Brian: Tokyo, Day 1

I am currently at a terminal in the annex suite we are staying at in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The expenditures for the day:

¥190 egg sandwich
¥130 fare to Ueno Station
¥160 fare to Ikebukuro Station
¥3675 purchase at Tokyu Hands for stationary
¥970 okonomiyaki for lunch
¥7400 2 nights stay at House Ikebukuro
¥150 bottle of ocha from vending machine
¥450 ice cream cone from Magic Ice (like Coldstone)
¥160 fare to Shibuya
¥700 chashu ramen in Shibuya
¥160 fare to Ikebukuro
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¥14145 total (approx $119)

To continue from the previous post, we entered a western-style cafe for breakfast and I had an egg sandwich. Then, since none of the stores were open at that early hour (stores don't open until around 10am), we decided to go to Ueno Park. I shot some nice pictures there before my camera ran out of battery. It had been doing pretty good, considering I didn't charge it once in Hawaii, and I wanted to drain it completely to condition the battery. Some notable things there were a sign that said "No feeding the pigeons or cats" which seemed pretty farcical, until we walked around and saw a bunch of cats as well as the pigeons as normal. Unfortunately, the cherry blossoms had already fallen, but the green trees made for pretty good pictures too. The park was very peaceful and not crowded until we started to make our way back to the station around 10, whereupon there was a sudden burst of activity, lots of little kids probably heading to the zoo in the middle of the park. Interestingly, there were identical castings of Rodin's Burghers of Calais and the Gates of Hell, which can be found at Stanford. Michael and Patrick have some pictures of those, with our travel gnome owl in some exquisite poses.

Afterwards, we took the train to Ikebukuro and went shopping. We went to a store called Tokyu Hands and the 6th floor was entirely devoted to stationary. I bought about $30 worth of stuff there, blowing about $10 on one particularly nice Staedler pencil (I'm partial to the brand) and some more on pens, lead, and a small notebook. We found a place to have lunch in the adjacent Sunshine City, a mall-type superstructure. I had okonomiyaki for the first time, which is a pancake-like dish made with cabbage, chopped red ginger, batter, and various other ingredients you can add. We ordered three okonomiyaki and shared, one with mayonnaise and cheese, another with pork, and the third with shrimp and scallops. After grilling them on a hot plate in front of us for 4 minutes per side, we put benito flakes on top and pour a sweet sauce over it. It was starchier than expected, but it was still delicious. It's not something I'd have every day though.

After lunch we bought a laptop case for Michael in a Sakuraya. Patrick ended up buying one too. Then we went to check in to House Ikebukuro and settled in. Yuichiro, the SJEC student I hosted last quarter, met us at the ryokan at about 3:30PM and we immediately set off for some more good times. He took us first back to Sunshine City, this time to an interesting area that is a mix of carnival games, restaurants, and plain old oddities. He paid the ¥300 per person admission for all of us and we wandered around admiring the various oddities, many from Japan's past. For example, they had an old advertisement for gyuunyuu or milk, and a home furnished from the mid 1900's. They also had a street selling only gyoza or dumplings, which looked delicious but we weren't that hungry. The other great thing was Ice Cream City which was also in the "area". Yuichiro had a soft serve cone with wasabi (!) ice cream, which was actually really good tasting and faithful to the wasabi taste, and the rest of us had cones from Magic Ice, which serves the equivalent of ColdStone. Patrick had a Japanese green tea cone, Michael had a blueberry/raspberry cone, and I had a strawberry/banana cone. I also noticed a sign selling a "glape" flavored ice cream :). Besides that, they had a section with blow-your-mind weird flavors. Notables are beef, snake, Indian curry, eel, sea urchin, and soy sauce. After finishing our ice creams, we left the "area" for a bookstore also in Sunshine City. Yuichiro showed us lots of mangas, books, and magazines. I wanted to a buy a manga to practice my Japanese, but it was kind of expensive and Yuichoro informed me I could buy it much cheaper second hand, so I held off on the purchase. Finally, Yuichiro took us back to his home district of Shibuya, Tokyo for some ramen before he had to take off for a band rehearsal at 7PM. After he left, we explored Shibuya and stopped at an HMV, the equivalent of a Virgin Atlantic record store, before taking the train back to Ikebukuro and settling in for the night. Tomorrow we will meet up with Yuichiro again and go off to explore Odaiba and Yokohama.

Tokyo Day 0

Tokyo Day 1