It is hope you the blog enjoy tokyo in...

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We started off our voyage to Tokyo with an exciting morning consisting of a kitchen fire and my toiletry case as the only casualty. Japanese apts don't come with appliances, so Nick's prior roommate bought a typical Japanese stove -- it has a little drawer for broiling (the closest thing to an oven that anyone has in Japan -- no ovens! Can you believe it?) While I was in the shower, Mike made some toast for breakfast. This led to the igniting of the stove, and since my toiletry case was sitting on top, the flames that were shooting up through the back actually melted my case. agh. After a minute of being frozen in disbelief, Mike valiently grabbed a stein of water from the sink and doused the flames. Catastrophe averted. Good morning Nick. The smoke vented out pretty quickly, and as fast as it began, it was over. However, my toiletry case will never be the same haha. Serves me right, I guess. But hey, I figured there's only one more day there, what are the chances. Ha! I salvaged most everything in my kit (except the most important thing in there that melted!) Plastic bags for my things, and off we went. We made it to the train just in time. We had bought the Japan Rail Passes for a week -- like a Eurrail pass. We activated it in the office at the train station. It was almost a disaster because my passport apparently was never stamped. This has happened quite a few times to me when traveling on military transport. We still go through customs and stuff, but for some reason they rarely stamp my passport. I never thought this was a problem, until my cousins pointed out that I'm not legally in the country without a stamp in my passport. And, until we tried to activate our rail passes and the woman almost raised an alarm about the fact that I don't have a stamp. I pulled out my leave paperwork, and fortunately they were ok with that. Not sure what we would have done if not... Note to self: those stamps are important. From that point on, the day was pretty much limited to riding a train, running to the next one, riding a train, running to the next one, and riding a train. Thank goodness for the rail passes -- paid for itself in 1 day! We took a 3 hour train from Sapporo to the bottom tip of Hokkaido (the Northern island of Japan). Then we had 2 minutes to switch to the train that goes underwater between Hokkaido and the mainland of Honshu. Then we got on the bullet train to Tokyo for 3 hours. During all this, no one had the foresight to buy food to take with us, so we were limited to what we had in our bags and what they sold on the train. Mike found out the hard way that the premade bento boxes are a bit of fishy russian roulette. He lost. I didn't try it, but it looked aweful. He couldn't even eat it (but salvaged some rice). Up until the last train at around 6pm, our food consisted of ice cream, chocolate covered almonds, trail mix, more ice cream, and granola bars. It was our lucky day when on the last train, someone actually had sandwiches. That was the best egg salad I've ever had.

Besides sleeping, reading, and watching the countryside go by, we got a great deal of amusement from the crossword puzzles that I had printed out. A surprisingly exciting way to pass the last couple of hours. We arrived just outside Tokyo around 8pm. Good timing. We were staying with a family that Nick and Mike knew -- the Ogawas. The Ogawas are an older couple with 3 grown daughters and 4 grandsons. They live in a beautiful house (way bigger than I had expected from what Nick and Mike were saying most houses here are like). The Ogawas themselves are a very gracious couple and welcoming hosts. I felt like I was staying with my grandparents. Mr. Ogawa picked us up right outside the train station, in front of their store -- they own a jewelry store, one that's been in their family since 1931. From the beginning I knew it would be good -- his car was nice, new, and had beautiful leather interior. It even had a TV in the Navigation system! But apparently that's been standard here since the early 2000s. We pulled into their garage, and crossed the well-manicured front yard to the main house. As soon as we opened the door, we were greeted with some wonderful aromatherapy. I'm not sure if it was incense or some other kind of air freshener, but it was fantastic. We all left our shoes by the door, then slipped on the provided slippers. Very nice! We dropped our bags off in our respective rooms (the boys shared a room with Western beds and I had my own room with a traditional Japanese bed, consisting of a mattress on the floor -- surprising comfy!) Downstairs, a large spread was on the table for dinner. I couldn't believe how much food! Japanese people really are amazing hosts.

Our dinner was mostly benign stuff (though I was nervous since in that situation I couldn't really turn stuff down if they offered). We had pot stickers (awesome!), vegetable tempura, shrimp tempura, tofu, some tofu mix, sashimi, some other fried stuff I wasn't sure, but I think it was crab. All that was awesome, with the possible exception of the shrimp which was a little fishy. The last thing they brought out was some little fish, the kind that are about 4 inches long and are cooked, served, and eaten whole. Sardine? Not sure. Anyway, they were broiled pretty well. They were offered to me, and I was curious. My courage having been bolstered by the sake and beer we were drinking all night, I went for it. I refrained from eating the head (Mrs. Ogawa said she doesn't either). The rest of it was a little fishy, but tasted much like tuna fish. However, I think that little rat fish would be my undoing. By the end of the meal, I was stuffed, and that little fish kept wanting to come back up and remind me of what I ate. It just wouldn't die. In fact, I woke up several times in the middle of the night and thought I would be sick (I wasn't), but it was always that little fish that brought me close to the edge. I think it was just too much fat and fried stuff in one sitting. I've noticed that no one in this country does anything light, low-fat, skim, fat-free, diet (NO diet soda in any restaurant, no light beer, no low fat cheese in the grocery store, etc). And yet, they're all super skinny. They also don't eat very much, so I'm sure it balances out.

After dinner, we retired to the living room at the traditional Japanese table (kneeling on the floor) for dessert. In addition to me, Nick, Mike, and the Ogawas, their niece (I think) had joined us for dinner. She also brought cheesecake as omiage. Omiage is a tradition and implied obligation whenever you visit someone. Like a housewarming gift. Usually, omiage would be something we brought from home, especially something you can only find in America. However, since I didn't even know what omiage was until 2 days ago, I didn't bring anything. Instead, we went shopping for American things a few days ago. The cheesecake was a perfect idea! We enjoyed cheesecake, the chocolates we brought as omiage, and tea. Very nice. Then I fell asleep in the massage chair that they invited me to try. Never fails -- everytime I drink in this country, I get incredibly sleepy within an hour. I wonder if they're drugging it...

Anyway, I had already been invited to try the traditional Japanese bath before bed. I didn't realize what a ritual this was. They don't mess around with their baths. The bathrooms in Japan (well, all I've seen so far) often have the toilet separate from the washroom. The washroom is in the shower room, and the shower room is often a room with a tub but also shower head and drain in the floor. The whole room is the shower. In the Ogawa's house, it was more like a spa. Wooden planks on the floor in parts, and a super deep tub. The tub was a little shorter than normal tubs but was super deep. And having the whole room as a shower gives you the added advantage of being able to completely submerge so the water is right to the edge and running over. And since it was deep, you could actually submerge every part of your body, unlike those frustrating US tubs where if you try to get your knees under, the rest of you is out. And you can never go down to your neck. This one, just my head was sticking out. And it was comfortable! Plus there's a thermostat that keeps the temp at a toasty 47 degrees. What a novel idea! Can't believe we don't have thermostats for our tubs. In Japanese households, you shower before you get in the tub. I found out why afterward -- they don't change the water between people. Ew! Fortunately I didn't do anything that would make that gross (you know what I mean haha) but I'm still glad I went first. Something inherently gross about that. Like sharing a toothbrush. Or underwear. Ew. I felt so warm and relaxed after that. I slept like a rock! You'd be surprised how comfortable sleeping in the floor can be 😊

The next morning, I woke up with the sunrise, again. This is getting frustrating. I went back to sleep for an hour, then was awake for good. I went downstairs and saw the nice breakfast plates Mrs. Ogawa had prepared for us. How nice! I felt like I was in a hotel. Mike and Nick came down shortly after, and we all had eggs, toast, homemade blueberry jam, and some leftovers from dinner. A nice breakfast! And during it, there was what we think was a small earthquake. Just sounded like the door was rattling. I thought it was the wind, til I realized it was the door inside the house. Very subtle though.

Our day in Tokyo was so sunny and warm. It was perfect weather! Mrs. Ogawa dropped us off at the subway station, and we were off to explore Tokyo for the day. We were meeting with friends of Mike and Nick's for dinner and a place to stay. They're actually related to the Ogawas -- cousins? But he didn't get off work until about 9:30, so we were busying ourselves for a while. In retrospect, we spent more of the day on trains than in Tokyo. I saw the city from below. When we got to the station, we bought an all day pass, so everytime we jumped on a train, we either showed our all-day subway pass, or our Japan Raill passes. Started to get confusing actually. When we got into Tokyo (we were actually staying in a suburb just outside the main city), it was akin to getting to NYC. Yes, it's a big famous city, but once you're there, what do you actually do? Our first stop was Ginza -- very much like 5th Ave in NYC. We walked around a bit, looked at the Armani, Vuitton, etc. Then hopped on the train again bound for Harajuku. It's a lot like the village in NYC. The Harajuku girls (or Harikrishna as I kept calling it) are well-known for dressing very oddly. Like a mix between punk and glam. Very weird. We actually saw 2 of them in the subway station the night before. Everyone is so fashionable here that sometimes it's hard to tell if they're Harajuku or just rocking some runway stuff. The girls in the subway station were not hard to tell. They looked something like strawberry shortcake, in bright pink dresses with lots of white lace, white lace tights, and things in their hair. Very interesting. So when we went to Harajuku, we expected to see lots of them, but in the few hours we were there, only saw 4. Other than that, we just looked in the fun little stores. We also stopped for lunch at what seemed to be a great little find -- only about $10 in a fancy restaurant in Tokyo for an entree, unlimited salad bar and drink bar (non-alcoholic). The food was mediocre though so that might explain the price. Anyway, it was a nice little stop. Our next destination was going to be the Tokyo Tower (like the Empire State Building) but it was getting dark and it was far away. Instead, we got somewhat close and took a picture. Then we made our way to Electric Town. Pretty cool -- lots of bright, lit up shops. They had a music store that kept Mike entertained for an entire hour! Actually, it was nice to listen to him jam out on first the electric guitar, then the bass, then the drums, then a keyboard -- all electronic, of course. From there we just headed back to the subway station, but with one quick stop at one of Mike's old stomping grounds. This cute little bar in Kita Urawa. We were the only ones in there, and walked in to that nice incense smell like at the Ogawa's house. A very cool bar. It had guitars and bongos you could rock out on, and an electronic dart board that Nick and I took advantage of while Mike and the bartender/owner rocked out. Then we went back to our starting point. The Ogawas were nice enough to bring our bags to us there, so we met them and hunkered down to wait for Fumi to pick us up.

We stopped at the grocery store for some supplies (Fumi said there was nothing to drink at his place since he doesn't drink) and I found pumpkin pocky! Can't wait to try it. There is pumkin EVERYTHING here. They really love the pumpkin. When we got to his house, his wife/fiancee (they haven't had the actual wedding yet, but they do the paperwork first, so they're techincally married now) had this huge spread of dinner for us. Home-made gnocchi, pizza, a twist on caprese salad, and fried chicken. It was a nice American dinner. Good food though! Dessert were the mochi creams that we brought for omiage. Yum! I heart mochi. 😊 After that we pretty much just passed out. We all were in a room on the floor mattresses (like the one I slept on the night before), but super comfortable!

Today, we're having a homemade breakfast -- as incredible of a spread as last night. I can't believe the hospitality of everyone here! And the Ogawas insisted that if I were ever in Japan again, I'd have to call them and come visit. Too nice! After breakfast, we're off for Osaka to meet up with Mike's old host mom. Also to meet up with a friend of theirs for the day. A short 3-hr train ride and we're there.

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Photos

Dinner
The spread at the Ogawa's

WTF?
A really weird poster in the subway... still don't know what it was for

Tokyo
What a weird sculpture

harikrishna
One of the Harajuku girls.

Harajuku
The back of the girls -- I wasn't fast enough with the camera

Harajuku
I'm just not fast enough with the stupid camera...

Gold's Gym!
Took this pic for my friend Chris. Look Chris -- they have Gold's Gym in Tokyo!

Subway sign
Just in case you weren't sure if the washrooms had plat home....

Tokyo Tower
And that was as close as we got

Tokyo chic
Weird model in a Nike type store.

Ew
This is me throwing up a little in my mouth at a bag of octpus snacks in the convenience store

Electric Town
Cool!