So only 1 year after moving to Japan, we finally got around to checking out that one city that most of the rest of the world thinks about when they think of Japan. That's correct. We finally checked out Tokyo!! I'm not sure that we INTENTIONALLY put it off for so long, but we did. So we were thrilled to finally get there for a long holiday (MLK Jr Day) weekend (which turned into a full week for the one of us whose time is somewhat more flexible than the other's). We found nicely timed & inexpensive flights via the only Japanese discount carrier that serves Okinawa, Skymark Airlines. And then we convinced our friends Rick & Denise to join us. And then we found the lovely inexpensive hostel Toukaisou with availability in a 4-person room in the northeastern neighborhood of Asakusa. And that's where the adventure began!
We discovered after making our plans that our newly returned friends, Aaron & Masayo, were also going to be spending the same weekend in Tokyo, so we arranged a dinner rendezvous with them & Anne-Line, whom we'd met at their wedding last April. We thoroughly enjoyed a delicious & delightful meal at an Indonesian (Bali-style) restaurant in a huge skyscraper at Roppongi Hills. The highlight of our visit was a day of sumo spectating at the major January tournament (1 of only 3 major honbasho tournaments per year in Tokyo, 3 others occur in other major Japanese cities) at the huge stadium Ryōgoku Kokugikan. We purchased tickets ahead of time to ensure we could get in on Saturday, Day 4 of 15, which was wise since tickets sold out first thing that morning only a few minutes after the box office opened. So since we spent a bit more than we could have per ticket, we decided to make an event out of it & we arrived around noon, in time to see the junior divisions compete (without all the posturing & delays that happen with the upper divisions). So along with hearty bowls of chankonabe (for only 200 yen each!) in our bellies, we were quite prepared to really get into the spirit of fandom once the stadium began to fill up around 3pm, the enthusiasm increasing steadily until the final 2 matches involving the currently active yokozuna, both from Mongolia, just after 5:30pm. It was quite an experience, a sport we can truly appreciate now that we've really seen what these men have to do to win. The gals' last full day included a lovely day in & around Ueno Park, including a visit to the Tokyo National Museum. The evening was spent admiring the fashions on display along Takeshita Street in the Harajuku area before grabbing some tasty Thai cuisine on Omotesandō. We arose quite early (4:20 am) on Monday morning to catch the first subway train of the day (5:08 am) so we could experience the glory & wonders at Tsukiji's Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market where feeding one of the planet's largest cities is the main priority. It was quite fascinating to see so many edible aquatic species, styrofoam boxes & especially the auctioneers selling row upon row of huge frozen tuna. And that was before the sun came up! Once we'd taken in all we could, we found the nearby food stall (I hesitate to use the word "restaurant") alley & decided upon one that, while not having actual descriptions in English, allowed gaijin to patron & had obvious enough photos on their walls for us to indicate our dining desires (using a laser pointer; ingenious idea on their part). We thoroughly savored the freshest sashimi on rice (perhaps it was more properly chirashi-zushi) that we'll probably ever taste & arrived back at the hostel around 8:15am to begin our day with Rick & Denise. The final highlight for our foursome in Tokyo included a visit to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku. After checking out the North Tower's impressive observatory lookout, we were perusing the tourist office on the first floor when a volunteer guide offered us a free tour of the premises. She was a delightful woman, who had lived for several years in New Orleans (while her husband was a professor at Tulane). She showed us all around the buildings & passed on some very interesting information about Tokyo, before showing us the South Tower's equally impressive views of the rest of the city. That concluded the excursions & time in Tokyo for the hard-working gals, but the boys had decided to stay for the rest of the week & see a few more things. So early that afternoon we headed to Haneda Airport & got the gals back on a plane to Okinawa.Monday, January 21, 2008
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