Let's go to sleep in Tokyo, and wake up in Kyyyoto

(title is a reference to a Lupe Fiasco song) Here is a LINK TO PICS.

We have breakfast this morning in the underground shopping area of the Ikebukuro subway station. I love inari (sticky rice wrapped in sweet, thin tofu skin), so we stop at a store that only sells inari. I have never seen such a variety before. They are all different prices depending on the complexity of the inari. Some are soaked in wasabi & some have bits of soybean or sesame mixed into the rice. We take my four inaris to Soup Stock Tokyo, a franchise that sells soup. Robby orders a Tokyo borsch, a beefy tomato soup with carrots, potatos, a lemon slice, & a dab of sour cream. After sharing our breakfasts with one another Robby begins to feel queasy. He realizes that it was a bad idea to mix all those foods: sour cream, wasabi-soaked inari, marinated ginger slices, & a vitamin C. He feels sick for much of the morning, but better after a little wet heaving.

We take the JR train the Shinjuku Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, where a free ride to the 45th floor offers a spectacular view of the city. From the top, we see shrines, high rises, skyscrapers, parks, & rivers. Although today is sunny & clear, Mount Fuji is hidden behind a haze of lazy clouds. There is a display that shows the contestant paintings of children. Each one promotes the maintenance of healthy teeth. Most of the paintings are done in anime style, & they are adorable.

Harajuku: the spot for teens to shop & be seen
First we walk away from the busy shopping area of Harajuku into the park that houses the Meiji Jingu Shrine. Teenagers elaborately dressed up in costume hang out on a large bridge that leads into the park. They look like anime characters, but their costumes are actually creations of their own imagination. Spiky hair, red, blue, or green contacts, white face paint, carefully chosen shredded clothing, & heavy eye make-up. There are also a few girls dressed up in the latest gothic & Lolita craze. At first glance, they look like scary versions of Alice in Wonderland: curly doll-like hair, short, frilly dresses, & high platform shoes. Sometimes, they are dressed in all black; they all look like life-sized dolls. They stand along the bridge, check out each other’s costumes, & willingly take pictures with tourists. It is customary practice on Sundays. What a sight.

A wide gravelly path through dense trees leads us to Meiji Jingu Shrine. The shrine is huge, & many Japanese people go to pray after tossing donation money into the box. We don’t understand the symbols of the shrines, so we have difficulty appreciating them. There is a nice showcase of bonsai trees. We are surprised to see three wedding parties gathered at the shrine. In a grim procession, they walk onto an open area near the shrine & have their family photo taken. With the religious leaders in front, the groom & bride are followed by their parents & immediate family members. The older men wear black tuxedos with tails & gray pin-striped pants, reminiscent of the 1920s & ‘30s. The mothers wear black kimonos, & the grooms wear a black robe. The brides are completely in white. Their faces are powdered white & they wear a large, white fabric headpiece in the shape of a halo. None of them smile much in the photos, & the photographers use very old cameras with flash bulbs.

Lunch takes place in Ebisu, where we meet a friend for pork cutlets (katsu). Each one contains thinly sliced layers of pork rolled with extras (Jeanne had scallions, Robby garlic) and is battered and fried. Robby’s on a vegetarian hiatus for the trip - he wants the protein.

Then we return to Harajuku and walk down Takeshita Dori, watching the teenagers shop for clothes that display uninterpretable English phrases. We seek out the temple that is holding its monthly antique sale. Robby’s favorite box contains military issue binoculars (for snipers?) and a small (hand propelled?) rocket from WWII era. All of the other stuff is just too old or expensive (or both).

Afterwards, as we stroll down the main shopping street in Harajuku, Omotesando. We stop into a fancy mall for the toilet and then follow a crowd to the basement level. They are waiting in line for a film festival called Short Shorts. We had seen it advertised in the subway our feet are heavy rike rock, so we decide to watch some shorts. All of them are from outside of Japan, which is kind of a bummer, but overall we enjoyed the work. Robby’s favorite: Be Careful with that Axe - a young lad runs about doing dangerous stuff, then spies an axe, begins to play, barely missing various parts of his body as he swings the axe down on a log, and finally, when trying to pull the axe from the log, hits himself with the flat back end and falls down. Jeanne’s favorite: The Miracle of Salvador - a small boy plays hide and go seek with his father on a crowded train in Spain, winning the hearts of many passengers, including one man who is moved to tears by the innocence of the boy’s game. Later, we see that this man is a terrorist and is responsible for the bomb attack on the train. The short ends by implying that the boy was a rare survivor of the attack.

We spend the early evening in Roppongi, an area touted as a hot spot for the youth, but we don’t really find its charm. Perhaps we miss the best areas, but the places we find in Rippongi are full of chain stores/restaurants and gaijin. We eat at a BBQ place, grilling our own meat and leaving with the delicious stench on our clothes.

In the morning, we drop our bags at the Tokyo station and then head down to Tsukiji fish market. We’d missed the best of it the first time we tried, but on this visit we see it all. After eating sushi at a nearby restaurant, we stroll through the endless aisles of living and dead fish. Once again, we leave with a stench on our clothes - Jeanne with some fish guts on her feet.

Then we jump on our train to Kyoto, sleep for most of the ride, and wake up to catch the end of our high-speed ride through rice paddies and villages with mountains looming behind them. The Gojo Guesthouse has nicer rooms than the Kimi Ryokan, but the bathrooms are less clean. After grappling with a dryer that won’t dry our clothes, we forget our map and stroll through the Gion district looking for a tofu restaurant that was in the guide book. The alleyways are full of pricey restaurants and nobody’s heard of Tofujaya, so we end up at a fancier-than-we-thought yakatori (barbecued skewers) place. Through an unfortunate series of miscommunications, we order way too much food and then can’t stomach a good portion of it (chicken liver, rice with raw egg broken into it, chicken neck). The stuff we can eat is delish, but we leave the place depressed by our poor decision making & the dent in our wallet. Lesson of the night: don’t eat at fancy places when you’re too hungry to take your time and make sure the waiter understands what you want and how much you want to pay.

At least we’ve got the story to tell. And now that it’s told, we’re going to sleep. :)