The Okonomiayaki and Monjayaki Pancake Smackdown. Crashing the Apple Store. "Lucky Bags" Interview for Japanese TV

Koishikawa Korakuen Garden

If the Sun is to my Left, I must be Heading Somewhere

As much as I would like to  report in that my navigational skills are getting really honed, alas, the best I can say is that I'm starting to pay attention to where the sun is.  Referencing the solar deity has not done me much good, but I do look up hopefully towards it and reassure myself that I'm still on Planet Earth which is more consoling at times than you might imagine.   Getting lost and being lost is not as bad as I always imagine it to be ahead of itself.  

My goal each day is to aim for one or two specific places each time I venture out and then see what's in between or on the way.  Not a flawless plan but an organizing principle, as I am fond of saying.  I'm beginning to appreciate  Lewis and Clark in a way I never did prior to this trip.  Of course, even they had "people" in the form of Sacajawea (yes, I had to look that one up), but still.....my only interpreter of terrain is the Tokyo Metro Map and a 2009 Lonely Planet Guidebook.  In the evenings and before I set out in the morning I consult the http://www.japan-guide.com/ which is of some help, though embedded with advertising, which leaves me to question some of what it features as important local highlights.  

The problem is that once you arrive at a Metro station,  it can be a real crap shoot to figure out where you come out of the station in relation to where you want to go.  As an example, today I traveled to Tsukishima station, a little outpost just east of the Gina madness. [I was looking for the street that features the monjayaki pancakes.]   The Tsukishima station has 11 exits!  So you see my problem....and even if I spend a LOT of time studying the postings on the walls, that in no way will guarantee that when I emerge from whatever exit I think is the one I need, there are then no less than four ways to go once you are up and out on the street.  So I needed a guideline to help me decide and here is what I have come to:  follow the crowd.  Really, it's that simple.  It's not necessarily right, but it does make me feel as though I am going somewhere and the nice thing is that I have a lot of other people going with me.  

Eventually, we all wander along and people peel off and go across the street or up on an overpass, but just making my way along well-traveled pathways usually leads me to something.  Not necessarily what I was looking for, but that's the beauty of Tokyo or even travel in general.  Walk around long enough and you'll end up somewhere interesting.  I was musing about my peripatetic life here and concluded that I have spent nearly as much time walking around undergound in Metro and train stations as I have above ground trying to navigate my way to a destination.  The stations are that big and at least there are signs in English.  Once you get out of a station, your chances of an English directional map is about 75:25.  Hence, the sun.  I need to read up on Egyptians.  

Recent history in no particular order

Bridge at Koishikawa Korakuen Garden

1.  The morning began with a trip to the Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, Tokyo's oldest garden but located in an outlier area.  See above body of knowledge regarding the barriers to ease of visitation.  The gardens are said to be at their peak during the late part of November when the maple trees turn red and during the Spring when the plum trees bloom.  The garden was glorious just as it was, though there is a lot of work going on and the fading greenery in the ponds and the stubble of flowers suggest that it is past its prime.  

I notice that a lot of office workers from the neighborhood, in small clutches and alone, crowd the benches that skirt  the park's numerous ponds and overlooks and am grateful that I am a witness to their enjoyment of this simple but elegant pleasure.  

No way to capture beauty of the trees

Every tree in this park is a work of art.  I took some photos of several trees, just because they were so perfect and I wanted to remember them just so.  But even these topiary perfections step aside to pay tribute to the glory of the day and the light and the birds and the multitude of free and well-placed restrooms with heated seats and buttons with flushing sounds to masque ones private industry.  I just love Japan.

The Okonomiyaki and Monjayaki Smackdown

Wishing she had paid attention in English class

The makings of a seafood Monjayaki

Monjayaki pancake in the making

The pancake batter begins cooking

2.  A friend sent me a link and a nudge to find the restaurants that sell the Okonomiyaki pancakes, which also led me to the Monjayaki pancakes, which are similar but runnier, from what I can understand.  I had already sampled the Okonomiayaki as street food on Japanese culture day.  The Nishinaka-dori area adjacent to the Tsukishima metro stop is the City's preferred area to sample Monjayaki and so I decided to go there to check them out.  The area is charming with its small shops, pedestrian only thoroughfare and period architecture.  It had an old, authentic feel, but it was practically deserted.

Still, I threw myself on the mercy of some poor young wait staff who was instantly sorry she did not pay better attention in English class.  (I tend to get passed along to the person with the best English skills in any given situation, and that has been a fairly good system. For me.)  But we managed to produce this seafood Monjayaki with less effort than I had anticipated.  Wish I could say I was a fan, but it's one of those ordeals that looks better from the start than it does in the at the conclusion. I left most of it on the cooktop and went in search of other fare.  But Monjayaki has its devotees and for them, this street would be a good stop.

Finished Monjayaki.  Not a fan.

Crashing the Ginza Apple Store

3.  For no reason that I can gage, my Iphone froze.  I couldn't turn it off, punch in my pass code, or even close up the last apps that I had been using.  What to do?  Why, go to that Apple store over on the Ginza where I had been last week when I needed a wi-fi connection.  If you think San Francisco's Apple store is crowded...you ain't seen nothin till you've seen the chaos that is Ginza Apple.  There was no way I was going to wait and go home and make an on line appointment at the Genius Bar for next week.  Ordering a Domino's pizza is one thing.  Navigating Goggle translate on the Apple site is quite another.  One thing I have learned about the Japanese:  they are an accommodating culture.  Couple that with the Apple customer service we have come to love and we have what I consider a true Harmonic Convergence.  Call it whatever unflattering name you'd like, but once I discovered this glitch in my I-phone, I made straight away to the Apple store.  

The first thing one must ascertain is the presence of an English-speaking Apple employee.  My phone is set on Airplane mode, otherwise, during my six-week stay in Tokyo, I  will incur hundreds if not thousands of dollars in roaming charges and other data useage from foreign networks.  All of which AT&T is happy to supply.  An oversight or an error on my part to the contrary does not produce forgiveness when it comes to such matters.  Ignorance of the international roaming charges or an accidental turn on is no excuse.  So I'm especially paranoid about making sure that that little airplane mode is on and shows up bold on my screen every time I look at it.  So far, so good.  That said, I am not about to risk resetting it myself for fear that when it comes back on, so will millions of gigabytes or whatever it is that will make its way across the universe to my AT&T data plan. 

The Apple guys in Tokyo look exactly like the ones in San Francisco:  Asian.  I felt right at home.  I was passed along to the point of reaching the fourth floor where a very nice young man who was there to direct traffic and spoke "a little English," took possession of my Iphone, pushed a number of buttons, turned it off, waited for a LONG time for it to re-boot and, presto!  It's working again and the airplane mode continues to show up bold. I just love Apple all over. 

Lucky Bags?

4.  On my way home, as I was strutting down the Ginza with my now-working Iphone, I was stopped by a camera crew.  They asked me if I had a few minutes to talk to them for Japanese TV.  Sure, why not?  I was hoping they would ask about the air pollution problem for the upcoming APEC summit or did I harbor bad feelings for Tokyo beating San Francisco out of the 2020 Summer Olympics... or perhaps my opinion on the Apple Ginza store customer service.  Or maybe a tourist-on-the-street interview about how the City could improve on its signage.  Stuff I was ready to hold forth on.  

In the end,  I really don't know what it was all about.  When I told them I was from San Francisco, the interviewer said he had gone to Stanford, but I have some reservations regarding his verisimilitude on that point.  As best I can tell, he was asking me about "Lucky Bags" that Japanese give at New Year's and would I pick out something from the photos that I would like to have in my Lucky Bag.   He pattered away as I tried to understand what it was he wanted me to do and, frankly, I was completely lost. His English was about 60% there, which, if he were giving me directions to a Metro station, I could have processed.  But I was trying to follow him and had no idea what the concept was and what he wanted me to pick.  

Evidently I didn't pick what he wanted, which were bath products.  I selected the leather accessory bundle because ...why wouldn't I?  I had one of his assistants take a photo of all of us, including the cameraman, the interviewer and the grip.  

Point, Click, Eat

5.  I decided to go into a restaurant that didn't have an English menu or pictures.  How terribly brave, right?   So I followed a group of business men into a back alley place not too far from the Tokyo Dome (Home to the Baseball of Fame, Tokyo Giants baseball stadium and the largest arena in the City, hosting Madonna, U2, et. al.)    I sat down and turned on my Learn-to-Speak-Japanese-app and hit the button that asks, "What do you recommend?" in Japanese.  The waiter pointed to an item on the menu and I, of course, agreed;  then, upon further consideration,  he shook his head and pointed to the item below it, issuing a long litany in Japanese  worthy of any food critic in any language.  I agreed to that as well.  Off he went, bearing my lunch future in his knowledgeable hands.  

Meanwhile, the table of businessmen who I had followed into the restaurant were seated next to me, most of them smoking.  The waiter began bringing out their trays:  crispy fried fish, plates of hot rice, raw eggs, small sides of pickled things, bowls of steaming soups, nuggets of fried meats, neatly arranged piles of greens, all sorts of wonderful looking comestibles.  Then my tray arrived.  It too had a small bowl of hot soup with a deliciously intense mushroom base, a couple small dishes with a green pickled something and another bowl of thinly sliced mushrooms and seaweed, I think.  The entree appeared to be a bowl of hot rice topped with chunks of steamed chicken and a mass of scrambled egg to hold it all together.  It was edible at best. I noticed that it was also the cheapest item on the menu--about $7.  The most expensive item was $9.  This came with a glass of iced barley tea and all of the cigarette smoke I could endure.  

I need to reevaluate my street food approach. I'm open to suggestions. I should also mention that while America loves nothing better than to strip chicken of its skin, the same cannot be said of the Japanese.  One takes a bite of chicken atop a bowl of rice and scrambled egg topping with a certain degree of caution.  Gummy things can end up in your mouth and there you are.

George Washington Slept Here, Sort of

Something used to be here

Here's where that something used to be

6.  Final observation for the day.  A lot of signs at Japanese gardens make reference to structures that no longer exist.  "This is the site of a gate from the Edo period that was destroyed in the 17th Century."  or "The outlines of this site depict a tea house once used by the Emperor and his family during the Edo period."  Sort of a George-Washington-slept-in-a-room-like-this approach to historical preservation.  If it were just an occasional announcement along these lines, I'd understand.  But it's everywhere.  I took a photo of the type of sign that I'm talking about.  If anyone has any insight into this odd approach to history, I'd like to know what it's about.  Maybe with a history as old as Japan, it's important to keep as much of it on record as possible.  I find much of it tiresome.  Some of the signs mention that structures were  "...destroyed in an air raid..."  That part I get.

That's it for now.  It's Monday night (8:30 p.m.) here and 6:30 a.m. in Boston and 3:30 a.m. in San Francisco.  Just so you know.  

Ja mata.  (See you later) 

じゃまた。

--E.