Tokyotastic

Sorry to have left so suddenly, last post. Where was I?

Oh yes, sooo.... The computer was broken. And I had no money to pay for an internet cafe. Essentially, the better part of the first half of the day was wandering around trying to find a bank that would change our money. Of course, I didn't figure in the time change and the fact that it was now Saturday instead of Friday, and most of the banks were closed, so we did sort of a defeatist move and tried to get wifi in the only place we knew would probably have it: That's right, a Starbucks. It didnt actually have wifi (wtf, japan? get on that."), but since it actually took credit cards we had our first japanese breakfast - a grande caramel frappuccino and a grande java chip frappuccino, both of which we enjoyed walking down the street towards a vague destination (shinjuku will probably have a money changing place. somewhere. riiiight?), following the one book we had left - a tokyo street map with no actual guidance or tips or anything other than maps. So, basically, were in flippin Tokyo and the first thing we do in the morning is get frappuccinos and walk down the street with a guidebook. It was beautiful. If we were a superhero duo team, we would have been Mr. and Mrs. American Tourist. Speaking of new places and languages, it's time for:

TokyoTravelTip 2!
"Our Friend, Pronunciation"

Here's a quick little way to help you with the tricky multisyllabic nature of the Japanese language. Open up a map or a book or something, written in letters you understand. Now, look at a medium-length to long word. Say it aloud, for starters. Now, take note of all the syllables you accentuated. Circle them on the page in the book. Now cross them all out. Pronounce/accentuate all of the leftover syllables. Congratulations! You are now pronouncing Japanese words correctly!

Aaaaanyway, eventually we got some money changed (which is good, because we would soon find that both of our atm pins were too long to take money out at any atm), and Tokyo was a ball. We wandered through the impressive gardens of the imperial palace, wandered through the gorgeous frenetically-lit streets of roppongi, ginza (yeah! free wifi at the mac store!), and shibuya (the ubiquitous blinking lights of tokyo would make a 12 year old with ADD and a candy-binge-fuelled sugar rush stop and go "holy crap, thats a lot of lights.") ate a bunch of raw fish in a shack at the Tsukiji fish market (if you go, honestly go to this thing. show up at 5 am and watch the Tuna auction - its the one thing we would have done if we had longer), ate a bunch of raw fish in a place underneat the train tracks (eat in places underneath the train tracks too - amazing), and ate a bunch of raw fish in the most elaborate restaurant Ive ever eaten at (more to come on that later).

Hey, guess what? Its time for
TokyoTravelTip 3!

I am a size large in Tokyo.

I know, thats not really a tip. But, seriously, what the crap??? How is it that in Tokyo I am an underdressed (as in, "Are we the only two people on this subway car not wearing three piece suits?") fat American?

"The Marionette Scene from Sound of Music Meets An Opera With A Lot Of Dishonor And Suicide"

We saw a good amount of theatre in Tokyo. It was actually really really awesome. We did see a gorgeous kabuki theatre production in the big ole kabuki theatre - flippin 6 bucks for balcony tickets for one act! And that was two hours!!! The other thing we saw was a gorgeous full Bunraku production at the National theatre. Let me explain Bunraku. Bunraku is puppets, yes. Puppets roughly half the size of regular people, with tiny heads. But they are used to tell a story very much like a japanese opera. The story is sung by a series of narrators and accompanists. I guess, sort of picture Avenue Q. Now picture Avenue Q with maybe a 12th of the humor, but mostly about honor and seppuku and whatnot, and with only a fraction of the nudity (which, yes, I will admit, surprised me). And four and a half hours long. Yeah, there you go - that would be Bunraku. Gorgeous production, though - I would highly recommend it. And their bento boxes for the 25 minute intermission are enough to share, just so you know.

"Shooooooooo RYU GIN!!!!"

We ate a lot of wonderful food in Japan. Even outside of Starbucks (which we sadly visited twice more during the trip) Honestly, the fish market had some of the freshest seafood ever. Even the place under the tracks had the best mackerel Ive ever had. But we closed out the trip with a sumptuous dinner at the Michelin-rated "Ryu Gin." There were a number of questions which entered my head, throughout this meal. How are there twelve courses? Why are three of them dessert? How is each accompanied with its own tea? How did that meal just take three and a half hours (the subway is already closed)? How did the last of the desserts feature a tomato? And why did I love it so much? This was daring food. Gorgeous, progressive food, but firmly rooted, unmistakably Japanese. I dont want to give anything away, in case any of you goes there, but the chef is creative, brilliant. And not in a way, where you are like, "what the hell am I eating this for?" but "why the hell cant I eat like this more often." It was a spectacular capstone to our trip.

Anyways, weve actually already spent our day in Bangkok, and were packing up to leave for the Philippines tomorrow! Wooooo! Ill post on Bangkok later, but I will say - it is one of the most gorgeous places ever - more on that to come...

P.S. I hate George Lucas.