Tokyo '06 - Week 1

Day 1 (Thu, Apr 20/Fri, Apr 21)

My parents got me to San Francisco Airport with plenty of time to spare. While I was waiting in line to check my bag (65 Lbs.) I was accosted by a cute but older Philippina. She preceded to interrogate me on if I was going to see my girlfriend and why I would wear a wedding ring if I'm not married (wrong hand, I wonder how often women get that wrong?) I seem to have reached the age where I can no longer attract the cutie young damsel fish, but Barracuda are all over me :-(

I tried to get as much sleep as possible on the flight, using some soft silicon earplugs to help attenuate the engine noise. I was awoken a couple hours into the flight by the stewardess to receive my special Kosher meal for passover. I keep forgetting to change my preferences at United Online, but the good part is I almost always get served first. There was a small struggle to penetrate the indestructible plastic wrap encasing my meal and an overfilled cup of water added to the challenge. After chewing through one bag to get to the plastic knife I wasted several minutes sawing ineffectively to get to the cheese Lasagna (can't get more Jewish than that!) Mrs. Barracuda stopped by to chew on my ear and observing the large "KOSHER" stickers placed on every food item, was put into an even larger feeding frenzy at the prospect of bagging a nice Jewish boy.

The flight itself was quite smooth until we reached Tokyo. We hit a cell of thunderstorms and we had a wild ride as we waited in a circular holding pattern over the Pacific for them to pass through. I had to keep reminding myself about the metallurgy involved in the engine mounts as I watched them undulate precariously under the flexing wings of the plane. Landing, Immigration and Customs was a breeze. In line I finally got a snap of some of my favorite guerilla art, I had seen it the last several times I had visited. After getting my checked bag I headed for the JR terminal area where I had a Starbucks mocha and exchanged my JR Rail voucher. l bought a ticket ($12) from the touch screen vending machine and boarded the local train headed to my friends house in Nishi-Magome .

Once I made it home I called Dai and had to quickly catch a bus to his office in Kawasaki. We joined two of his coworkers for a great Japanese course dinner ($150ea.) consisting of small ornate dishes of perfectly balanced and presented fish, tofu and vegetables. We had a Sake sampler, where I experienced for the first time "Japanese Champagne" a slightly unfiltered sweet Sake in a Grolsh style bottle that had mild natural carbonation, interesting... I slept well other than waking at 4AM for a bathroom break where I missed the last step while coming down the stairs (twice) and caused quite a large thud.

Day 2 (Sat, Apr 22)

I woke up early in the morning, and with no sign of coffee making utilities, decided to try and find a nice coffee shop. As I was crossing the walk-bridge above the railway maintenance yard near the house I saw and old fellow who seemed to be peering intently through some binoculars at the building across the tracks. After checking closer I realized that, rather than checking out some woman taking her morning bath, he was actually taking great advantage of the clear weather and vantage point to observe Mount Fuji. I went into town and had a small cup of coffee at a local shop. The place was a traditional Japanese coffee shop buried behind a virtual wall of potted flowering plants. It had a couple older regulars sitting at the counter with the owner, making small talk and watching a TV show about hunting for Giant Bamboo shoots (they are delicious.)

The owner brought me a warm moistened towel and I ordered a cup of coffee, receiving a small bone china cup full of innocuous black liquid and a tiny stainless steel vail of cream. I added some sugar and mixed it all up, nursing it as I read my O'Reilly Algorithms in Perl book and listened to the TV and the empty conversation.

Later that morning Dai and I went to Akihabara to find a surround sound system for Yoko's dad. We visited several of the larger electronics shops, Bic Camera and Yodobashi camera, their shelves laden with every kind of device. Japan is a visually noisy place, these giant multistory electronics stores are close to the pinnacle of that practice. Every inch of space is covered with some sort of vividly colored label, advertisement, display or device. You adapt to it, but the clean, broad, open and uncluttered sidewalks of Alameda are always a small shock to me when I return home.

Always leading the strange form of geekiness unique to Japan, Akihabara was also positively overrun with young girls in stylized Maid outfits and thickly rimmed glasses handing out information on their respective Tea shops. The current trend to be serviced by cute young girls in costumes is so popular that it is being taken up by all kinds of businesses. This optical shop being a particularly ridiculous example, the maid inside carefully places various frames on the customers face... seriously.

Trying to kill some time waiting for Yoko to give us a budget, we decided to get some lunch. After wandering around in search of a Mos burger, we settled for hamburgers at a chain restaurant I hadn't seen before. We had collected literature for most major lines of surround sound speakers and electronics, and not knowing how much we had to spend, we returned home. I played Exit, a cute but uncooperative game similar to Loderunner, on Dai's ceramic white PSP while Yoko planned out our short trip on the Internet.

That evening we all went out to meet our friend Ikuko who had recently returned to Japan after living many years in San Francisco. The restaurant we went to was a cute, kind of funkily decorated but upscale place. I had a kind of sampler plate that had smoked salmon and various cheeses, we also had Escargot in Gorgonzola and plenty of beer.

Day 3 (Sun, Apr 23)

We left for Kanazawa early in the morning, headed for the western coast. We first had to catch the Shinkansen heading north towards Niigata. Our seats were on the lower level where unfortunately the tracks sound-wall obscured our view for most of the trip, but once we got well outside of the suburbs they were less common and we saw the snowy mountains and rushing rivers of the countryside. Dai had picked up three different tasty train bento boxes that we ate along with cold beer. In Nagaoka we switched to an express train that ran along the coastline over the flood plane of the western coast towards Kanazawa. I saw many giant Gray Heron and smaller Egrets eating the frogs and insects of the newly thawed rice patties.

Once we made it to Kanazawa station we grabbed a cab that took us up to our Hotel. Our driver gave us a running dialogue of the landmarks as we wound through the streets before dropping us off in front of our hotel. The place was cute, with lots of good examples of the local crafts on display. It was attached to a large auditorium that was hosting some sort of concert that evening. As we walked back in to town there was a large group of older women dressed like teenagers clustered around the back entrance of the auditorium. They were prevented from getting too close to the tour busses by a lone employee in a dark suit looking uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed.

On our way into town we stopped by the outer walls of Kanazawa castle to take some photo's. I needed coffee and I was surprised to see that there was a Seattle's Best cafe where I ordered a mocha. The first Mocha I ever had was served to me by my little sister working at a Seattle's Best (in Seattle naturally) complete with a little chocolate bar.

In town we did some shopping for Dai and Yoko's friends and family where they bought a really beautiful porcelain teapot. The shopkeeper recommended a local sushi shop where we enjoyed some nice fresh fish, it was a little expensive but the sushi-master entertained us with his enthusiasm over his San Francisco experiences from the 60's. Afterwards we went in search of the old town so that Yoko could have some traditional sweets. Kanazawa is known as 'Little Kyoto' as, like Kyoto, not bombed into rubble during WW II and retained much of it's ancient architecture intact.

We found sweets at a fancy little tea house in the old town. I just had a cup of buckwheat tea as I'm not crazy for sweet things, but even that came with a tasty little cracker. I used the restroom, where I noticed someone had helpfully overstuffed the toilet with tissue. I nervously flushed, with my fingers crossed since the plumbing wasn't anything like a western toilet and I doubted I could cut off the water supply if things got wonky. The water slowly filled the bowl, finally ebbing after reaching a high water mark about a centimeter from the edge.

Afterwards we wandered around the old town area and enjoyed the scenery like this little park which had a kind of cherry tree that still had blossoms. Some (hopefully drunken) foreign kid kept yelling "Konichiwa!" at passers by from a third story window, causing us to laugh in sympathetic embarrassment. Yoko commandeered my camera as we headed for the castle. We tried to enter it, but by then it was around 4:30PM and they were no longer letting people in for the day. There was some kind of run going on at the time and the last stragglers were being cheered on up the final hill by the volunteers (so they could pack up and go home I'm sure.) We followed the last of the crowd down to the street and returned to the hotel where, with nothing better to do (honest!), I read Yoko's People magazine while they rested. After a little while, hunger caused us to venture out again in search of something tasty.

That evening we tried to find the restaurant Yoko read about in her travel guide, but once we located it, in the fairly empty top story food court of a local shopping mall, we decided to search for something more appealing. We wandered around a bit before finally settling on a local looking but busy little grilled meat shop where we enjoyed many tasty dishes. It was here that I was first introduced to a local seasonal dish consisting of a light Dashi broth full of very agitated totally translucent baby fish. These guys were almost invisible except for two eye spots and a little heart. They didn't have much flavor, but they had a satisfying crunch to them and they wiggled on your tongue in a startling way.

On our way home we spotted some strange person, standing alone and motionless in the middle of a large parking lot holding an umbrella. We had no idea what the person might have been doing as looking at the moon, stars or bats is difficult when you have an umbrella. Back at the hotel we teased each other that every unusual sound outside was the Umbrella lady coming to get Yoko.

Day 4 (Mon, Apr 24)

We weren't due to be at the On'sen until later that evening, so we checked out of the hotel and left our bags at the front desk. I was in need of my Starbucks fix so we stopped off for a mocha while Yoko went to the Mr. Doughnut's for her favorite sausage bun and some other snacks. We then went to one of the older neighborhoods where we visited the 'Ninja Temple.'

“Myouryuji or the Ninja Dera as it is commonly known, was built by Lord Maeda Toshitsune in 1643 as a temple for the Buddhist Nichiren sect and as a place of prayer. This was merely a rouse, a "cover" as the temple's main purpose was to act as an escape route for the Lord should an attack on Kanazawa Castle occur. It acted as a look-out and command post. There were never, however, any ninjas here nor did any training take place - so they say...

The temple was unique for its time and still is today. During the Edo Period, it was illegal to construct buildings of more than three floors. Although the Ninja Temple appears to have only two, it has, in fact, four floors with those further divided into a total of seven levels. In addition, the "temple" was cleverly built around a central well, has in excess of 29 separate staircases as well as endless escape routes through its 20+ rooms. The countless secret tunnels, trick doors, and hidden chambers will surely astound each and every visitor.”

They took themselves very seriously, the poorly translated binder they forced upon me, containing the step by step dialogue of the tour guide, had a very thick section on acceptable behavior. No photographs, no drinking and absolutely no reading ahead... I read ahead anyway. The place was more This Old House than Temple of Doom, but it was still interesting to see the primitive and ineffective looking traps. After the tour we walked through the very nice looking Samurai district on our way to the Omi-cho Ichiba marketplace. At the market there were many large crab which were in season along with many kinds of fish and vegetables. We looked for the tastiest items for Dai to have sent to his family back in Tokyo. Then we had lunch at a busy restaurant located in the middle of the market. My dish of Kani, Uni and Ikura (Crab, Sea Urchin and Salmon Roe) had the unusual garnish of gold leaf.

After lunch we hiked through the old Kanazawa castle, Yoko was interrupted by her coworker via cell phone and as she sparred with her incompetent staff-mate, while me and Dai marched around the moat and outer wall. We climbed together to the top of the wall that I had photographed the day before, the view was nice, but like many vistas in Japan, it suffered from the sort of man made blight that is easier to ignore in real life than in photographs. One of the great things about America is the sheer vastness of the country allows us to preserve great swaths of unspoiled landscape for our aesthetic pleasure. In Japan they just can't afford to leave any buildable space free of civilization's yoke.

Adjacent to the castle lies a great garden that we spent time wandering through on our way back to the hotel. We accidently lost Yoko for a bit, and as me and Dai waited for her, we watched a large group of Chinese tourists noisily take group photos in front of the lake. We then stopped by the art museum, but they were between exhibits and other than playing on their glass elevator and peeking through windows, there was not much to do there. We hiked back up the hill to the hotel, the petals of the cherry blossoms, having already fallen from the trees, filled all the cracks and crevices of the mossy retaining walls and clogged the gullies lining the road.

After getting our bags and waiting a while for the bus to show up, Dai flagged down a taxi for us that we took back to the station. We caught a local train, riding for a little over an hour to reach Kaga-On'sen located in the foothills. They had a driver waiting there to pick us up and we drove through the seemingly abandoned town.

Off in the distance a giant white Gamera shaped structure stuck out like a baby seal at a polar bear convention. (In fact, despite not knowing what it was called or where it was located, I was able to find it easily on Google's satellite image mapping system simply by looking for an oddly shaped spot in the middle of nowhere.) Our driver informed us that the Komatsu Dome was a piece of pork that a local politician had constructed with the dream of bringing tourism to this backwater part of Japan, it didn't work.

Our On'sen was one of the oldest continuously operating hot springs in Japan, having been in business for over 700 years. As old as it might have been, the building was obviously a product of the mid 1970's with very retro decor. It was very spacious though, and strewn throughout with odd bronze statues of naked women's torsos (I'll give the artist credit, he knew how to make a nice rump.) Dai and I had the baths pretty much to ourselves. I'm going to digress a little bit here since some people may not know what the whole On'sen thing is all about.

In Japan one of the wonderful traditional recreation is to soak in pools of hot water. Because of the highly volcanic nature of Japan due to it's location on a major subduction zone there is no shortage of natural hot springs, although lack of artesian hot water doesn't stop them from constructing artificially heated baths either. Many places are famous for different kinds of dissolved mineral content held in suspension, giving the water color from milky white to orange or black, often with a sulfurous or salty odor and flavor.

I can remember the first time I ever went to a Japanese On'sen. I was with my girlfriend in some remote resort town in the Izu peninsula. We were supposed to go with her parents but due to a family illness we ended up going alone. I had no clue what I was supposed to do and intended to just follow other people's example, but It was off season and the massive resort was totally empty. I just got naked and went alone into the giant room. The floor was covered with roughly textured black stone and a giant pool ran the length of the room abutting a glass wall facing the ocean. I was standing there enjoying the view, when I realized that there was absolutely nothing stopping anyone from walking along the clearly defined path in front of the window and seeing me naked. At that point I was really wondering if I was doing this right, I was terrified that some group of Japanese fathers were going to come marching in with their children, all in swimming trunks. They would stop in shock as their wives videotaped their horror from the garden in front of the pool. I had nothing to worry about though, no one ever came. After I splashed around in the cavernous pool for a while, I left, having learned very little from the experience.

Over the years I've had many more opportunities to visit On'sen and the whole procedure is pretty consistent. There is a large open lounge area with rows and rows of baskets, you stick all your clothes in one of these. Usually you are supplied with two towels, a small long washcloth and a standard bath towel. Leave the big towel with your clothes and keep only the washcloth. There are often lockers to store your valuables in with clever little keys that are attached to a rubber wristband so you can wear it in the bath. Here's the big lesson I missed on my solo flight, you wash before getting in to the hot water.

The wash area is typically long rows of closely spaced spigots. These are clever in that they have a dial to set the temperature (know your metric system!) and a spring loaded valve lever that give you about a 10 second shot of water either to the faucet or the showerhead. They provide you with a little stool to sit on and a little bucket to rinse with. Japanese people are either ridiculously clean or they tend to wash more thoroughly in public than most do in private. That or I have unknowingly been participating in some twisted game of chicken of the sea. Wash until you feel yourself sprouting gills, then as unselfconsciously as possible use the small towel to shield your dangly bits of shame.

After the bath, we dressed in the supplied Yukatta's, and our maid (not Akihabara style, more along the lines of Mrs. Doubtfire) assembled our dinner. The main dish they served us was Tai shabu-shabu, and even though all the food was delicious and there were many kinds of dishes, our consensus was that it was too heavily biased towards the Tai and some nice paper thin beef would have been great.

Day 5 (Tue, Apr 25)

We got in another early soak before making sure to return to our room in time for breakfast. We had small salted Hirame (Sole) that we grilled on little cast iron griddles and other traditional Japanese breakfast things, pickled vegetables, rice and miso soup. After eating we packed up and grabbed the shuttle back to the station along with an older guy and his cute younger girlfriend. They were obviously having an affair while he was supposedly away on business. Dai and Yoko grabbed some snacks and we rode the local train back to the Kanazawa station where I saw this Sake vending machine.

Once in town, we decided to take a day trip to the sea of Japan, to a small resort area called Wakura Onsen. The hotel we went to was very luxurious and was doing last minute preparation for the upcoming Golden week. The hot-spring's baths consisted of heated salty sea water, but it felt great. There was a nice outdoor pool constructed in such a way that you could sit an a reclined lounger like position, looking out over the bay. It was a bit windy, but the water kept us pretty comfortable. They also had two saunas (one that was fiercely hot) and two large cast iron pots, easily large enough for someone my size to fit inside. As me and Dai soaked in them side by side, I couldn't help but giggle to myself, imagining that we were being cooked by savages.

We left our bags at the front desk and walked into town in search of a late lunch. The town was interesting but quiet, having several street-side hot spring fountains. Being very tourist oriented, it seemed to be set up on a very late schedule and there was nothing appetizing open, so we marched back to the hotel and got a ride back to the station by a friendly young employee. At Kanazawa station, we got tickets back to Tokyo and picked up some Gyoza and Chicken Kara-age for the return trip.

We didn't make it back to the city until fairly late, but me and Dai were pretty hungry and craving meat so we dragged Yoko to a Korean barbecue place we often go to in Gotanda and had a late dinner. Large frosty draft beer's washed down the spicy Korean soup we had.

Day 6 (Wed, Apr 26)

Today me and Dai went back to Akihabara to order Yoko's dad's stereo system after getting a final budget. Dai did a great job of negotiating and we got a nice little Yamaha 5.1 surround sound system for far below what it should have cost. We remembered to get mounting brackets and some Monster cable speaker wire, they wouldn't promise that it would get delivered by Saturday, but they were pretty sure it would make it.

After shopping we had some great Croquettes/Cutlets at a fancy place in Ginza. We dropped by the Nissan showroom and sat in the Skyline Coupe 350GT (Infiniti G35) and discussed how practical owning such a car would be, cognizant of the effect such a car might have on girls similar to the beautiful young attendants assisting us. I took advantage of being in Ginza and popped over to the Citibank International ATM and got some more cash.

On the way home we stopped at the large supermarket to get groceries as Dai wanted to cook dinner for us. At the store I watched a small boy being ridiculously obstinate about wanting something, hitting his mom he chanted over and over again, "I like dad better than you." I wondered to myself if being a parent was really worth the trouble, but you've got to be thick skinned I think. There must be a better way though, and I suspect that some sort of shock collar might be involved.

We brought all of our stuff back to the house and Dai prepared a wonderful meal. We had nice pasta and Insalata Caprese (fresh Mozzarella with basil, tomatoes, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.) Dai and Yoko are great cooks, but I always feel uncomfortable when someone cooks for me. It may sound odd, but to me cooking for someone is one of the most xxx you can do for someone. Being a perfectionist that is averse to rejection or disappointing someone I care about, I almost never cook for other people. I had a really bad fight with my ex-girlfriend because I was helping her cook some food for a party we were going to and she wanted to substitute ingredients. I pretty much freaked out, the fear that it would come out bad, or that someone wouldn't like it was crippling to me. After that I tried to relax about it, but cooking is still a big stress for me, and consequently I get really uncomfortable when someone puts their heart on their sleeve like that for me.

Day 7 (Thu, Apr 27)

I took the subway to Gotanda to explore the area and search for coffee, I wandered through the high rise Sony and Philips office buildings before popping in to one of the many Tully's scattered around the area. While I was waiting for my coffee to be prepared a rush of customers came, and instead of waiting for their orders to be finished, they all started staking out the few remaining tables. By the time my mocha was ready I was forced to sit outside in the cold, I was kind of pissed. I ate my lemon poppy-seed cake and drank my mocha, and once I finished, headed back to the subway to go on to Sengakuji a couple stations away. From there I walked up the road a ways into Mita and noticed that the Tokyo tower was off to my left.

Not being a big fan of touristy stuff in the first place, I was prepared to be underwhelmed, but even so, the tower itself was pretty pathetic. It had a large building at the base that had various souvenir shops, fast food places and a couple sad entertainment places including a wax museum. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get to the observation platform, so I went back the way I came, into Mita to get a small snack. Going down the hill I spotted the distinctive tail lights of the new Audi TT Coupe model that had yet to be released. It had in fact only days before been officially debuted in Germany, so I didn't really trust my eyes until it was right in front of me. The driver sped off before I could identify the engine type, leaving three Germans pointedly ignoring me as they slowly walked back, deep in conversation, to their waiting A3 sportback.

At the Starbucks I had spotted earlier, across from Keio University in Mita, I chose a little mini sandwich variety pack (egg salad, ham and tuna salad.) I was unfortunate enough to be subjected to having to listen to some guy condescendingly lecture an elegant older Japanese professor. She obviously knew more than him about what he was researching at the University, but he mistook her humility for ignorance. He must have mentioned that he was going to have his book published five times in an attempt to impress her, but she refused to take the bait, always leading the conversation in another direction. Despite his cluelessness I could tell she was interested in talking with him, although I was having a hard time understanding why.

He was ridiculing his colleges in France using the (incorrect) derogatory term, 'They are like the Mexican Army.' Mistaking her uncomfortable laughter for incomprehension, he went on to explain, "In France, we say that to mean [refer to] people who don't know what they are doing. Because everyone knows the Mexican Army is so stupid that they just run around in circles." It was all that I could take. I closed my book to leave and said, "That's something to hear coming from the creators of the Maginot line. But I'm afraid that the people who died at the Alimo would beg to disagree." He looked at me with a confused expression and it became immediately clear why the woman was putting up with such a patronizing boar, as he was strikingly handsome. My heart was pounding as I took one last glance at her and was relieved to see a smile of comprehension pass across her face, although maybe she was just laughing at my tone. I shuffled off without further explanation ears burning, I wondered to myself just how far someone could get on looks. Pretty far it would seem.

On the way back to the subway I passed two incongruous, large, loud and unpleasant looking Americans. They both had the same odd wild curly greasy looking hair and their pot bellies bulged between the retaining straps of their backpacks. They trundled through the crowds of business people like oblivious Rhinos, spinning around unpredictably in a futile attempt to gain their bearings in unfamiliar territory. They loudly theorized about their proximity to the subway in thick southern accents, obviously hoping for someone to materialize and assist them. But I was still pissed off about the Frenchman and couldn't quite bring myself to point them in the right direction. I was feeling sorry for myself, why is a degree seem to be the only qualification to be here? Why do people who can't even find a subway when they are standing in front of it even bother to come?

I went home and waited to hear what was happening that evening. Dai ended up having to work really late so Yoko called me from her office and asked me to meet her at the local station. We decided to go to the little French place near their house. We had walked by it so many times over the years, it was always full and inviting, I'm glad we finally took the opportunity to go. Inside, the place was very small and cozy, consisting of a long bar abutting against the prep counter with a small stove and boiler against the back wall. The single chef was assisted by a young, energetic, round faced girl that I was instantly fond of. We shared a nice salad, a pasta dish and a great pork dish with lots of cheese. It wasn't cheap and the portions were a little small, but it was very satisfying. Me and Yoko went shopping across the street at their local grocery before going home.

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