It's the absolute ideal way to handle the first 36 hours of touring the other side of the world, when you're hilariously jetlagged and so delirious that, given your own cognitive abilities, the extent of your first day might be this itinerary:
"Try to go to a museum. Go instead to a temple on a holy day. It's closed. Nearly fall down an escalator going the wrong direction. Lose a transit card. Confuse a service person while you try to negotiate getting another one. Eventually try to go to a museum, remember nothing you see even though it seems fascinating. Accidentally order food you don't recognize and then, because you wind up with a thing you weren't expecting, be so embarrassed that you barely taste the food you got even though it's great. Then go to sleep early and question whether or not you are actually smart enough to travel on your own."
Instead of all that. . . meet up when you arrive with two people who know and love the city you're traveling to.
And this is key--make sure they arrive a day or two before you, so they are less jet-lagged and then just. . . release yourself into their care like a tired but excitable puppy.
On Wednesday night, since that was the end of their first full day, we went out to one of their favorite little Izakayas, which is a sort of Japanese pub that serves amazing bar food that puts the fried oysters and onion rings that pass for bar food in the US to shame.
The district we're staying in is Ueno, just on the edge of a formerly black market set of tiny streets known as Ameyokocho, which is a mixture of small bars and eateries and also a sortof former black market but it's cool it's mostly not a really a black market now. As much. We swear.
It also turns out to be a great place to get good food.
This is how I discovered that one of the things you can buy in their favorite Izakaya is whole cloves of ginger BOILED IN BUTTER.
Which, if you know anything about me, you know was basically me winning the culinary lottery.
So then we went back to the hotel, and I went unconscious for about five hours hours and then at 3AM of course my body went HEY IT'S JET LAG DAY.
So I spent the next two and a half hours dozing in an out of consciousness and occasionally also playing with my camera phone to try to capture the picture that I used to test picture updates.
And then the day started where I just got to follow behind while my companions led the way.
They were excited to show me the town, so first we went and got pastry for breakfast (the Japanese equivalent of donut shops are surprisingly great at many forms of Pastry, and make a bunch of delicious ones.) and then off we went to a Buddhist temple which was a lovely chance for me to muddle through remembering how to take pictures with a DSLR (I'll try to sit down and upload some of those tonight).
After letting my K-1 put in work for a while, we did a little pre-planning for some shopping we have planned at the end of our respective trips, and then we were off to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which is a really great museum housed in one of those ridiculous modern Late-Stage-Brutalism pieces of architecture that has to be seen to be believed. I recommend you look it up--I was too busy feeling oppressed by the looming nature of the design to take a picture.
There was also a lot of discussion about firefighting, because it turns out that all of Edo and early-Tokyo's beautiful architecture was really just carefully assembled piles of pure kindling pressed up against each other and waiting for a reason to burn down. . .and they were lived in by people whose idea of an appropriate light source was open-flame candles and lamps under pretty paper lampshades. . . so. . . it was in a near-constant state of combustion for hundreds of years.
It meant they invented some pretty cool firefighting equipment though: here's a 3+ man pump system. One man aims, two men operate the pump, and the rest of the crew run buckets to them that are poured in through the top so it can operate continuously.
And here's a beautiful set of kimono that were on display. If I recall correctly these were about 350 years old.
So then, starving, we headed east for while with a few stops for pictures until we found a small noodle shop that made really tasty Shio Romen (noodle soup with a sea salt broth with loads of thinly sliced onion on top) via a cool system where you ordered from a vending machine near the door and then sat down and the cooks made your food and handed it over the half-wall of the counter directly to you (I would later discover this is how all noodle shops in Japan operate). It was a great pause in a day full of bracing walks in the cool and overcast Tokyo weather. Is there a better combination than beautifully chilly overcast weather and noodle soup? I argue that there might not be.
We finished up lunch, caught a train to Sky-Tree town, and bought tickets for the elevator to end all elevators, and up-up-up we went, to the top of the Tokyo Skytree. We spent the late afternoon there, talking and watching the dusk fall and the sun set and the lights of the city come on--the same way one should first experience the Eiffel tower, if you've the chance, and it was well worth the time and the money.
I've found over the years that the combination of glass and crowds and limited angles makes taking a picture that conveys much about what you experience on such an observation deck pretty futile, so you won't find any attempts at a panorama. I did try my hand at a few limited shots of one particular angle where I could get up against the glass and do a little long exposure work. When I post that picture later, try to imagine that view but in every direction as far as the eye can see, save towards the bay, where the city does eventually give way to water, and you've got a vague notion. But you really can't imagine the contrast of grandeur and surreal sense of scale. It's amazing.
Basically, you should go to Tokyo and spend your own sunset watching the city become illuminated. It's a magical experience and I can't recommend it enough.
Oh, side note, the Skytree observation deck was full of life-size statues of DragonBall Z characters for some sort of promotional event they were doing. Because Japan.
Delirious and well-pleased, I followed my companions through the dark to Akiba.
"Akiba" is the cool guy way that Tokyo says Akihabara, now, similar to "the ATL" for Atlanta, or Mac-town for my current home. It's consumerism in its purest form, especially when it comes to tech, toys, and entertainment.
It's full of 8 and 10 story stores that are shrines to tech with specialty shops sandwiched in between (like one that's a sort of radio-shack cemetery where you can buy every sort of discrete electronic component). Every store is covered in giant ads for the latest Anime or Japanese video game, and the streets of full of young businessmen and bored-and-chilly looking young women busking for the maid cafes on the next street over.
We went to one department store where a whole floor was just Drones, Cameras, and other small scale electronics. Not only did they have about as many flying drone options on display as an American best-buy has cameras, they also had an entire section for submarine drones, as well. There was a huge section for VR in one store, and another that was chock-full of just action figures from every series ever. There was even a lego section in one store that was about the size of a convenience store, just for Ninjago and Star Wars Lego sets, which was great. One store had a gaming-laptop section that was borderline obscene, full of the over-the-top color choices on top of black chassis that has become the bizarro standard aesthetic in modern gaming hardware.
After wandering until our eyes started to bleed, we headed off to a tower that my companions affectionately call the meat palace, which is an amazing place near Akiba that used to be a butcher shop and now has a separate restaurant on every one of its 7 floors. It's the sort of delightfully weird building--a giant neon cow face looms over Akiba from its roof--that makes Tokyo feel like Tokyo.
Sadly, the Yakiniku place we had in mind was closing up for the night, but thankfully the black market denizens like to stay up a little later, so we made our way back towards our hotel to a different Yakiniku place that was happy to welcome us in, tired and foot-weary, to a late and delicious dinner. Kalbi beef, offal, short rib meat, and excellent roast all appeared at our table raw, and we spent the next two hours drinking dark beer and ginger high balls while we cooked our own dinner over the tiny gas grill embedded in our table top.
It was delicious, and we caught up on some old personal history over the meal in an environment that couldn't have been more perfect. It was an excellent finish to a long day.
We crashed hard afterwards, returning to the hotel around 2300, and I slept soundly until almost 7AM, like a real human.
It was an excellent day.
Tonight, I'll try to update you about all that happened this morning (Modern art! Political discussion! More pastry! Plus the brilliant Customa Cafe!)
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