getting lost in tokyo

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unfortunately i cannot read japanese, which has made certain aspects of this trip quite time consuming and difficult.....such as trying to post photos to my blog. as soon as i can find a computer that is not in japanese i will post about a thousand photos.

At 5:30 am wednesday matt, slyvia and i headed out for the tintsukiji fish market located in central tokyo. I have always heard that this market is the place in asia (if not the world) for fish, so i was very excited about going down for a visit. during our stay in tokyo we decided to use the metro system. This was my first time travelling through the tokyo underground during rush hour and it was pretty crazy. The subway system is huge and while you are trying to figure out how to use an automated fare machine, people are swarming in every direction around you. After about a bajillion transfers on the tokyo metro during rush hour, we finally stepped out onto a desolate city street at around 6am. standing across the street from the fish market we quickly found out that the fish market is closed every 2nd wednesday of the month and consequently, we were not able to eat the famous sushi breakfast. Instead, we headed out on foot to explore the interworkings of central tokyo. after about 10 minutes or so of walking, we decided it was time to find a place to eat breakfast. eventually, we found a place that appeared to be a noodle house. The establishment was very small and only had enough room for about 10 patrons at a time. The restaurant had a very weird ordering system in which you picked out your item from a machine which had absolutely no pictures... only japanese writing. after you selected what you wanted, you paid the machine in cash and handed the printed receipt to the cook in back who prepared you meal. I guessed as to what to have and ended up getting some sort of soba noodle soup with an egg and some sort of vegetable pancake ontop... which was very tasty.

After a filling noodle breakfast, we continued our tour of the central tokyo area. I figured it would be a good time to check out the imperial palace since it was only about 10 or so blocks away. Since we did not have a map we just tried to rough navigate the best we could and ended up getting lost. at this time, it was about 730 or 8 in the morning and the streets and alley ways were jammed packed with tokyo commuters. some how, through wandering around, we ended up in the roppongi/shibuya region (which was completely the opposite direction from where we wanted to go) and stumbled across the Tokyo Tower. We decided not to go up to the observation deck, but instead explored what looked like a shrine across the street. This shrine was under heavy renovation so i am not quite sure what it actually was. there were these intresting prayer trees outside the shrine in the courtyard (bamboo trees with various paper writing tied to them). we later found out that these prayer trees have to do with the Star Festival which is going on in japan until the 13th of july. after wandering around for a bit in roppongi, we jumped a subway ride to the imperial palace. for some reason, every subway ride in tokyo seems like a thousand transfers and this one was no different. we arrived at the imperial palace around 11 or so and took a looksy at the front gate of the emperor's residence. everything was very beautiful but not very interesting so we stayed only a few minutes. After the imperial palace, we headed down to this huge harrod's-esque department store. it was about 10 levels, and had everything you could ever need, allthough everything was much too expensive for me (about 300 USD for jeans). Leaving the department store, we headed back to or hostel for some relaxing. we got back around noon or so (i think) and soon left for some lunch. we walked down to the local main road and found a kebab stand for some really great gyros. after the gyros we explored a huge outdoor market...whose vendors pretty much sold everything, played some porchinko (not sure on spelling), got challeneged to a some sort of skill game by locals (not sure how to explain it) and stumbled in on some action related to the star festival. walking through this market, matt and I found a vendor who sold Octopus balls with benito flakes for 500 yen (5 usd)....we tried them but were not really impressed. all in all, we made it back to the hostel at around 4 and took some naps. tonight we will be heading out to roppongi. skyvia wants to experience the night life of tokyo and so we are going. im pretty sure i will have a blast but i am afraid i will spend too much money. on the way there, we plan to hit up electric town. this section of tokyo is called "the neon canyon" because of all of the lights. due to our hieght (matt and i are both around 6'5) we get sometimes get stopped by people who are interested in us. today it happened three times, and slyvia even got a "pat on the back" from an old lady for being with us. it was actually quite hilarious. also, every person in tokyo seems to have the same cell phone. i have only seen one model so far..it looks sort of like a razr.

the time right now is 6:33 pm wednesday or 3:30 am wednesday in denver.

Talk to you later,

jason

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Comments

[Chris]

Awesome
I am so Jealous. I miss Japan immensly. The "Neon Canyon" you are going to is probably the Ginza - "Japan's Las Vegas Style street (meaning it is "well lit"). Sound like you are having a blast and your fist meal was at a fast food Ramen House - awesome. Can't wait to read more. Have agreat time man and again, it was a blast having you here in CA!