From Vinegar Drinks to Cute Ice Cream

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Exhausted from their late night excursions, the boys slept in. I utilized this time to catch up on writing and doing some laundry so we all had underwear for the next leg of our trip. The easiest way to write by blog has been using the computers at each of the hostels, but even those pose their challenges. The keyboards at them are different from home. While they have the normal alphabet they also have alternate letters for the Japanese language and a bunch of extra keys to fit them all on there. That means the space bar, backspace, and many others are not the same location as normal. Forgive my typing then if some random Hirigana {Japanese written language} ends up in it.
When the guys finally woke up around 11am, we all headed out for the day. Our first stop, of course, was for food. We found this Ramen restaurant where you chose your meal from what looks like a vending machine. After placing in your money in, you make the selection of what you want to eat. The machine spits out tickets for each option you pick that then you give to your server at your table. I picked out a typical bowl of ramen and some gyoza {Japanese dumplings}. By the first bite of my food I was wondering why in the US we only have the weak boring microwavable ramen, it was fantastic. The flavorful broth was piping hot with delicious noodles that had onions, meat, and many more ingredients that I don't know what they are. I am looking forward to trying this again on our trip.
We were blessed with a nice day so we hit the Tokyo Skytree {one of the tallest towers in the world} to see the city from up above. As we were looking for the ticket counter, we were directed to a counter with a fast pass. Turns out you can pay just $8 more to skip the line and go straight to the top - so instead of the 3 hours the sign said to expect, it turned into 10 minutes. They cut us in to the middle of a school group on a class trip. Of course standing there with 2 guys over 6 feet and one just under it, we got a lot of stares. The tower gave us a great view of the city, but unfortunately it was a bit hazy so the buildings farther away and Mt Fuji weren't really visible. It was also quite crowded. We saw our first Asian cross dresser. She didn't do a very good job with her make-up so she stood out quite a bit, but she looked like she was having fun! From one side of the tower you could see where our hostel was located. Fred had been looking for a running path, so we plotted one out in the parks nearby the river. For some reason Elliot didn't get a water at the convenient store stop we had on the way to the tower, so he was dying of thirst. The tower had a refreshment stand so he ordered a Lychee Vinegar drink while I had to get ice cream with blueberry dessert vinegar. My ice cream was great because the vinegar taste was really weak under the blueberry flavoring, but Elliot didn't get so lucky. His drink really did taste like watered down vinegar - YUCK! He was so thirsty he didn't care and kept drinking. Silly kid! I ended up sharing my water with him eventually because it was too painful to watch.
Next I drug the boys to Akihabara which was perfect because it was filled with arcades. So we spent the afternoon playing games. It started with us challenging each other to Mario Cart! We soon learned that I am not so great at driving cars in Mario Cart, flying planes in flight simulators, or shooting down Transformers. Since we didn't find a DDR for me to redeem myself, they gave me kudos for being able to plan a trip at least. Many of the streets in Akihabara were blocked off because groups of people were parading shrines down the street. We never did figure out the reasoning behind it, but I was making guesses that it had something to do with the Sumo Tournament beginning that day. We had originally planned to go today to see a sumo match, but our receptionist at the hostel encouraged us to wait until Monday since it would be highly unlikely for us to get tickets the opening day.
Another thing on my list for Akihabara was to go to a Maid cafe because they are so prevalent in Japanese media {animes, mangas, TV dramas, etc.}. They were scattered all around the area, so we just looked for one in the next block of shops. Since the girls were standing outside in their maid outfits, it was pretty easy to find. As soon as we entered and got seated, I realized I should have probably warned the boys a little bit better on what they were getting themselves into. Our server came over and gave us a cute little introduction that had us doing some cute hand signals and me laughing hysterically at the boys. She gave us a couple rules for the place too - including telling Tyler "no touching the servers." I guess tehy have had problems from American boys in the past, haha! The first 10 minutes into the cafe experience the guys were super uncomfortable and I began thinking bringing them with was a bad idea. Then one of the maids went on stage and started a little dance and singing show to a fun Japanese song. They gave us maracas and tambourines to play along. Finally the guys started to warm up to the place a little bit better. They brought out our ice cream dishes that were designed to look like animals and were adorable. Below the ice cream was some fruit and some cornflakes. Fred had to comment on how "They're Great!" The combination of the Tony the Tiger reference, all that sugar, and the cutesy atmosphere just set us all off giggling. By the end of the experience the boys were having fun and were planning the ploy for Elliot to bring a new recruit here. Tyler was quite impressed with the business model. The cafe got us to essentially pay for a $25 bowl of ice cream. {Worth it in my opinion - especially once we took the pictures with the maid and all the boys were posing}. That did seem to be the last thing they could handle in Akihabara, though, so we headed over to Harajuku to see the dressed up cosplay.
On the way we made a pit stop at Tokyo Station where Elliot's sister, who works for a beer magazine in the States, needed a picture of a bar there that was going in their Japan issue of the magazine next month. The place was called barBar Tokyo. We stopped to have a drink while Tyler and his huge camera took a multitude of photos of the place to send over to Elliots sister. Tyler went a little picture crazy, but we just sat and watched while enjoying our drinks. Hopefully one or two will work for the magazine. It would be pretty cool to see Tyler printed. Leaving Tokyo Station, we headed to the next stop - Harajuku. I was so disappointed last time that we didnt see anyone dressed up that my hopes were quite high for this evening. Fifteen feet in to Harajuku, though Fred made us stop so he could try McDonald's. I had to give him a hard time because he didn't even try a local sandwich, he got a Big Mac! Unfortunately, I was disappointed a second time. Our walk through the street ended with me seeing only 3 people dressed up. I feel like I saw more than that between the guy dressed up at the Skytree and the maids in Akihabara! The one plus is we found this cool shop that had some really odd suits in it. We tried getting Tyler to buy one, but we walked out empty handed.
It was late by this point, and of course the guys wanted food. So we headed over to Tokyo Station to find the next bar on Elliot's sisters list called Swan Lake Pub. It was right outside the station and had some local micro-brews which were interesting to try. Tyler went camera happy again and we mixed up the drink colors this time. The food list was not quite as extensive as we had hoped, so we ended up with some potato wedges and bacon (which really was chunks of ham) to tide us over. We didn't get dinner until back near the hostel where there was a fun Sushi place open. It was a great ending to our day. I did have a little trouble eating mine though, because I ordered some type of sushi that was wrapped up in seaweed cones. They were too large to eat in one bite but the seaweed was tough to try and tear though with my teeth. The results were a bit of a mess, but what else is new when I'm eating!
Back at the hostel we packed up and made plans for getting up early the next morning for Sumo wrestling. Elliot had to leave us to go to work the next morning. Unfortunately,I had done laundry that morning (including his shirt) and the door to the laundry area where things were out drying was closed! So Elliot donated his shirt to Tyler temporarily. Personally, I think it's a fair swap since Tyler bought Elliot dinner because he was out of cash.

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