled around for about an hour, then I hit Mistukoshi’s main store. I explored the store pretty thoroughly – funny place. Kind of like you stepped back in time to the 1950s. I bought some Genmaicha.
Ok, I got my food (medium sized ungai donburi and miso soup) and it was delicious. The soup had lots of tofu, mushrooms, and some sort of celery and parsely hybrid. Great on a rainy day lke today. The unagi was tender, mild and delicious. Good pickle too. Probably a bit better than Kyoto eel. I shall finish my tea and get a pastry at mitsukoshi.
It’s very nice out, so i went for a short stroll. Earlier I had gone to Yokohama china town – amusing, and saw Yamashita Park, and the statue given to Yokohama by San Diego. China Town has lots of gates. Then I rode the train back to Shin Yokohama and went to the “Raumen Museum” which I already mentioned. I had spicy miso ramen. It was good, not as good as aoba, but good. I got some fried bread for dessert. Then I headed back to tokyo.
I picked up a Cherry Danish at Andersen bakery in Ueno Station, mostly just to check it out. If I wanted to be scientific and compare it to Andersen in SF, I should have gotten An Pan! Well, maybe tomorrow. Anyhow, I looked for a manga cafe and I found one, but they lied and said they werne’t open, despite the 24 hour sign outside. Oh well. I found another Tengu which I might go to tomorrow. And the hotel has a computer to check my email at.
LC gave me the phone number for a friend of her’s in Tokyo – I will call him, but it seems likely that he is currently out of Japan. Oh well.
How strange to be here! This place is hilarious. Not so much of a museum, but more of an all ramen food court with an entrance fee. That’s fine because it’s fun. And I got to order and pay by the ticket machine, finally.
I am about to be on my way to go to Yokohama for the RAMEN MUSEUM. Yar!!!!! I will also check out china town. I failed to find Kaitenzushi for lunch, but there was a sheap standing sushi bar I ate at. It was pretty decent, but not as good as Tsukiji breakfast sushi. I went to the Shibuya b@gus to check email. I like the one in Shinjuku better. However I had weird corn soup drink. My hotel in Ueno seems decent enough. My current room has the cutest little door, with cute multi colored numbers on it.
I took JR to Ueno to drop my back of the the New Izu hotel. I have to say again, MAN that Kodansha Atlas is TEH BEST! Anyhow, now I am off to shibuya to see Hachiko and such. In the previous station, Hamamatsucho there was a hilarious statue of a guy peeing. I only saw it from behind, but that is why I am writing this entry.
I just got back from a 1.5 hour walk around nishiki shinjuku. Shinjuku Central park is nice, I was there when they turned on the waterfalls. But really, I like it better east of the Station than here. It takes about as long to get anywhere from here as from hatagaya!
Last night I was too lazy to write, so I’ll update on that now. I walked to east shinjuku to get dinner at Tsunihachi tempura. The set that I orderd included delicious conger eel, which was alive and wrigling and shown to me before it was dispatched and fired up deliciosly. The prawns were also alive just prior to eating. The tempura was great – light and crunch. And because I was sitting at the bar, I could watch them fry it all up. It was wonderfully paces, so I got 2 items or so at a time, and I would have new fresh food right around when I finished what I had in front of me. At the end I had the obligatory miso and rice. The miso had about two dozen tiny clams in it. I pulled the yummies out of them with my chopsticks, and then it was sort of like japnese clam chowder, and very good. Dinner with beer was cheaper than breakfast by about Y1000. hah.
Afterewards I went to mistukoshi to look for something for a dessert. – Haha MTV Japan is playing HoIoM which Christian Death Metal or something. Anyway, Mitsuokoshi shinjuku has a sad foodcourt. It’s a lot more like a us mall food court than the one at the nihombashi store. But I god an orange passion fruit ice cream mochi, which I ate on my walk back to the hotel. It was pretty tasty.
Back that the hotel I watched No Reservations, then I hit the bar up for a drink. I hung out up there for about an hour, before coming back down to my room and gong to sleep.
I will enjoy the posh room a bit more before I check out. I think I’ll go to Shibuya today, and then the yokohama Ramen Museum for dinner.
Oh, I read “A Wrinkle In Time” cover to cover yesterday. It made me a bit sad, and I don’t know why. It is a lovely book. I was also bummed that I brought “A Swiftly Tiling Planet”, and not “A Wind in the Door”. So I started reading “Winter’s World” today. I want to reread Heinleins “Time for the Stars” and “Anna to the Infinite Power” Hah.
The room is pretty nice. I just took a bath in a “normal” soaking tub, while reading and drinking green tea. Before coming here I read in a park and ate a take-away sushi bento from a place next to the market for lunch. I plan to go to tempura for dinner later, but first more tea, relaxation and reading.
I am saddened that it is overcast out, but I have a good view of Yoyogi park, at least.
I’m going to kill a couple of hours by slacking in Tsukiji before I go to the park hyatt to slack more. MOstly slack today – my feed need it. Besdies, I am starting to get tuckered out. Hah!
So this morning I woke up around 4:40AM to the alarm. I wonder how late I would have slept on my own. I got dressed and headed outisde. I then *shambled* towards tuskihi market. My legs were being retardo. I had the aspirin in my pack, so i took some. I shambled some more and finally found the inner market. I felt recharged upon finding it. I guess the apsirin was kicking in, but also, it was really freaking neat.
So – 1) Weird trucks. They drive htem crazy all around the market. And I’ve not seen anything like them before. An engine in a barrell that you turn to move the litlte truck. So gnomish looking. But they seem to work out well.
2) The inner market was a trip. Giant tuna carcasses in very states of dissassembly. From the tail lopped off, the head and tail lopped off, to deloined. I watched a large part of the disssasembly of a particlarly huge one I arrived in the middle of the beheading. Next they cut off the finds. And then they began to remove the loins. They used a 6′ knife to remove the loin from the spine. It was fascinating.
I also got to see some smaller live fish being atually dispatched. This really creeped out a woman near me. The sheer variety of seafood there is amazing. The quantity equally so. The japapnese really like their fish, don’t they? After I weaved my way through the whole inner market, I headed out to the outer market to get some fish to eat. 3400Y later I was filled with oisshii sushi. Chutoro, tamago, aji, amaebi, tako and more. I peaked into the big concrete temple on my way back – prayer was in sesion.
I rested and showered and shaved at the hotel before chekcing out. Sadly I had seen a pharmacy the day before that i could not find today. Oh well. Changing geography makes sense in a place like this. I’ll relax more with mu kohi- and an pan before we’ll see. 1.5 more hours to kill without much walking.
I am tired an sore. But i had a neat assed morning. Well first the rest of yesterday, as I basically CRASHED at 9:30PM
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I got back to Shinjuku, grabbed my second bag at Tokyo station. It took 15 minutes to find my large suitcase, but that was not so bad. I was in a lot of pain because of the food blisters. I pretty much wussed out on taking the train to my hotel and hired a taxi instead. Hah. So I love how even cabbies can’t find places here. He screwed up a bit, admitted it (calling himself Baka!) and then turned the meter off before driving me to the right place. I really wish I spoke more Japanese, but I communicated OK with him.
This hotel is pretty good. Comfortable bread, good AC, TV with 20 channels (8 of them copies of course) Also, great location. 5 blocks from the central fish market. But I’ll get to that later.
So as soon as I got ot my room I lanced my giant blister on my right pinky toe. It was actually 2 blisters upon closer examination. It helped a lot. And 30 minutes later I headed out to go to Odaiba.
Yurikamome “new transit” is really cool. A driverless train so if you are in a end car, like I was, you have a fantastic view. I rode all the way to the terminal station, then came back. I stopped first at Daiba to check out that area for sunset. It was beautiful but I felt really happy despite my sore, dumb feet. Food choices were odd, so I just got joe random ebi tempura. Then I went to Aomi. Toyotoland is hilarious. Especially the “ride one” road thingy. THe big stack of test drive cars was crazy. I was pretty bushed at this time, and the thought of paying Y500 to get in to an arcade was not high on my agenda, so I ended up skipping Joyopolis. My video game roots feel betrayed. I headed back to the hotel, stopping to buy an aisan pear at a fruit stand and a convini snack. I ate a bit of snacks, took a shower then fell asleep watching Green Wing, some time around 9:30 PM
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To be continued.