part two of epic adventures (read the previous post first! :P)

The next day began in a complicated way. (And yes, we did end up being late, but let's ignore that, shall we?)


Here's the backstory to the day: back in Pittsburgh, Jenny (my roommate here) took some Japanese conversation classes at the public library. Her teacher there insisted that she get in touch with a friend of hers who lives in Saitama, which is about an hour north of downtown Tokyo. Either Jenny or the friend did get in touch, and it all ended in Izumi-san offering to show us around the entire city for the day. (Apparently this is regular bsns as usual for the Japanese...)

So our day began in Ueno, where we met Izumi and her husband, Tetsuya. We drove around Ueno and saw the various museums and parks that are there. We also stopped in/at Ameyoko, which is a big shopping street with all kinds of cool things that you can buy and bargain for. :D AND AN ARCADE THERE HAD STUFFED LLAMAS, DO WANT.

From Ueno we went to see the Tokyo Sky Tree. It's still under construction, but it's possibly one of the biggest freaking things I've ever seen. So Tokyo Tower is just an aesthetically pleasing antenna, right? Well everything around it is taller than it now, so they're building an even more gigantor tower to bounce various waves and signals off of. And that is the Tokyo Sky Tree. It's awesome.

Then we went to Asakusa. There we were 1) interviewed by Fuji TV about our own thoughts on Maid Cafes. (Jenny'd never heard of them, the innocent.) I was like, "They're weird, but to earch their own I guess." You know, being a poster girl for normal and all. I suppose if I hadn't been taken off guard I would have had something clever to say about feminism and otaku culture, but I'd been all over the place and hadn't even had breakfast yet sooo. Apparently Japanese are very interested in what foreigners think about different bits of Japanese culture, and the show I was interviewed for is a very popular show that quizzes gaijin on their opinions. (Also, why do I attract news reporters/interviewers regardless of country or current activity?) and 2) we investigated the temple at Asakusa (different from Meiji-jingu, which is a shrine, not a temple).

There we did all sorts of neat stuff. Between the main Kaminarimon gate and the actual temple there are about a million little shops selling traditional candy and food and clothes and gifts and shinsengumi happi coats and all sorts of ridiculous stuff. We walked all the way down to the temple first, where we did a fortune-telling thing that involves pulling numbered sticks at random from a container, then taking a fortune from that number's drawer. I got a 'BAD FORTUNE' the first time, so Izumi-san bought me another fortune so I could try again (I got a 'MEDIUM FORTUNE' >.>) They had a stand that you could tie your BAD FORTUNEs onto so that the bad luck wouldn't follow you, so I left it there (after taking its picture). Then we went into the shrine and threw in a coin for a wish. On our way out we stopped at a stand selling agemanju (I'm not sure what they were besides delicious and deep-fried) and were treated to green-tea flavored agemanju by Izumi-san.

Then we met up with Tetsuya-san again (his position for the day seemed to be glorified chauffeur - his meishi said he was the president of his own company but I think Izumi-san's the brains behind the throne, haha). Next was lunch, and after some discussion we asked if we could try nabe (like hotpot/soup with everything just thrown in and cooked together). We headed over to Ginza to have delicious delicious lunch. (To top off its awesomeness, the restaurant we ate at was playing Gee by SNSD when I came in. K-pop ftw.) Besides the soundtrack, however, the restaurant was really traditional Japanese where you sat on the floor and took your shoes off and everything. :O And I was adventurous and ate pretty much everything that was put in front of me, including many many green things :O (I am not big on green things, like at all.)

Oh, and did I mention that even though Izumi-san spoke English very well, we spent most of the day talking in Japanese? LIKE A BOSS? Haha we're by no means fluent, like at all, but it was really great practice to be able to talk freely with real and patient Japanese people about any number of topics. Izumi-san said we were very skilled, at least. (I begged to differ, but she pointed out that all Japanese kids have to take six years of English and can barely introduce themselves, and I've only been studying Japanese for three years... well, at this point it just gets into a complicated back and forth about the politeness of accepting compliments regardless of implicit truth and depending on variable societal norms so I'mma get back to the story.)

After lunch we were pretty much stuffed. From Ginza we headed across the Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba (which, according to my sources aka Jenny, is where Digimon is set, fyi). The view from the Bridge was awesome, and then when we got to Odaiba we got to go down to the beach and see the Tokyo Bay up close. :D Then we went up in the super-crazy-looking Fuji TV building (yep, the same station that wants to make my opinions on Maid Cafes a national broadcast). It has a giant metal ball at the top called the Hachi-tama which you can get tickets to go up into. We went up to check out the view and took a crapton of pictures from the awesome vantage point looking across at downtown Tokyo (we could see Tokyo Tower and the Sky Tree among several other things). We also were introduced to Fuji TV's adorable mascot, the coolest dog ever, Ruff-kun. He's blue, and rocks the Lennon shades.

From Odaiba we headed back across the Bay to Harajuku. This was exciting for me because we were going to learn where exactly that tricksy Takeshita-dori actually was. Turns out about a block away from where we'd been the day before, go figure. >.> Takeshita was bustling, like super-crowded, but we went in a few stores (one was wallpapered with Johnny's boys and K-pop bands along with some straight-up J-rock folks (they had Gazette phone charms); I also fondled some really nice boots along the way. :X I am having a problem with boots in this country.) They sell crepes all up and down the tiny-crowded-alleyway-cum-street, and when we finally emerged on the other side of the block, Izumi-san treated us to delicious crepes as well. (I got one with strawberries and whipped cream, both deliciously fresh.)

After nomming down our crepes, we hopped in the car for one last stop: the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku. You can go in for free and ride up to the 45th floor for a legit spectacular view of the city from above. (Unfortunately, it's difficult to take impressive nighttime pictures from behind glass with a point-and-shoot camera, but I did my best.) They had a bunch of little tourist-trap gift shops in the middle of the observation-deck floor, and Izumi-san bought us both a set of adorable erasers. (Mine look like desserts! :D)

From there, we went back to the car, and by the magic of GPSes Tetsuya-san managed to make it all the way back to Meguro to drop us in front of our house (despite our protests that dropping us at any train station would be equally fine). We went through a flurry of otsukaresama deshitas and hontou ni arigatou gozaimashitas for a few minutes, and then went our merry ways, utterly exhausted at least on our part.

And thus was an epic day had by us, following the incredibly wise decision to get into a car with two people I'd never met before and to let them drive me wherever they felt like. :D And God bless you if you actually read this whole giant thing. >.> (And God bless Tetsuya-san for driving in Tokyo, it's terrifying.)