After checking out of the hotel, we locked our luggage up in a convenient coin-operated locker at Shinjuku Station.  This was the third time we used this service to avoid dragging heavy suitcases around – every train station we went through in Japan provided this service, although it wasn’t very cheap.  Seriously, though, NYC should learn to do this.  Many times in the past five years I had wished Penn Station or Grand Central or a large subway station in NYC would have lockers for short-term use.  I wonder how many people insisted on driving into New York just because they needed some place to leave a backpack while going into a party.

We wandered around Shinjuku all day looking for green tea Kit Kat, something both our sisters loved.  In the process, we also did a third set of photo booth pictures, and ate a bunch of yummy stuff.

Finding breakfast in Shinjuku was pretty difficult, provided that we didn’t want to end the trip on a low note with fast food or a convenience store.  We ended up finding, as you might have guessed, a 24-7 establishment mostly suitable for 2am drinking and 5am sobering attempts.  We had so much cash Yen left (ha, rich kids!) that I decided to get the biggest thing on the menu… a chicken hot pot in a clay pot!  Hong ordered some tempura and chicken skewers, which was another big thing in Japanese cuisine that we hadn’t gotten to try.  We sat in a cute wooden “booth” that had barely enough seating area to fit two butts and a bag.  The food was fantastic.  In fact, it was among the best meals we had in Japan.  This fish-eating ethnic group could really cook chicken, too!

Lunch was conveyor-belt sushi, for the third time.  We had decided that anything disguised as sushi in the US was no longer edible, so it was quite reasonable to have our last sushi in a really long time.  We found this place on the business district side of the train station, and felt cheated after walking in because they had nothing running on the conveyor belt.  Perhaps it was too early and they didn’t want to have raw fish running around the room without enough customers?  For a second there, I was upset having to order directly from the chef.  However, it turned out to be quite an experience even without the conveyor belt fun: for example, watching the chef “grill” the unagi with a hand-held high-power gas torch.  Impressive stuff!  I got my typical squid and a plate of three-colored tuna (from regular to fatty).

Then, the curious side of me kicked in.  I braved up and asked for a plate of raw Japanese beef.  Seeing me being foreign, the chef offered to have the beef grilled.  Heck, I didn’t want to pay big bucks for raw beef and end up getting a steak!  But I still requested one of each so I could make a scientific comparison.  Holy cow this beef gave new meaning to “holy cow”!  The smooth fatty beef combined with the mysterious bbq sauce (they must have added cocaine in it to taste so good) just melted in my mouth and coated my tongue with a heavenly blend of flavors.  There was not a hint of funky smell like supermarket meats.  The grilled one had a nice toasty surface but the raw version went down even more joyfully.  This plate turned out to be the single most delicious item I had had in Japan!  In comparison the o-toro was just so-so and the squid wasn’t even tasty any more.  Arg!

After the last crepe, we left the city on Narita Express, toward the airport.  The last train ride in Japan was quite fancy!

.

.

.

Lastly, here are some interesting pictures from the trip:

“Going to sleep in front of the store is strictly prohibited.”

No idea what this was but it made me laugh every time I saw it.

If I was remotely willing to drink Pepsi, I’d be very curious about this Mont Blanc flavor.

Trust me.  It’s a great view.  I’m not certain how far it is though.  And I don’t know how to spell “m”.

Fresh produce is now available at your local subway station.

The white Fedex guy is so hot, every kid wants an action figure of him.

Stoned bear.

Funny ad for what I assumed was acid reflex remedy.

1. About 80% of the things ever said in public areas went “[something something something]maaaaaaaaaaaaas” or “[something]seeeeeeeen”, and most of them were in annoyingly cutesy-wannabe high-pitch female voices.
2. All the Japanese words that I knew well, i.e. names of places, were pronounced nothing like what I imagined.  For example, Harajuku actually wasn’t “HAA RAA JUU KUU”, but instead “hala JUU KOO”.  And I still couldn’t say it like the train announcement said it.

The Meiji Shrine in Harajuku was our first stop of the day, after a smokey breakfast at an European diner that wasn’t very good.  This was the shrine for Emperor Meiji, the dude with the Restoration that propelled a country forward like nobody else in human history (per Dr. Boyer’s World Regions class).  Before coming to Japan, a coworker kindly warned me not to visit the war shrines worshiping the “criminals”, and I wondered if the Meiji Shrine fell borderline into that category as he made it possible for Japan to bully the rest of the Orient.  Now, standing at the entrance looking into the forest entirely made of privately-donated trees from all over Japan, it was difficult to not be impressed by the respect and love this guy had.

Structure-wise, it was just another Shinto shrine with no particular architectural marvel.  However, this place was filled with not only tourists but also locals who actually came to worship.  We spent the majority of the visit watching family after family dressed in traditional outfits, and even spotted a wedding photo session.  The kids were all so well behaved that we wondered whether they were born mute and inactive.  Some white people followed the Japanese rituals at the shrine, but what good would it do to pray to somebody else’s god?  Remember Americans: Emperor Meiji probably won’t smile upon those whose air raid in WW2 destroyed his original shrine!

Driven partly by curiosity and partly by the desire to piss off the Whale Wars crew, we made a detour to Shibuya for the famous whale restaurant.  Upon discovering that we weren’t Japanese, the startled waiter tried very hard to communicate that they specialized in whale by both pointing at and attempting to pronounce the English spelling next to the cash register.  Made me think that it must have upset some tourists who ignorantly wandered into this place before.  Made me want to eat it even more eagerly.  Since this visit was about a unique culinary experience rather than a delicious feast, I went all the way Japanese and got a sashimi set course.  The meat was dark red in color like beef that had been frozen for too many months, and everything it touched got a bloody stain.  It was tougher than all kinds of fish but not as chewy as octopus/squid.  There was no significant smell or taste, unlike what I imagined, and the experience was roughly as (un)delicious as tuna sashimi sold in the US.  I couldn’t quite say whether I liked it or not, which was sad given this being my first time eating uncooked red meat.  Hong wasn’t as thrilled with the idea of eating a truck-sized mammal so she only got a plate of fried whale.  It was also kind of bland in taste.  The small restaurant had a very elegant setup, though, with elevated stepping stones in the narrow hallway.  If we ever come back again, I’d order a la carte and try the skin, the heart, and the testicle.

Painting: samurai slaying a whale.  Reminded me of Old Man and the Sea.

After hopefully grossing you out, we went back to Harajuku with high hopes to witness some cosplayers and gothic lolitas, who, according to travel guides, always overrun this neighborhood on Sunday afternoons.  We saw none, and the few rockability dancers at the Yoyogi Park entrance didn’t count.  It was disappointing, but the shopping crowd on Takeshita Dori were all dressed in a visually appealing fashion, enough to make Hong want to follow.  While she shopped, someone in the store saw my VT TKD sweat shirt and came over to say hi – another Hokie close to my year.  As we struggled to figure out whether we might’ve had a class or club in common, we realized that we were both in Japan for honeymoon, and both leaving tomorrow.  Obviously, he was also in the store because his wife wanted a piece of the Harajuku fashion.  What a coincidence!  And what power the Hokie Nation has to bring people together!

Spot the Power Rangers

While enjoying the famous Harajuku crepe, we heard two brief clips of modern Japanese songs.  That was the first time in the entire week that we heard anything other than American top 40 or depressing old school Japanese music.  And I thought j-pop was popular throughout Asia?

Next up was Omotesando Hills, a high-end shopping mall built on a slope and had a multi-level, sloped interior.  Like many other establishments throughout Japan, it had been fully decorated for Christmas despite still having patrons in short sleeves and mini skirts.  We quickly walked through it and continued onto Kiddy Land, their equivalent of Toys R Us.

In the evening, we returned to Shibuya.  In front of the train station was Hachiko, the famous statue of the loyal dog.  Finally seeing it was like, eh, so ugly.

There was also the world-famous five-way intersection.  When the light turned, pedestrians poured into the intersection from all directions, going in all directions.  Outside Japanese TV, this was likely the most chaotic scene one could see in this country.  It was scary even for a couple used to navigating through Times Square and NYC Chinatown.

Since we have both become hardcore fans of Japanese dessert, we decided to have dinner at Sweets Paradise, an all-you-can-eat dessert restaurant.  It wasn’t entirely dessert (how gross would that be?), but the cakes, pies, and shaved ice condiments did occupy the majority of the food counter.  There were also so-so pasta, good curry, and delicious soups that we warmed our tummies with.  Like all buffets, the food quality was below par but the pig-out component was awesome.  We noticed yet another Japanese-styled attention to detail: the restaurant prepared both warm and chilled plates for your needs for different types of food.  Dang!

Three train stations later, we returned to Shinjuku.  The last stop before bed was the 45th-floor observatory in a Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building right across from our hotel.  The north tower was open tonight and the observatory was fairly crowded.  However, reaching it was a bit awkward by traveling through the creepishly dark and quiet skyscraper neighborhood.  Although the observatory was completely free, the majority of the floor was filled with gift shops and the southeast corner with the best view was blocked by a cafe.  Interesting business concept!

It was disappointing, though, that there wasn’t much to see because only the Tokyo Tower was adequately lit.  Unlike Manhattan that shined and sparkled, Tokyo simply went dark at night.  Even the nearby spaceship-like Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower was in the energy-saving mode, and we could barely make out its outline due to the close proximity.  Couldn’t really blame the Japanese for saving energy and preserving the Earth… but it was kinda lame…

Today’s destination was Odaiba, an artificial island in Tokyo Bay that had been developed into a vacation hotspot.  We took a train to Shimbashi first, and transferred to a special tram on rubber wheels that took us across the famous Rainbow Bridge.

We were short on Yen this morning, and started quite an adventure.  Our hotel had a very cool currency exchange vending machine, but it had the stinkiest rate since we left JFK (didn’t I say it was American-like?).  Then we found a large post office offering this service, but the banking section was closed on weekends.  The PO directed us to a nearby bank that did business on Saturdays but wasn’t gonna open for another hour, and we didn’t feel like sitting around for that long.  So when we got off at Odaiba and spotted a large hotel, I was overjoyed that it was willing to exchange money for us despite not having us as a guest.  I’d have been a lot happier though if we didn’t walk by a freestanding currency exchange counter in the mall, five minutes later, that offered a better rate…

The three entertainment complexes at Odaiba were named Aqua City, Decks, and Pallette Town, and were the majority of attractions.  Two of them were on the shore facing Tokyo, and provided great view of the bay, Rainbow Bridge, and the knock-off Statue of Liberty.

(that’s right… a Statue of Liberty!)

Pallette Town was perhaps the most interesting of them all, complete with a ferris wheel, a Venice-themed shopping mall, and Mega Web, a huge Toyota museum.  Mega Web not only had a collection of most vehicles in the Toyota family (except the Lexus LF-A), it also had some concept cars, an auto-drive track, and a motor sports course.  Too bad we didn’t speak Japanese, or we might’ve signed up for some of those activities.

(it’s okay to keep a dog in your bag like those silly New Yorkers, just make sure we can’t see it!)

Our lunch was at a tonkatsu specialty restaurant.  While I wasn’t a big fan of the Japanese fried pork cutlet, they served thed most delicious salad that I’ve experienced.  It was as simple as thin-sliced cabbage topped with a citrus-based sweet dressing, but it was likely the only raw vegetable that I’d happily eat for a whole meal.

Dinner was going to be at Little Hong Kong, two entire floors within Decks decorated like the 1950s HK and filled with supposedly authentic Cantonese restaurants.  However, the plan was messed up by the large dessert that we ate in the late afternoon.  We’re in Asia now so it’s not unmanly to say this… I LOVE THE DESSERTS HERE!  Back in the US I usually labeled myself as disliking sweet stuff, but this trip made me realize that the fact was that American desserts suck!  Parfaits in Japan were especially amazing and I cried for them on a daily basis.  So when we came across this gigantic parfait complete with an ice cream cone, a pudding (flan), and a pineapple slice, I knew we weren’t leaving the country without it.

(that’s right… this was the only thing besides the Kinkakuji getting three pictures posted )

We took a brief morning walk to Higashi (East) Honganji, a Buddhist temple around the corner.  That and Nishi (West) Honganji took up significant space on the map and were set symmetrically in central Kyoto, a feature reflective of Kyoto’s design basing off an ancient Chinese capital.  I love grid systems that have a logical pattern.

Shortly afterwards, we boarded Hikari 510 toward Tokyo.  The ticket office clerk, ticket gate lady, vending cart lady on the train, and the ticket officer on the train were all extremely polite.  They bowed to everyone, kept a constant smile on their faces, handled transactions with both hands, and repeated foreign words that I assumed were “please”, “thank you”, etc.  Not only the Shinkansen crew, of course, but just about every service person we saw so far followed these principals.  I thought about the NJ Transit staff who’d shout “tickets out” loud enough to make babies cry, and the NYC McDonald’s employees who’d hand over your order without looking at you and then let go right before you could reach.  It’ll be hard to go home after this!

Precisely 2 hours and 41 minutes later, we returned to Tokyo Station.  The timely reputation of Japan’s transportation systems was no joke.  We spent the afternoon in Akihabara, the bigger and more intense equivalent of Taipei’s Guang Hua Market.  Being the electronics, anime/manga, gaming, and hentai capital, this place attracts geeks and weirdos from all over.  Didn’t we just see a Gundam Cafe by the train station?  Totally awesome.

But Gundam Cafe wasn’t the popular attraction in Akihabara compared to maid cafes, where girls dressed in French maid costumes did cute things while serving food that probably wasn’t that tasty.  A whole bunch of these girls were passing out fliers on the streets, dressing and sounding cute but could use some help on the face part.  Both of us had enough interest to repeatedly talk about checking out one of these cafes, but conveyor belt sushi and Mr. Donut were just slightly more convincing.

We weren’t really in the market for anything geeky or anime geeky, so the visit was mostly of cultural interest.  Porno manga, for example, was nothing new or fascinating as gay porn manga.  The vast selection of the latter was comparable to the entire shelf of travel books at Borders.

A trip into a big arcade, however, enlightened us.  We tried out the new and glamorous photo machines, and had a blast creating our first set of fobby picture collage.  Guys in the US would be so ashamed even to be seen near these machines, but this is Asia where male and female have equal rights to enjoy fun stuff.

Afterwards, we took a train to Shinjuku and checked into our third hotel.  It wasn’t that far from the station, but we got slightly lost due to the complex street system.  Apparently not everything was on the same x-y plane so it was impossible to locate certain cross streets as seen on the map.  In retrospect, that design made a lot of sense for a busy city’s downtown as it reduced the number of intersections and therefore potential for congestion.  But for two foreigners dragging heavy luggage, heck it was confusing as hell.

Shinjuku Washington was the most “American” among the hotels that we stayed at.  The room was huge compared to what we had seen (you could open both suitcases and still walk to the other side) and the service staff were more “professional” than “nice”.  The room came with an awesome massage chair that took up 1/2 the space that an equivalent thing from Brookstone would.  Unfortunately the layout of the building was super lame and the guy who programmed the elevators needs to be fired.

The evening was spent at Kabukicho, the heart and soul of Shinjuku – at least for tourists who don’t work in the forest of office skyscrapers.  Restaurants, shops, pachinkos, arcades, and the “more fun” entertainment establishments filled this district.  Unlike Ginza, it was freaking hard to distinguish one street from another, and there was no obvious path of exploration to abide by.

Dinner was at a restaurant that appeared like a hole in the wall but actually had five stories complete with an elevator.  Finally for once we got to sit on an entirely nonsmoking floor, instead of the very border of a small nonsmoking section where people had a tendency of seating us.  Hong had a platter of tempura and I enjoyed the best udon dish ever in a firey pot.  I wasn’t too crazy about the concept of mixing miso with hot sauce, but the dish overall was excellent.

Later at night we had dessert at this place called Miami Garden.  Holy f*** it was terrible!  We were impressed to find out such lameness could survive as a business in Tokyo!

Breakfast was at Cafe du Monde, a chain supposedly from New Orleans.  The one thing surprising and annoying about Japan was the smoking at public places, including most dining establishments.  During the course of our brief sandwich-and-coffee breakfast, 5 people had come, seated right near us, and smoked.  Our risk for lung cancer had just gone up a notch!

Then we experienced for the first time the notoriously crowded morning commuter train.  This was Kyoto, not Shinjuku, so it probably wasn’t the real deal just yet.  But the level of packed-ness was already beyond where New York subway riders would shout, “Fuck you, wait for the next train!”  It was so jammed that if you lift a foot up 3 inches and put it down, you’re likely to step on someone else’s foot.  My baby fell victim to that.  My theory is that since Asians tend to be more uniform in shape and size, it’s possible to jam together like sardines.  Americans would have a much harder time maximizing space efficiency, and it wouldn’t be fair to squeeze a 120-lb person into a 300-lb person’s belly fat.

The train took us to Arashiyama, the mountain region west of Kyoto that was more beautiful than I expected.  We walked through the bamboo groove, took a less touristy path through the Turtle Mountain park and down stream along the Hozu River, and over the Togetsukyo Bridge.  Skipping the World Heritage site Tenryuji (another Buddhist temple), we went straight to the Monkey Park.

None of the Kyoto tourism websites bothered to mention the level of physical demand at this “zoo”.  After paying the entrance fee at the single-person booth, it was a good 30-minute hike up the steep mountain before we saw any ape creature other than the two of us.  It was brutal on our already destroyed feet!  But then the park was unlike anything we had seen before… a large gang of wild monkeys freely roamed the mountain centering on a small hut, where visitors could buy snacks to feed the monkeys through the wire fence.  I know Chee Seng would approve feeding monkeys as much as we’d approve keeping a pet spider, but it was irresistible.  It was scary at first to hand-feed wild animals, but their hairy clawed fingers were surprisingly gentle.  We tried to favor the babies, but nobody could win a fight over peanuts against the big ones.  It was hilarious to watch them hitting each other on the head and stealing food from each other’s mouth.  They were also too smart to fall for our distraction tactics.  The experience of seeing monkeys on stairs, benches, and binoculars was definitely worth a few more days of swollen feet.  Where else can you pee in a urinal while a monkey climbs across the window in front of your eyes and two others bounce on the roof over your head?

(hmm… what are these three doing there?)

Returning to Kyoto, we hit up Nijo-jo, a rare castle palace with both defensive elements like walls, towers, and moats, and luxury elements like palace buildings, paintings, and gardens.  The one thing that every tourism website mentioned about Nijo-jo was the security feature: the floor in the palace hallways would make a sound of nightingale when stepped on, in order to warn of potential intruders.  I was highly intrigued because it reminded me of the training scenes in Ninja Assassin.  To my surprise, we were actually allowed to walk on such floors – but it wasn’t always easy to tell apart the nightingale sound by design and the creaking sound of the aged wood.

The remainder of the day was spent in the Kawaramachi/Teramachi district, where the covered shopping arcades, a huge department store, restaurants, and food carts kept us occupied.  We checked out the Benkei Stone, which was briefly mentioned in a Detective Conan movie.  Because our feet started hurting like hell again, we made frequent food stops in order to sit down and rest.  Of particular noteworthiness was the Crepe Ojisan cart and then conveyor belt sushi place where I tried smoked horse meat (nasty).

Benkei Ishi (stone)

Uncooked squid

Smoked horse sushi.  The meat-like stuff and the rice didn’t stick together at all.

Those of you who have traveled in Asia would know how hotels here provide necessities that American hotels don’t: tooth brushes, tooth paste, combs, razors, shaving cream, slipper, etc.  Ours went the extra mile to drop us off a daily package of the aforementioned, new tea/coffee bags, sheets, and towels, even though we put up the “do not disturb” sign to avoid unnecessary cleaning efforts.  That’s the Japanese customer service showing off again.

On the side of our bath tub was a bath meter indicating how much water to fill up given a patron’s weight.  Slightly unintuitive at first, it did make sense that a heavier person’s body would displace more volume, assuming similar human body density, and raising the water level higher upon entering a tub of the same base area.  I tested this out with water filled to the 70kg mark, and the amount was quite perfect.  While enjoying water hot enough to cook ramen (no way in hell would an American hotel provide this due to liability concerns), I wondered how much water a 300lb person should fill since it was off this chart.  Then I realized that the person in question wouldn’t have been able to even enter this room in the first place.

Mixing half-ass attempts to sleep, shower, and magazines, we killed enough time before getting breakfast from 7-Eleven at 4:30.  Oh thank heaven.  Then we took our first nap of the day until like 8am.

The first destination of the day was Fushimi Inari Taisha, the head shrine of the Shinto rice god.  For some reason, few travel websites mentioned this place and most Kyoto maps didn’t include it.  However, it was one of the the most representative places in Japan, with its thousands of red torii gates covering the foot paths over an entire mountain – a scene in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed here.  We had a good hike about 1/10 into the trail… and we saw enough.

Our feet still hurt from the day before, and hiking up an mountain didn’t make it better.  The human body is a incredible thing such that it can compensate one part with other parts, so my pain in one foot eventually became pain in both feet and both knees.  Yipee!

After some mid-day takoyaki, we took a bus to Kinkakuji, the Zen Buddhist temple of the golden pavilion.  This attraction did not waste our time – immediately after paying the entrance fee, we were greeted by this gold-covered building shining in the sun.  To me, though, it was one of those attractions where physically visiting and reading about on Wikipedia don’t make much difference.  It’s not like they let us touch the gold, you know.

Riding on the bus was pretty much the same experience as everywhere else, with one unique thing: when coming to a full stop at a red light or a bus stop, the driver always turned the engine off.  It was weird to hear the complete silence as if the bus stalled.  Wouldn’t this be really energy inefficient?  Or was this a practice geared at minimizing pollution?  As a driver who frequently tailgate buses and trucks, I think I can appreciate this.

Thirdly, we visited Kiyomizudera, the Buddhist temple with a huge wooden platform.  This structure was among the 21 finalists for 2007′s New Seven Wonders of the World selection.  It was on a hill with a good view of the entire Kyoto, which meant more stairs and slope climbing for our burning feet.  It surely was impressive, but I’m not convinced that it deserved to be among the world’s top wonders.

We saw large groups of students everywhere today, mostly likely due to the Culture Day holiday activities.  It was very nice seeing youthful people in school uniforms because they reminded me of the childhood that I had and the high school years that I missed.  Scary to think that my age has doubled since then!

On the way out of Kiyomizudera, someone stopped us with a question in Mandarin with a weird accent.  Turned out to be a small group of Japanese people learning Chinese that just wanted to greet us, and perhaps practice having a dialogue a little bit.  It was a nice and friendly encounter.

Since we were already in the Higashiyama region, we checked out Gion and ate an okonomiyaki dinner nearby.  It was hard to say that we got enough enjoyment out of it to justify the sharp pain that came with every step.  I was kicking myself (only if I could) for not bringing Tiger Balm on the trip.  The good news was that we easily found it at a local drug store; the bad news was that a standard-size container of it cost over 11 freaking US dollars.  That’s like 4 times the average price I’ve paid for Tiger Balm!  This Japanese version better have crack in it!

The foot pain put us to bed by 7pm.  Yeah like that’s gonna help with adjusting the jetlag.

Breakfast at a convenience store was something else needing to come off our check list.  What better time to do it than a time when nothing else was open?  I got myself a ginger-honey-lemon drink from the heater (instead of refrigerator) because any warm drink other than tea/coffee would be considered weird in the US.  For food, I got a sandwich and she got a curry bread, both of which were pretty good.

We walked around the business district and found some early risers – full suit at the office by 6am, really?  Then we walked to the Imperial Palace and stopped at an art museum’s garden on the way.  Later, Hong enjoyed a cup of morning coffee at the gourmet cafe of choice – McDonald’s.  We sat, afraid to make a noise, among a room full of professional individuals who ate and read newspapers in silence.  There was no music and people did what they needed to do in a perfectly orderly manner.  The experience made me paranoid to think about entering a library in Japan.  I’d probably need some ninja training before I can walk around without disturbing other patrons!

After checking out of the hotel, we dragged our luggage back to Tokyo Station and obtained our flashy JR Passes.  The timing was just right and we were able to catch the next Hikari train to Maibara.  I remember hearing about the Shinkansen bullet train as a kid, and was very excited being able to experience it.  Although it wasn’t a new technology any more, it was still faster, quieter, and smoother than any of the trains I had ever taken.  The interior was quite nice, too, with far more space for legs and luggage than the travel websites made it sound.

After two and so hours, we arrived at Maibara, the “rice field”, or from our snobby perspective, the middle of nowhere.  It was the closest Shinkansen stop to Hikone, an even smaller town that we took a local train to.  Hikone housed one of Japan’s only four castles with the national treasure designation, and it was the only one not under renovation or too terribly out of the way.

The small town reminded us a lot of, well, small towns in Taiwan.  It was cute, but the problem was we couldn’t find any restaurant within the ten-minute walk between the train station and the castle grounds.  We resisted the urge to return to the train station for another McDonald’s lunch, and eventually found a soba specialist alone the moat.  The place had a nice classic aura and the food was alright, but the price tag wasn’t exactly what I’d expect from a small town.

Hikone Castle was built 400 years ago on top of a mountain by the Biwa (Chinese: pi2 pa2 as in the music instrument) Lake.  Upon crossing the entrance bridge over the moat, mountain roads spiraled up with many guard towers, bridges, gates, and walls on the way.  Honmaru, the main castle building, was propped up on a high stone base above the mountain peak.  There were so many layers of defense mechanism that we wondered if anyone had attempted to attack it.  If we were ancient soldiers, simply climbing to the top would have had us defeated.

And it did defeat us.  Foot aches started to escalate and we had to cut the side trips out.  If anyone wonders what the Hikone lord’s garden looked like or where the peasants shopped, well, we do too.  As a result, we arrived at Kyoto early and checked into our hotel, which, given the crammed setup, looked like a side business of Seattle’s Best Coffee.

There was a thought that hotel rooms couldn’t possibly get smaller than the one in Tokyo.  Meh, incorrect!  It should’ve been a warning sign that the reception counter was smaller than the coffee bar.  Our room was a “semi double” – a term that puzzles me because semi = 0.5x and double = 2.0x, so doesn’t semi double = single?  It surely wasn’t bigger than any single room that I was capable of imagining.  The bathroom was so tiny that they had to install the toilet at an angle… and the garbage can?  The size of a small milk carton from America!

After a two-hour nap on the barely-wider-than-twin bed, we grabbed dinner above the train station.  It was a random advice of wisdom from my dad, who I had no idea even had been to Kyoto.  We picked a place out on the “ramen street” on the 10th floor, bought meal tickets from the vending machine, and enjoyed some really nice noodles.  It wasn’t ridiculously salty like all Japanese-made ramen I had had in the US, and this gave me some newfound respect for Japanese cuisine.

What made no sense to me was, that the gate way to Kyoto the “ancient city” was like something straight out of a Star Wars filming set.  Kyoto Station, the connecting towers, front plaza, and Kyoto Tower are all of futuristic design and remind you more of Mars than of World Heritage sites.

To conclude the day, we had dessert at a Lipton Cafe.  That’s right, the upscale Lipton Cafe!

Or would it?  It’s 1 freaking am and I’m more awake than I ever would be in the office.  It’s not even funny… what kind of transpacific trip wakes one up before 3am???

So I ended up staying awake for a whole hour, and slept half on half off for three more hours, and gave up.  Hong was jet lagged too but not nearly as ridiculously as me.  Finally the appropriate time came and we strolled in the rain to the first stop – Tsukiji fish market.  Finding the entrance to this “market” was a piece of cake, but navigating in it while dodging intense motor carts was unexpectedly stressful.  We ended up lost in the sea of wholesale merchants before 9am, when tourists were prohibited.  Hong didn’t enjoy the splashing water and the pushy seafood dealers, but I was amazed by the gallery of marine creatures big and small, life and frozen, whole and diced.

(none of the pictured above was from the actual wholesale market)

Fresh sushi breakfast was intended as a bonus trip while visiting the fish market, and somehow turned into the primary justification for our being there.  Daiwa, the bigger of the two that every Tokyo tourism site recommends, is barely larger than the bathrooms we have at home.  We got there early enough to entirely avoid the notorious hour+ wait in line, and secured the last two seats right in front of the chef that commanded some English.  We felt fat squeezing by the row of other customers, and there was absolutely no room for our bags around the seats.  Ordering was still done in the point-and-smile fashion, and the food was prepared directly from counter to the chef’s bare hands to the wooden platform a foot in front of us.  He frequently had to lean over to see how much room was left to decide whether to continue making the next piece.  The food here tasted entirely different from what they call sushi in America.  The fish was so fresh and tender that it was falling apart just sitting there: the o-toro was the most delicious piece of fat on earth, this unagi-like (but not eel) thing melted in the mouth with an explosion of flavors, and the raw shrimp sushi provided a never-before-experienced blend of chewiness and soft texture.  The presentation was honestly not as fancy as what we had in mind, but the experience made a rare ocassion when I’d call a $70 (for two) breakfast worthwhile.

Our second stop was Sensoji, a Kannon (Goddess of Mercy) temple in Asakusa.  In this most ancient shopping district of Tokyo, the streets in front of the temple are still crowded on a Monday morning – businesses prosper not so much from pilgrims but from massive tourists.  It wasn’t unlikely that more foreigners hung out here than Japanese.  I wouldn’t call either the temple or the shopping very impressive, especially compared to similar stuff in Taiwan, but it was quite fun.

As much as we make fun of Americans who “need” home foods while traveling, we opted for McDonald’s by our third meal… it was all good though as we experienced flavors and drinks not available in the US.

After a long nap, we headed out for Ginza, Tokyo’s Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive.  It turned out to be the least interesting part of the day because, well, an LV in Tokyo isn’t unlike an LV in LA which isn’t unlike an LV in New York.  The more different part of it was perhaps watching super-wealthy or otherwise connected women dressed in kimonos and over-the-top dresses on their way to dinner parties.  At a minimum, they looked so much nicer than the Jewish grandmas on Fifth Avenue.

The disappointing Nissan Gallery showcased no GTR or Z but only Leaf – an electric car.

Cosplay is a key part of modern Japanese culture, especially to those even marginally interested in anime or manga.  A derivation of it are theme restaurants.  I made it a priority to try at least one theme restaurant in Tokyo, and after some research the Alice in Wonderland caught my eyes over everything else.  Checking it off the list early, we went there for dinner.

Last night, I called to make a reservation.  We later learned that despite the localness (the restaurant was within a 20-minute walk), the hotel charged us for the call.  I was quite proud of myself for having had a whole business conversation with someone in Japan, and it was also priceless to hear the 8-bit video game-like music when I was put on hold.

It was awesome.  The place was basically a toned-down and more fun version of Ninja New York.  Alice in the Wonderland is among my favorite stories of all times, so I was thrilled to see pages from the book covering the walls, waitresses dressed like Alice (with a sexier twist, what a surprise), and above all the character-shaped dishes.  We’ve got pictures of everything except the Alices, because we didn’t want to appear like perverts over some ugly Japanese girls.  It was embarrassing enough to not understand a word of explanation (among very many) from them.  The bill came out roughly double what we expected… that’s right, there’s an inheritent risk in pointing to a menu that you can’t read and nodding with a smile when you can’t distinguish a question from a statement…

When you’re grown up and each vacation day is worth at least a few hundred bucks, it’s scary to think that a good three full days are spent on the travel part of a trip.  I hope that within our lifetime, we’ll get to see much cheaper means of long-distance transportation at ten times the speed.  Coming from the world of computing, I might just be too optimistic on technological advancements.

Somehow, the 14-hour flight felt infinitely longer than a 14-hour work day.  It’s funny to think that an easy way to “stretch out” your vacation and to feel the desire to return to work afterwards is to simply stay air bound for as long as you can.  After landing in Narita and exchanging for some Yen, it was an hour of train ride plus 15 minutes of another train ride, before we arrived at central Tokyo and checked into the Yaesu Fujiya Hotel.

The proper word to describe the hotel room is “cute”.  The space and layout are totally utilitarian – any smaller and we wouldn’t be able to drag our carry-on luggage indoors.  I feel incredibly tall with some ceilings less than a foot over my head.  So glad we don’t weight 250 pounds.  The TV in the room is roughly the size of the smallest computer monitor that you can buy from the stores these days, and it comes with a pictorial guide of porno selections.  We braved up to experience the “Japanese toilet” which comes with superior sanitation capabilities.  Allow me not to go into the details, but it was quite something.

The day pretty much came to an end, but we were starving.  Heading back out toward the train station, we scoured the Yaesu underground mall, which was mostly shut down by this time of the day. Dinner was at a restaurant that specialized in free range chicken, and we got seated at the bar.  It was our very first bar meal together.  The hostess and us shared an mutual understanding of 10 words between two languages, so the business transaction consisted of most smiling and finger pointing.  Hong got a Japanese chicken version of the Korean seafood pancake and an iced tea, and I ordered the staple chicken & egg rice with a girly mango-sherbet alcohol float.  Delicious but rather costly and small portioned comparing to the obese American standards.  We were charged an extra $4 for a small appetizer that appeared to be complimentary.  It wasn’t even good.  I would’ve fought it if I knew more than two words.

Dessert after dinner was at this awesome taiyaki stand.  The fish-shaped red bean awesomeness was also smaller and more expensive than what we’re used to in the US, with a superior texture and taste though.

We haven’t been here for that long, but we have a common, generalized observation that Tokyo is a lot like Taipei.  The airport, train system (despite super old), streets, vendors, and hotel room all have the look and feel of “home” that not even Shanghai comes close to match.  It makes sense when considering historical and cultural ties, but it still came to us as a major surprise.

Two hours later, the smell of iodine kept me from falling asleep.  The lady’s hands had puffed up quite a bit, and I learned from my sweetheart about the danger of an animal bite and how this could be the beginning of an ugly systemic infection.  “She needs to get antibiotics within 24 hours.”  Okay, two hours down, 13 more hours on the plane, and there is still hope.  Now I don’t know whether I should stretch out my legs, leaving the feet next to the bag of cat.

I flipped through the Delta magazine, trying to figure out what movies we could expect to see.  Meanwhile, commercial after commercial had been streaming on TV.  “Welcome aboard!  Have you thought of owning a stand-alone chicken roaster?”  I guess if nobody is paying checked baggage fees, the airline’s gotta find a source of income somewhere else.

The commercial that bothered me the most was about Delta’s commitment to the breast cancer campaign.  Would you like to purchase a $2 PINK lemonade and donate to the cause?  Oh please.  I don’t mean to belittle this disease, but it’s far from the leading cause of death, leading cause of death for women, or even the deadliest cancer.  The fad that drives every freaking corporation in America to jump up waving its hand saying, “we pretend to care too,” is just, well, a fad.  It’s unclear how the donations are curing cancer except to sponsor more pink-colored merchandises and to pay for the $500k salary of Susan Komen’s CEO.  So when can we have a walk together, in brown, to find a cure for colon cancer?

Alright.  Time to attempt zonking out again.  Hello Japan.  Here we come.