The Lone Monk: So much for Family Peace

Five story pagoda

"I wish you and your family much peace," said the burgundy-robed monk  as he approached me outside of the temple grounds.

The Eternal Flame from Nagasaki

A number of beautiful worship complexes lie within the Ueno City Park, home also to the Ueno Zoo and scores of other museums and shrines, including the eternal flame from Nagasaki where I had just spent a few quiet and weepy moments.

Ueno City Park main thoroughfare.

Along with his murmured blessings for familial peace, the monk presented me with a small, flat,  gold, plastic medallion.  I took it, thinking that if it weren't so cheap and crappy looking, I could pass it off to someone as a gift.

Who am I to argue with a monk and who doesn't want family peace?  "What a lovely gesture,"  I thought.  "Here's real street ministry at its finest:  a nice young monk, fresh from a long morning of floor scrubbing and meditation, now out working the crowds in the park to bring peace on earth, one family at a time."

While these lofty ideas swarmed in my head, and just as I was warming up to thank him for his public ministry, a clip board and pen suddenly appeared from beneath his flowing robes.  "Write your name here," he directed, pointing to a sheet of paper with a matrix.  I obeyed.  He was, after all, a monk.  At least he was dressed like one.   Name, [Eileen] Country,[USA]  Blessing, [Peace] Donation [huh?!].  The line above me indicated that Matt,/USA,/Peace had donated 20,000 yen, or about $20. That amount and more generous denominations were neatly itemized in the final rows for everyone on the list.  My turn to ante up.

Trees are lovingly and beautifully maintained

So now I am faced with a pressing dilemma:  is this guy a shake down artist or is this a legitimate spiritual enterprise?   Here he was, wishing my family peace--though I am unaware of any turbulence.  And let the record reflect that I was holding a gold medallion, inarguably new to my possession.  Add to those concerns the possibility that he may have connections to the world of familial unrest.  And what is family peace worth?  What to do?

You know that feeling you get when someone you know and thought of as a friend, invites you over for an evening of what you think is going to be dinner and a dessert that will involve cream cheese and it turns out to be bowls of chips, iced tea and a pitch to join their multi-level marketing group?....

"I'm sorry," I lied to the monk.  "I have nothing to donate."  With that, he reassumed ownership of the clipboard, the pen and, with a practiced economy of motion,  the medallion.

Vindication!  If family unrest arises in the foreseeable future, at least I'll know who to blame.

Meanwhile, I wish you and your family peace.  --E
の平和を願っています。Watashi wa, anata no kazoku no heiwa o negatte imasu.

No gifts, please. Maybe you want to put those pig's feet in the fridge?

Hello everybody.
Minasan konnichiwa.    

If we are lucky, we have among our family and friends someone who is a really good gift-giver.   I am a terrible gift giver.  If I ever start to think otherwise, my children dredge up true tales of birthdays spent weeping and Christmas mornings characterized by perplexity at best  with a layer of raw disappointment the usual order of the day.  Oh, sure, occasionally I'll hit the big time in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day.  But history aside, it has not stopped me from wandering into the fantasy world of gift giving.

If there were support meetings for bad gift givers as there are for other recoveries, I would be attending one tonight.  I need something to keep me from buying a second suitcase full of things I imagine friends and family would like.  The problem is  that, given the consumer resources this city offers,  I am beginning to fantasize that I could become that really good gift-giver in your life.  My problem is not that I am a bad gift giver, the problem is that, until Tokyo, I've not had the resources commensurate with my dormant, gift giving talents.

It is impossible to explain the intensity of the consumer focus of Tokyo. Every store and stall in the city is one of two types:  retail or food.  The food part is easy.  It's the retail that confounds me.   So I have manufactured a plan and it's this:  when I see something that I am tempted to buy, I take a photo of it and keep on moving.

Here are some of the photos I took today of stuff-I-didn't-buy-but-thought-about.  I leave it to any of you who knows me to to breathe sighs of relief that I did not give into my impulses.

These pugs and tuxedo cat faces are purses.  They are every bit as adorable in real life as they are in this photo.   Surely someone is sorry I passed these up.

(Photo on left)  Although difficult to make out, these are socks.  There is no end to the sock fetish.   Really, winter is almost upon us, who doesn't need a pair of Princess-Whatever-Her-Name-Is socks....?

 Stuffed puppies.  Lots and lots of puppies.  All lined up and dressed up and so adorable with moving parts and little puppy barks.  Better than the real thing.  Who wants some?  A half dozen to start....

T

Back packs.  Needs no explanation.

















I think that should put the gift giving issue to rest.  For those of you harboring delusions along the lines of, "I wonder what Eileen is going to bring me from Japan?" get hold of yourself.  Find a meeting.

On to the Food Scene.  Today I went to Ueno, home to the University of Tokyo, (the Harvard of Japan I've been informed), but also home to an old street market and a number of museums that I wanted to check out.  The market was fabulous.  It was Monday so except for a shrine and the public park, the museums were closed.

Since I'm on a I-didn't-buy-you-this roll, here are a couple photos of food at the market I managed to pass up.  It wasn't dominated by old folks, so they weren't giving out samples either.  Can't figure out the red octopus.  Crabs appeared breaded and deep fried.

But then there's always the lunch challenge.  Today, I scored on that.  I sat myself down at one of those outdoor tables where people were eating hot, steamy bowls of soup.  I assumed it was a Ramen stand so I looked around at what people were eating and this is what I picked.  It was deep, rich and perfectly spiced.  The broth was still bubbling when it arrived.  

Monday's lunch:  a bowl of ramen, I think, at Ueno.  Spicy and satisfying.

Scene from the kitchen with the cooks preparing my bowl of ramen.

I stood at this window for about 10 minutes, watching three cooks in a space about the size of a Victorian closet.  Every bowl of Ramen is prepared individually.  When it comes time to add the noodles, they open a small cellophane-wrapped package of dried noodles.

Stash of ingredients below the window where the cooks were working.  Yes, those are pig's feet and a bag of dough.

With all due respect to the proprietor's casual regard for refrigeration, I am pleased to report that it has been nearly eight hours since I ate at this little bit of Ramen heaven  and am feeling just fine, thank you.  As long as someone is not shooing away flies and vermin with a piece of cardboard, I feel fairly safe going with the street food crowd.

One of the cooks working a pile of chicken parts at the Ramen stand.

Street Food Update
I have begun to reevaluate Japanese street food in a new and discerning light, having had quite a bit of it.  (Ed note:  the Domino's pizza is officially gone. )  On first bite, because the flavors are new--which also makes them exciting--my knee jerk response is to  think that what I'm eating is really good.  Upon reflection, that is not necessarily the case.  Take yesterday.  I took myself over to the Harajuku area of the city where a guidebook mentioned that on Sunday's, the Japanese Rockabillies gather in the park dressed as Elvis, attended by young women wearing what I assume would be trashy Western wear and big hair.  Not so.  At least not yesterday.  So I was adrift in the outskirts of the park, looking for something to eat. There's food everywhere.  It is never a problem to find it.  It's deciding what to eat that's the challenge.  A row of about six stalls, each manned by guys cooking pancakes stuffed with noodles, cabbage and eggs looked, at first glance, very appealing.  (Why do they all sell the very same thing at the same place, right next to each other?  Surely there's a graduate marketing thesis in there somewhere.)  So I got in line--in Tokyo, one learns to tolerate lines-- and did my smiling, pointing, nodding, nodding, nodding ritual that I've pretty much perfected and was rewarded with a pancake weighing about 5 pounds,  painted with a dark sauce, then a festive squirt of mayonnaise, sprinkled with something green and parsley-looking, and, finally a lot of fish flakes: very thin, dried, fishy-smelling flakes of what might be fish scales but probably aren't.  It cost about $5.  A can of Asahi was another $5.  Off I retreated with great happiness to a nearby bench.  One does not walk about eating in Tokyo.  One sits or stands near to where the food or drink was purchased.

Whatever this delicacy was called, it smelled like dried fish and tasted like paste. After about three bites, I'd had enough.   Now here's the problem.  Tokyo does not have trash cans.  When you are finished eating from a stall, you are expected to take your trash back to the stall and hand it over to the proprietor.  They accept it back with good cheer and appreciation.  I didn't want my pancake guy to think that I was not appreciative of his efforts, so I shoved this confection into my backpack and hauled it around for the next 5 hours.  This was not a good idea.  The plastic bags are thin. Chopsticks poke holes.  Mayonnaise runs.  Dried fish does what dried fish does.  If I were a better gift giver, I'd buy myself a new backpack.  (See above photo of backpack display.)

My Monday is already finished and yours is just beginning.  If anyone wants one of those cute purses, let me know by  first thing tomorrow morning.  I'm headed back to Ueno for another bowl of Ramen --if I can find the stall again-- and to put in some serious museum time.  Preview:  The admission cost for adults at the Tokyo Science Center is $6 for adults, $3 for children and, check this out:  Over 65 is free! I love a country that respects its elders.  


See you tomorrow.
Mata, ashita.    

Sugamo: Grannies' Alley and real Gummy Worms. November 15, 2014

Before yesterday, I harbored a dark and lingering fear that once people in Tokyo reach the age of say, 40 or thereabouts, they do away with them.  The average age on the streets of Shibuya is closing in on 25.  Same for most, if not all, of the places I've visited.  Of course there are the occasional 50+-year-olds, but they are usually in a uniform, wearing white gloves and directing traffic in and out of alleyways or garages.  The streets of Tokyo, it seems, are young.  Very, very young.

So I very excited to be redirected by a NYT writer to Sugamo, a part of Tokyo known, among its many names as "Grannies' Alley."  (Thank you, Juliana.)  I've yet to align my previously-held assumptions about the Japanese honoring elders while building and maintaining such dynamic youth cultures.  So on the advice of the writer, off I went to Sugamo, a 30-minute train ride away.

It took a bit of doing, as it always does, to find "Grannies' Alley."  Because I'm never entirely sure that I am where I think I intended to be, I usually visit a place with some skepticism.

But the moment I arrived at Grannies' Alley, I thought, "My people!"   Here were the bargain-hunters, the pensioners, the people-with-time-on-their hands.  Walkers, canes, the arthritic, the cautionary hat-wearers. There were sensible shoes and heavy coats.  Tables with clothes lines overhead hawking unappealing versions of pink long underwear.  Here also were vendors smearing face creams on anyone who looked their way, the ubiquitous fortune teller, tables of every conceivable and imaginable version of sea creatures, dried snakes and turtles if you were running low, and as much vibe and activity as anyone who traveled 12 hours in a plane to get there would ever desire.

 One thing a senior citizen (God, I hate that word)  loves is a free sample.  And so it seems do my fellow pilgrims at Grannies' Alley.



Wherever there was a line, I joined it.  I sampled and gobbled my way through all sorts of things salted, dried, fried, baked, sweet and slimy.  If they were giving it away, I played Saturday-Costco:  lemme have some!  I could not help but notice that when it was my turn, many eyes followed me.  There would be this quick moment of anticipation, followed by a low buzz. I chewed and swallowed and produced as many satisfied faces as I could muster.  I nodded, I bowed, I thanked, I walked away with as much dignity as I could, given that I bought nothing.  It wasn't that I didn't like what I was tasting, I just had no use for a bag of dried mystery.  (Though I was very tempted to buy several, give them to Brian B., then demand that he "do something" with them.  I still might.)

This seems like the appropriate time to bring up the topic of racial profiling.  There were stalls I passed where I was not offered anything, which peeved me in a way I was a bit ashamed of.  And so I decided to right that wrong and show the Grannie's that, despite my obvious Western leanings,  I was not afraid of anything.  In retrospect, I might have chosen a different challenge to take on but here it was:

I stood for a long time at this stall.  I watched many, many Grannies pass it by.  I saw few takers.  However, if you stand at a stall long enough, eventually they will pay attention to you and even you, you rookie, will get offered a taste.  There were several piles of oddities on this table and the one of the right was not what I had myself set on.  There was a harmless enough looking bowl on the far left that appeared black, flat, and seaweedy.  I stared.  The proprietor finally said something that sounded like, "Would you care to taste something you won't feel like spitting out and embarrassing yourself in front of all these people watching us?"  I nodded.  

She fetched a toothpick and rather than going for the seaweed, stabbed straight into this:

Gasps from the Grannies.  Then a hush.  Maybe it was my imagination, but as I delivered it into my mouth,  I think the vendor said, "This should cure you of taking samples you have no intention of buying."

It tasted just like it looks.

I'll leave it to you to put some adjectives around it but here's my only small victory:  I didn't spit it out.  I am certain I lost momentary control of my face and maybe even a bodily function here and there, but when I finally recovered, I offered a weak "Oiishi." (Delicious).  No one was buying it. Before I slunked away, my hostess, ever gracious, presented me with a sizable chunk of what appeared and tasted like a dried shrimp.  She sent me on my way, whispering, "Palate cleanser," into my grateful ear.

 It's very tempting, just to have one.

Dumb Stuff I've Done: November 13, 2014

1.  Leading off the Dumb Stuff list is this:
I have walked into poles, planters, doors (the Japanese really know how to keep glass looking good), several old people, a McDonald's delivery guy in a really big hurry, a Department store candy display that pretty much disintegrated on impact and, today, I walked into a men's bathroom.  I have no defense on anything except for the men's bathroom.

I'm not sure what's going on but I am going to attribute it to my tourist status.  As a tourist, my eyes are always looking someplace else and not directly in front of me;  nor does it seem that my peripheral vision is operating with any working gears. But here's the thing about a smash up with a Japanese person.  They always take the rap.  I am not pleased or happy with this little interpersonal coup d'Etat, but when a stranger in Japan apologizes to you--in Japanese, a language that you do not and will not ever understand--it is a moment to savour and appreciate.  Nobody does it better.  And here's the thing: it takes no time at all but the intensity of there sorrow is a thing of beauty.  There is much bowing--you too will find yourself bowing in return which only serves to elongate the already discomforting exchange at which you are not going to come out ahead in any way you will recognize--and despite your own element of regret, it will be for naught.  So here is my advice:  When in Tokyo, try to pay attention.

The glories, comforts and accessories of Japanese public  restrooms and toilets cannot be overstated.  It is nearly reason enough to relocate here.   There is always one nearby when you need one.  The moment, "I have to pee..." enters your consciousness, a restroom appears, as if by the Emperor's Decree.  They are free, clean, well-stocked with all of the provisions one needs,  and range in design from very basic floor troughs in the public gardens  to department store high tech toilets with heated seats, fake toilet flushing sounds to drown out what you are there to do, and, best of all, a number of water-squirting-finish options, which I won't go into. But I must add that the water-squirting business is such that you can regulate the intensity of the flow and how long it goes on.  This could explain their popularity, which I also won't go into.

I am very familiar with trough toilets from my trip to India.  I am lucky.  I can pee anywhere and into anything, so a trough, while a bit odd, is not the off-putting element that many women from the West find it.   Frankly, I think a trough toilet is great sport.

Today was a beautiful day so I wandered about the neighborhood--which I have been neglecting-- and visited a shrine and a park nearby.  Closing in on the noon hour, I decided to use the restroom and then find a lunch spot.  The shrine was in a lovely park with trails and trees and a water fall and really annoying birds--the kind that are fed by tourists and become a real nuisance rather than an adjunct to the park; but I digress.  The directional sign for the restroom led me down a long path into very dense vegetation and when I finally arrived at the restroom, it struck me how small it was.  And so I assumed that when the sign said "Restroom" and not "Restrooms," they meant it literally.  A unisex facility.  As a former government employee who was raised by Republicans, I understand such economies.

So I walked into the only opening I saw--there are no doors on most public restrooms in parks--though I did pause for moment at the odd lay out.  There were several troughs side by side, no doors; there was one private stall with a "Western Style" label on the door.  This Western Style designation is very common.  Some people like troughs; some people like Western Style.  I'm an American and when there is a choice, I'll take the Western Style.  I let myself into the Western Style stall and proceed to go about my business.  All the while, I am assuming this is a unisex restroom and through I briefly thought that the set up was rather casual, especially for the Japanese,  other pressing  goals swing into play in such a situation.  So imagine the dual surprised faces that appeared when I emerged from my Western Style stall to find a very nice and very embarrassed Japanese man using the trough for its intended purpose.  Oh, dear, I cannot even begin to  describe what followed.  Picture me just beating a hasty dash for the door and not even bothering to hear his apology or try to explain my presence.  I like to think that this story for him will be a tale that he will recite to the everlasting boredom of his wife and children, but will provide him with a lifetime of storytelling.  As for me, this is the last and only time I care to mention it.

I know this entry began with a promise of long list of other dumb stuff I've done and believe me, there is more, but after the retelling of the restroom saga, I find I can't go on.  I worry about my Japanese-trough-man partner and am concerned that he may be experiencing some PTSD as a result of today's encounter.  On the other hand, I'd give nearly anything to get his take on the exchange. The best I can hope for is that, in the end, he thinks I was German.

What I wish I could have said to him:

I hope you don't mind if I leave now.
Excuse me for leaving first.
Watashi wa kore de shitsurei shimasu.    

Anime, Smutty Comic Books and a Culinary Malfunction, November 12, 2014

I'll get to the Anime stuff in a minute, but first, the food tale of the day.  Or, rather, last night....

I am beginning to understand and appreciate the confessional nature of the Catholic Church.  There is something cathartic to admitting ones failures and I had one last night.  The short of it is:  I ordered, ate and enjoyed a Domino's pizza.  I am the first to admit that I did not come to Tokyo to eat Domino's pizza, especially given their politics--which made my failure all the worse-- but sometimes a food just calls out and the past several days the Domino's pizza store about 200 feet from my front door was sending me very special vibes.  I think it's the presence of so much Zen Buddism here.   But before I would completely debase myself  by walking to the storefront window and enduring the awkward ordering process that would involve inelegant pointing accompanied with a surfeit of nodding and fake smiling, I made a deal with myself:  if I could figure out how to order a Domino's pizza on-line from that particular store for pick-up, then I would allow myself the indulgence of a big old pie with lots of pepperoni and hot melty cheese.  Seemed like a plan.  I love plans.

Before I went to the website, I went to my favorite continuing education site:  YouTube.  First up after a little Googling  for Domino's  and Tokyo resulted in a 9 minute and 30 second video of a woman who claims she is going to show you how to order Domino's pizza on line in Tokyo, but what she really does is takes 9 minutes and 30 seconds to lament how small the portions of everything are in Japan, lots of grousing about how expensive pizzas are, and then proceeds to take the viewer through nothing more than a systematic clicking of the on-line menu.  Must tsk-tsk-ing was involved in this excursion.  She did not, as I had hoped, help me figure out which Domino's was 200 feet away, nor did she actually place an order.  I'm not sure, in the end, exactly what the purpose of her YouTube contribution was, but it did not further the cause for how to order pizza in Tokyo on line from Domino's.  I did learn one thing:  an option for a topping in Tokyo is mayonnaise.  I'll let that concept settle in and suggest we move on. (My YouTube guide made an unkind allusion to the French but I am not about to pursue that line of thinking.)

After an inordinate and embarrassing amount of time spent Googling and Google mapping (they don't make it easy), I landed on what I determined was, in fact, My Neighborhood Domino's Pizza store front.  Then there was the registration, the arcane Google translate headings and boxes that kept moving and, to my shock and delight, no request for a credit card or even a PayPal account.  Once I registered with my name, email and [rented] cell phone number, I was presented with a number of  ordering options.

 I would like to say that I understood them all, but that would be a bold face lie.  What I did understand was that if I ordered on-line and selected the "pick-up" option as opposed to home delivery, I qualified for buy-one-get-one-free.  At this point, it would be advisable to look around the room, take a quick inventory of the number of pizza eaters in attendance, and proceed from there.    But I was raised by Mildred.  One does not pass up any opportunity to get anything free and so that is the option I chose.  Pay for a large one-topping pizza and get a large one-topping pizza for nothing!  It's almost America!  I comforted myself with the voice of my YouTube tutor reminding me that indeed, the portions in Japan are smaller than they are in the USA.  I did not take into account that Domino's is a USA-based company and so when I presented myself at the counter for my pick up order, the pizzas are, in fact, LARGE.  There are, however, no X-tra large options.  Large is as big as we go here.  Were it not for the fact that breakfast pizza to me is the equivalent of Holy Communion to the Church, I would have been overwhelmed.  But the fact is, I'm thrilled!  This is such a terrible thing to admit here in the City of Sushi, but this is what it's come to.  Sometimes pizza is the answer.

One final chapter on the pizza before I leave for my trip to Akihabara, the City's Anime and Magna District.  I am still struggling with the money here and ferreting out the correct denominations. Somehow, having foreign currency feels no different than giving someone Monopoly money.  This is a dangerous line of thinking.   On more occasions than I care to admit, I dig all of the coins from my purse and present them in my open hand to a clerk who is always gracious and kind and never rolls so much as a tired eyeball during these exchanges.  Last night, I took what I thought were two 10,000 yen bills with me to pay for my pizza.  (Total cost was 19900 yen or about $20.)  What I actually laid out for the young Domino's counter worker were two 100,000 bills (each one the equivalent of about $100).  Without missing a beat, she handed me back one of them and then proceed to count out my change in new, crisp 10,000 yen notes.  I thought later how quickly she could have pocketed an easy hundred bucks or more but it just was not anything that would even occur to her.  I would like to think that visiting Japanese would get the same treatment in the US, but in the face of a minimum wage worker with a quick mind, it might not go as well.

And now we are at Akihabara, where terminal cuteness, music that sounds like it was recorded by the Chipmonks on speed,  and Maid Cafe's reign.

I always knew that Japan was the primary source of  anime and manga--I have come late but grateful to the shrine of Hayao Miyazaki--but I had no idea of the degree to which anime penetrates Japanese culture, especially among young people.  How, then, to describe the Akihabara area?  Pictures are  essential to capturing the feel of the area.  I cannot do it justice with mere words.  Those of you who have visited Tokyo will have no problem making the cosmic shift to this area, and for those of you who have not been here, all I can say is, "...you gotta go and see it for yourself."

The Maid Cafe's are brokered by young women dressed up as what has been described in the guide book as "French Maids," but that's not even close to being accurate.  My way of describing them would be to say they are young girls dressed as little girls, with short, pouffy dresses, hair ribbons,  lacy ankle socks or thigh-high's.  Their primary job seems to be to get people [men] to come into the store or restaurant where other Maids will gush and fawn over them.  They work the  crowds outside very aggressively either down on the street level or from balconies, calling out to passersby and entreating them to come into the store.  I watched as two young Maids on a second floor balcony exchanged flirty talk and gestures with a really creepy guy down on the street.  Sadly, he seemed to think the young women had an authentic interest in him, or perhaps I've just been away from the male-ego-business for too long.  I have seen the stupid look on his face before:  it's when men are in the presence of beautiful women.   This exchange and set up is supposedly all very innocent and allows even creepy guys like him to be the object of much gushing and fawning from pretty girls.  From a Westerner's eyes, let me just say that I would wonder about a career path for these young girls.  What sort of employer is looking for a potential employee with solid experience as a Maid Cafe hostess?  I tried to take photos of a number of them, but they politely declined the opportunity.  Same for a number of stores with anime characters in their display cases.  I did manage to get some good shots inside bigger stores, but, in the end, I have to admit that I don't understand the appeal.

Walking around the streets of Akihabara ones eyes are assaulted with every imaginable version of visual cuteness  (big eyed girls, some with big boobs, bearing elaborate costumes usually dripping/slipping off them) and everywhere there is a bad sound system playing music that sounds like a song from an unreleased Chipmonk's  album or a girl-garage-band on helium.  I wanted to at least go and check it out and so I did.

 But not before I also checked out one of the stores that featured adult-only comic books.  This is a phenomenon I am unfamiliar with so one of my self-assignments for the day was to go to an adult comic book store and buy a dirty comic book for my friend Steve V.  Even more interesting. I swear that the two guys working the counter at Mandrake's adult-only fourth floor were the exact Japanese equivalent of John Cusack and Jack Black from High Fidelity.   I so wanted to take their photos.  They both waited on me at the check out.  I'm sure an old American woman perusing their collection and then buying something was as much of an oddity to them as it was to me.  But I did score a dirty comic book.  You'll need to check with Steve V if you want a peak.  One was as much as I could bring myself to purchase.  For the record, there are no exploitive men-and-men dirty comic books.  At least not at Mandrake's.   I asked.  Final note:  It's surprisingly easy to communicate about smut between people who do not speak the same language.

I managed to find all of these cultural treasures today thanks to a young woman working in the gift shop of what may or may not have been the Anime Museum.  It took me at least an hour to try to find the building and even when I did, I still wasn't convinced I was in the right place.   When I said that I was there to visit the official Tokyo Anime Museum, she dissuaded me from any such notion, saying it wasn't much to see, was really just a small room and that I was essentially wasting my time.  (It was another lost-leader from my guide book.  When will I ever learn?)  I noticed  as soon as she began speaking English that hers was not the language of a Japanese- English class but straight off the streets of America.  Sure enough.  She was born and raised in LA, and moved with her folks back to Tokyo about three years ago. She is not as enamored with Japan as I am, which I can understand from a 20-year-old's point of view, but I was so tickled to be speaking English with someone without having to parse my vocabulary.  I ended up telling her my Domino's story (an abbreviated version to be sure) and invited her over to help finish it up.  She suggested I come back and visit her if I need more guidance and what I didn't tell her was that there is no way in hell I'd ever find my way back to wherever it was I stumbled on her in the first place.  But I liked her immensely and wish her well.  She seemed lost and sad.  Like one of the anime characters but more modestly dressed.

With that, I will end the day's adventures and look forward to more Tokyo adventures in the upcoming week.  There is still much to explore.  For now,
It's getting late, I must be going now.
Mou osoi node watashi wa kaeri masu.    

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.