I Left My Heart in Tokyo

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I had known Ellie was going to be in Tokyo for months, and I desperately wanted to meet up with her. I put off booking the tickets for months because I was concerned I'd get a job and then be unable to go. Well, I got a job (yay!) but they're taking forever with the paperwork, etc, and I won't start working until October (even though I was hired in August!). So I booked my tickets a couple days before leaving, packed up my trusty Lulu Castagnette carry-on, bought some Reese's cups for Ellie, and set off to the airport.

Since my flight was on a Tuesday afternoon and Chris was at work (what kind of boyfriend doesn't take a half day to drive his girlfriend to the airport?! geez!) I took the super retro bus to the airport instead of shelling out about $60 for a taxi. For a mere $9 I was treated to avocado and red CARPET-covered seats (love it!) and a looong bus ride through the southern part of the island and Naha. I was just so happy it actually existed because I honestly don't recall seeing many buses out on the roads, plus I got a good look at Kokusai Street in Naha where I will be doing all of my Christmas shopping this year (I hope you guys like Hello Kitty and crazy Japanese t-shirts and souvenirs because that's all you're getting!)


Okay, I did SO much while I was there that I'm going to split this up into more of a list-by-category entry instead of a narrative. Hope you don't mind!

Sights

Tsukiji fish market is world famous, and it's a massive tourist attraction. They've had to really restrict tourists for the 5am tuna auction, but I was not about to get up at 4am to take a taxi halfway across Tokyo to watch fish get sold. Fortunately we decided to skip that and just explore the wholesale market on our own because the market was completely empty when we arrive before 9am. Ellie asked the one man we found there, and he said it was a holiday. Apparently it was a fish-related holiday because no one else had heard of this supposed holiday. After feeling a bit like I was in a Nancy Drew novel while exploring the deserted market (it was really creepy!), we gave up and went on to the next item on our list. Never fear, however! I went back to the fish market the next day and had an enjoyable, but stressful, visit where I felt like I was constantly in everyone's way and stepping in fish guts. Good times.

The Meguro Parasitological Museum was something I obviously couldn't miss out on. Unfortunately it was mostly all in Japanese, but there were hundreds of parasite specimens preserved in jars and all sorts of cool photos. Very interesting for a science geek like me...not sure how many other tourists would be into it, haha.

I paid a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which is a very controversial shrine dedicated to the Japanese who have died in battle. In Shinto beliefs, once a soul has been enshrined, it cannot be removed. There are known war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni, but the government can't do anything about it because the Shinto priesthood say that all souls enshrined merge together and the criminals technically meet all the requirements to be enshrined. The priests have also enshrined thousands of Koreans and Taiwanese without notifying families, and sometimes even against families wishes. Despite the controversy, it's a very beautiful, peaceful place right in the heart of Tokyo.

I did so much else: Tokyo-Edo Museum, National Museum of Nature and Science (REALLY cool...probably the best laid-out science museum I've ever been to), Meiji-Jingu shrine, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (there's an amazing view of Tokyo from the 45th floor), shopping in Shinjuku and Shibuya (I accidentally wandered into a 4-story Forever 21 and wandered out with some new clothes...oops. And Ellie and I ventured into the enormous Tokyu Hands store, which is eight floors of just about everything you could ever want to buy as far as craft and do-it-yourself supplies go...we spent nearly an hour on the stationery floor alone), exploring the Ameyokocho market, and countless hours were spent trying to navigate the subway system (we got lost in the Otemachi station for over twenty minutes just trying to find our way out).

Experiences

Wednesday morning was rainy, but we gamely shoved our way into the extremely crowded Tokyo subway system. There are videos on youtube of people whose job it is to shove commuters into subway cars to fit as many people as possible in during rush hour. Our journey was not too far off from that. Poor Ellie had this horribly sweaty man shoved into her, and I felt like my ribs would start cracking if one more person was shoved into our compartment. But we managed to transfer lines without dying, and we escaped with just a few bruises.

I met up with Coral, a friend from Pitt, and we went to an izakaya (a traditional Japanese pub-type place). We took off our shoes, put them in a little locker and were shown to a table in a little wooden cubicle. For even more privacy, a screen was pulled down to shield us from the other two small tables in our room. We ordered plate after plate of little appetizers, most of which I let Coral pick out because the English translations were so unappealing (chicken neck and cartilage, anyone?) When you're ready to order another dish, you just push a button and a server shows up...how convenient! Definitely an improvement over the terrible service in French restaurants.

Tokyo is a city full of biggests and mosts, so I was able to see the area with the most two-story TV screens in the world and the world's biggest Hello Kitty figure (clearly that was a highlight for me!), as well as the world's busiest train station (3.8 million passengers A DAY), and spend a ton of money in one of the world's most expensive cities.

Food

We hit up Tsukijishima, a man-made island near the fish market, that is known for making monjayaki (a runny pancake). We arrived there about 10 in the morning because the guidebooks didn't tell us the area only really opens at night. We finally found one restaurant open, and we spent an hour hanging out with the older couple and their son who own the place. There's a whole technique to making these pancakes, and when he placed a bowl of batter and assorted fillings in front of us, he could see that we were clearly clueless. There was a griddle in the middle of our table, and he expertly chopped, stirred, fried, mixed, and mashed my buckwheat noodles and cabbage pancake to perfection with metal spatulas. We then had to eat the pancake directly off the griddle with tiny spatulas, dipping it into soy sauces on a tiny plate. I definitely scorched off a few taste buds as I hurried to shove runny pancake in my mouth before it burned on the skillet. Ellie's monjayaki was a seafood mix, and the purple tentacles and bloody-looking raw fish looked much more appetizing once it was chopped and mixed and fried. Mmmm.

At the izakaya with Coral, I had some delicious appetizers, like shrimp, avocado, and wasabi spring rolls, fried lotus root, crispy Chinese dumplings and raw horse meat. To be honest, Coral was the one who ate the horse sashimi, but I tried a bite. It wasn't bad tasting (it really just tasted like sushi), but the texture and whole idea of raw meat freaks me out, so I won't be ordering that on my own any time soon.

Ellie and I had a few more specialties that we wanted to try, and we finally managed to track down takoyaki (fried octopus balls) after searching three neighborhoods. We finally found them in Asakusa, down a side alley of of Nakamise-Dori. Ellie suggested we order the takoyaki shown in all the photos, so our fried octopus balls came topped with BBQ sauce and scrambled eggs. They were actually rather tasty once we realized it was easier just to shove the whole thing in our mouth at once instead of trying to cut them up into pieces. The still-gooey batter mixed with eggs, sauce, and purple tentacles made our dish look more like regurgitated octopus balls, but we still managed to finish them all. Other foods we tried out include green tea and azuki mochi (a dessert made out of glutinous rice paste stuffed with sweet bean and green tea pastes) and ningyo-yaki (a waffle-type cookie baked in molds and stuffed with yummy things like red bean paste, banana cream, purple sweet potato, and soybean paste).


All in all, Tokyo was amazing, exhausting, expensive, overwhelming, and a ton of fun. I can't wait to go back and eat some more raw horse (kidding).

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Comments

[MOM]

I''m ready!
I'm ready for another "Kate Adventure". I survived Senegal and now I'm ready to take on Tokyo. The pictures were amazing. No guarantee that I'll try octopus balls or raw horse meat but pretty much anything else on your list of "must dos".

[dave]

fried octopus balls
I commented to a friend about the fried octopus balls and their response was they didn't know octopi had balls. Yum Enjoyed your blog!

[Aunt Marie]

Kate, I can't believe your eating all that different fish. It sounds yukki to me! Sounds like you are having a great time. What kind of a job did you get?The fruit market looked good. Love You-Aunt Marie