Local Shout Outs

Hey Starbuck, mission accomplished. One pair of Star Wars light sabre chopsticks. We were having dinner with friends and, oh yeah 5th floor kiddo playlando, Harijuku Station. It's good to know people.

Do they really sell enough of these to need two versions? And what does Speed Alice refer to?
btw the two baby doll outfits were sold at the Loft, kind of like a Z gallery.



















I guess Japanese Emo kids have a lot to disposable income. These were not cheap and very well made.










This remains a mystery. I can confirm that it was glazed, and there was a line out the door for them, and the cut away showed many thin layers of a kind of cake.





Hey Starbuck, the business cat is alive and well and riding the Tokyo subway.
















Just starting to get the glossy food shots out.
I'm a few days behind. We pulled into Kyoto today via bullet train. In Japan, it all about the train or subway station, which at times blur into shopping centers, hang out, cultural stage. Not very many car parks, but many bicycle parking lots. It's a bicyclist heaven here with marked off lane and paths etc. Of course they actually stop at stop sign and lights even if no one is coming.

The Japanese cook fish too.

Scallops with parm cheese on a red sauce.

Kobe beef. Yes it's that good, and they swear they were happy cows.

No Particular Reason

Royal costume balls, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, a week out at the Black Rock desert, Cosplay (costume play, the Japanese love to shorten everything), did you ever really need a real reason to break out the blue wig? Found this clip of Kirsten Dunst doing cosplay in Akihabara. It's just a few stops up the line, I guess I could go check out, you know being that the museum are closed Sunday.

So if you just gotta see the video, you can go to the Tate Muesum, London, or if you're pressed for time, here.

What a difference a few blocks make

The Ginza, where we are staying and the most expensive retail district in Tokyo, is a short walk away for the Tsukiji fish market. The largest fish market in the world. All the guide books say don't wear nice shoes if you visit. D and I took a stroll down in search of breakfest. I was less interested in the fish and more interested in us not getting run over by a truck or cart. They don't let tourist into the tuna auction any more; the paper said something about too much tourist traffic in and out taxing the refrigeration and tourist touching the tuna. Later I am going to do a google image search and see if there are many pictures of people squat down cuddling up to a $20,000 tuna. I was just happy to get something to eat and have all of my toes. Understandable if Vegans and Vegetarians wanted to skip this one.

It was about time for D and I to part ways for today, my next stop was the Ghibli Studio museum in Mitaka via an unknown number of subway changes.

Just so we are all on the same page, this is a graphic representation of the Tokyo subway system. I'm currently somewhere in the lower right-hand corner and I need to go somewhere off the map on the far left. I'm told even people who live here get lost.













I've been happy so far with getting from point A to B. I don't bother figuring out how much fare to put on a ticket, I just buy the lowest fare and when I get there I use the add fare machine or hand the ticket to the nice station agent man and look pitiful. I think they are used to it. It works really well, I'm sure one time he just let me slide on a fare since I had come half way across town.



Ghibli Studios

The House that Totoro built. PF told me about this museum and I'm glad they still had tickets available. I'm told they sell out weeks/months ahead. Widely considered as Japan's premire animation studio, Ghibli was founded by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata in 1985. Simply put, Ghibli and Pixar studios are animation 2.0. I don't want to get into it with any Disney fans, you could argue that the Japanese love Mickey Mouse more that Totoro, just check out some of their trailers. The official web site for the museum convey his vision and you know he's walking the walk when the gift shop is only accessible by ticket holders and not the general public. Money? Didn't even make it into the top ten.




These little fellas now seemed reasonably priced. Even more so when I found out they are not widely circulated in any other stores.

The Sound of Crows in the Morning

Crows were the first thing I heard on the first morning in Tokyo. They do sound different then our crows, I don't know if that's from living in Japan, or if living in Japan makes you smarter. I will say figuring out the subway system is way more challenging than sudoku. I wonder if American crows can do this?

Travel Day

It’s that long day ahead of you spent checking your pockets and juggling your jacket, carry-on, ticket, and passport. That assembly line event through security where you throw it all up into two grey plastic bins with your shoes, watch, cell phone, wallet, belt, jacket, jewelry, money all needing reassembling just a few feet down the belt. It is a momentary separation of you from all of your carefully placed belongs testing your grace and awareness in a flash of a green light or a red light followed by an ominous tone. The disappointment is palpable. If this were an Olympic event, setting off the metal detector would be equivalent to not sticking the landing on the vault. It all happens in the blink of an eye and D’ohhh … forgot about the 18k gold necklace with the jade double happiness pendant … oh, and the earrings … oh and the extra camera battery. 2.5, 3.0, 2.5, 2.5, 2.0.

 

 However, the event that took me out of medal contention today was the Lock Up and Go. Things were shaping up well for departure. Dishes left in sink: zero. Food that will spoil in the fridge: zero (although you get that score when you get home) Heater off, bed made, neighbors alerted. The big deduction was running out the clock before folding the clean laundry that didn’t get packed, which then seemed like it explode in the living room.

 

 

Your Life in a Bag

Not much you can say about packing. Fold, stuff, repeat. Hope you don't run out of room. I washed every piece of clothing I own in hopes the orphaned socks would find each other. Japan is an A-list socks only destination. The general goal of packing for travel is not to be naked in a different city far from your closet and stay warm if it is cool, and cool if it is hot. Half way through you give up on any fashion statement after you just stuffed your neatly pressed suit into a soft sided rectangle. One does have a few options, you can A: Bring 14 pair of underwear and socks for a 14 day trip accepting as time progresses you're basically toting a dirty laundry hamper with no net gain in space. B: Bring 7 pair of underwear and socks knowing there will be washing sometime in the near future and you may in fact pay more to wash your clothes than they are worth. Or C: bring 7 pairs and 7 pairs you're willing to throw out on the trip, thus, no wash and room to buy more clothes, which you'll need when you get home. To help with C, hotels could leave bags in your room to put your old clothes in for donation to local charities, and you could drop the bags off at the front desk for 10% off coupons at the neighborhood Versace or Armani store around the corner. Yeah, that's good. Somebody have John D. get that idea to Gavin, I know they're close ;)

Cucumbers and Small Children

I'm sure it's been said many time how Japanese culture blends the old or traditional with the new and fresh and in this cases, splashed with a little reggae. The Kappa is a mythical creature fond of eating cucumbers and small children.



(Friends tell friends about their misspelled words and run on sentences)

I really should be packing

Checking out Japanese music videos doesn't seem like a logical step towards leaving on a trip to Japan and Hong Kong, but internet "research" is funny that way. Clean clothes should be more important than learning how to embed video in a blog for the first time, but the Pink Tentacle blog was greatly entertaining, which is where I found this.

Ok let's put a load in the washer just to be on the safe side.