tokyo

Hmmm, wait no...

Tokyo!

Umm, still not there...

Tokyo!!!

Actually, it's more like

TOKYO!

If you can't tell, I'm trying to illustrate just how big and overwhelming this city really is. Yes, the good news is that I've made it home to DC safely & now it's time for me to write a little bit about my adventures in this absolutely huge city!

First, some numbers just to put things into perspective:

• Tokyo is comprised of 23 wards, 26 smaller cities, 7 towns, and 8 villages
• Tokyo covers an area which is 55 miles from east to west and 15 miles from north to south
• The 23 wards alone enclose an area which is 228 square miles and houses 12 million people, which is about 10% of the country's population (and is the county's most populous area)
• Tokyo generates more than 20,000 tons of garbage a day
• More than 3 million people pass through Shinjuku Station every single day

... and, of all places, I booked my hotel in Shinjuku! For three days I was one of the millions of people to pass through Shinjuku Station and I usually did so several times a day. The approximately 2.5 days that I had in Tokyo weren't nearly enough and I wasn't nearly as prepared as I should've been to tackle this sprawling city. I had a lengthy train ride from Hiroshima (5 hrs) in which to read and prepare my thoughts about what to do yet I still found myself struggling because there's just so much to do and so much to see that it is overwhelming.

Friday morning I started out by hitting the Imperial Palace District which is in the central part of the city, starting from Tokyo Station. Unfortunately for me, though, when I finally made it to the entrance on the east side I saw that it was closed as it is on every Monday and Friday. The outer gardens were still open and these were simple gardens which had a variety of maticulously well-groomed trees, plus I could wander around the outside edge and a get a couple pictures of the Palace from the outside. This was the first of many examples in Tokyo where I saw the blending of two worlds - that of the very traditional Japanese culture and architecture with the backdrop of skyscrapers and a very modern Tokyo.

From here I went to the Tsukiji area since it was just to the east where they are known for having the largest fish market in Asia. I'd read several reviews of restaurants here touting the quality of sushi and freshness of the fish as being among the best, if not the best, in Japan. Unfortunately for me the actual auctions for fish are held way early in the morning, but if my Uncle Al was here with me then surely we would've either gotten up early or stayed up late to see it. My purpose here was simple: lunch! I found a small sushi place that had a wait but not too long of a wait and had their chef's selection for lunch for 2100 yen, which is a really good price for what I received (about $18). I can't even dream of getting sushi of this kind of quality for this price in America. With tax and tip, by myself, it's easy for me to spend $20-25 on a sushi meal back at home. And this sushi was incredible - the freshest and tastiest sushi I've ever had! Huge pieces of fish! I'll be sure to include a picture in an upcoming photo gallery.

After Tsukiji I was close to Ginza so I spent some time wandering around that area checking out some of the shops and picking up a few souvenirs. I'm not really into all of the "name-brand" shopping so I wasn't hitting too many places - the main place on my list was the Song Building! Their showroom was really cool - featuring the latest in laptop & desktop computers, MP3 players, digital cameras, plasma TVs and of course all things PSP and PS2 related, among other electronics. Even the Sony building itself seems to resemble a PS2 standing vertically. Very cool stuff.

Friday evening was spent wandering the Shinjuku area by myself - which I soon realized was not such a good thing to do. I found dinner here but I couldn't walk down the streets of Kabuki-cho without being approached by someone speaking English trying to get me into their "club". Um. Yeah. It got annoying after awhile - even though there were restaurants, movie theaters and Pachinko parlors (video game arcades) there as well I just couldn't escape these guys, so I went to a different area of Shinjuku to scope things out. The Golden Gai area was really cool - very small streets just lined with 2-story buildings, all of which contains little bars that usually held no more than 10-15 people. I attempted to check out a couple of these in hopes of meeting some people but didn't have much luck this evening. Shinjuku is a cool area to explore but I'm sure much cooler when you're with someone who knows where they're going, heh.

Saturday was quite the full day - I started out in Akihabara which is what used to be well known for their discount electronics but has since turned into an area where "Otaku", or geeks, tend to frequent. Lots of huge electronics department stores and small electronics vendors. Everything and everything that requires electricity or batteries to run is sold here, from kitchen appliances to the latest computers to electronic translators to electronics parts. Even the toilet "washlets" are sold here! I stumbled across one row of shops where all they sold were small electronics parts at really cheap prices - if only Gyom were here I'm sure he'd be picking through all of these parts putting together his next-gen guitar pedal! Some cool CD and DVD stores here, too.

Next on my list was to head to Ginza where I was to meet my friend Shuko for lunch. Shuko and I met in Washington, DC with several other people at a JAS-DC event (Japan-American Society of Washington, DC). Lucky for me, Shuko had just moved from NYC back to Tokyo just weeks prior to my arrival. She graciously took me out to what was easily one of the best meals I've had during my entire stay in Japan where the chef prepared half of what we ate right in front of our eyes - I even had a video of the guy driving a nail through the head of a fish and preparing it.. oh, yeah, and my reaction to it too! Haha! Louise & Al, you would've loved it for sure!! Shuko even took me around Ginza and Roppongi Hills after lunch to help me do some souvenir shopping. It had been quite some time since we'd seen each other and I'm so glad we were able to meet up!

Next I headed to Harajuku which is a bit closer to where I was staying in Shinjuku to meet with Yuka for dinner. My co-worker Laura introduced me to her roommate Jessica who spent part of a summer with Yuka when Yuka came to the states for an exchange program about 8 years ago. Jessica put me in touch with Yuka and she met me for dinner tonight at a way cool conveyor belt sushi restaurant! The cool thing about these places (besides the obvious, like the conveyor belt and the sushi) is that some of what they serve is a bit more odd than you'd find at other sushi restaurants. In general, we Americans have kinda messed with sushi to make it more "American-ized". You don't see half of the silly rolls in Japan like you do in the states. But this place had a few wacky ones but not nearly as wacky as the one I went to in Kyoto where they had 'duck' tho. After dinner we walked to the Shibuya area and got drinks at Starbucks and luckily had seats with a great view of the famous Shibuya intersection crossing and the craziness going on there (words cannot do this justice, you'll have to see a pic). It was awesome having Yuka to show me around Harajuku and Shibuya and she even offered to meet up with me on Sunday...

Which takes me to my last day in Tokyo - where I started out once again in Harajuku to do some souvenir shopping, then met Yuka at Asakusa which is again a very traditional area of Japan which stands out in contrast to the very modern Japan of other areas. Asakusa has the traditional architecture as well as the Asakusa-Jinja shrine and streets lined with covered shopping (key on a day like today where it was raining off and on) and vendors selling okashi (sweets), osembae (rice crackers) and omiyage (souvenirs). Unfortunately I didn't have a whole lot of time there as the Tokyo subway system had proved to be quite the challange in getting from one place to another (over long distances, at least, determining where to change and how to get from one line to another which is not always connected or run by the same company). Off to my next meeting - I met my friend Aya and her sister Kaori for a cup of hot chocolate and slice of cake in the basement area of this quaint-looking french cafe on the much quieter side of Shibuya. They were taking a short break from their work day as they both own a small art and music cafe close by. We had a great time chatting about travel and different cultures and they wanted to go back to work at the cafe about as much as I wanted to return home to America... =)

After that I didn't have too much time but I stopped to pick up a few last souvenirs in Shibuya before I was to head out - and wouldn't you know it just browsing in a store I happened to meet a local there who was more than interested in chatting with me. I wish I had met Naomi sooner - she was probably the singlemost person who made the best effort to communicate with me in Japanese as she spoke slow enough for me to understand what she was saying, and when I didn't understand she attempted to say it in a different way or use other words that I might know. It meant so much to me to have this person making such an effort in communicating with me - giving me a chance to think through and forumulate my response as well. I found a similar thing happen in Hiroshima as well, though. I met Rie just before catching my train to Tokyo and had a fantastic conversation with her, though mostly in English. Hopefully I can keep in touch with some of these people I've met for my next trip... =)

So for now it's back to the real world - but I do have the intention of following up here with more pictures from the rest of my trip as well as a "post-mortem" of things I think I did right and things I think I did wrong and could do better next time in hopes that for everyone reading this, should you decide to make a trip overseas (to Japan or whatever) you can learn from some of my experiences.

Pictures to follow!