Around The World, Part Four

Our Round The World Trip home page is here.
Part Three is here.

October 6 (Saturday, Day 5, Tokyo) –

We had a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji from our room this morning.  Snookums never really saw Mt. Fuji from Tokyo while she lived here since her apartment was on the 3rd floor and her office was on the 4th floor.  But, since our room is on the 9th floor and we have an unobstructed view of the Tokyo skyline, we saw it clearly today!

We decided to go to Akihabara, which is the area of Tokyo that sells electronics.  We got there around 9:30 and found out that the stores opened at 10!  Tokyo really is a late starting city.  We saw a line of men (no women, just men) in front of a store waiting for it to open.  We don’t know if it was selling a new video game or what, but it was interesting to see.  When things did finally open, we wandered around and Filbert was very impressed with the electronic hobbyists heaven which was a square block of little shops selling soldering irons, transformers and every electronic part you could possibly want.  And it was full of people shopping for that kind of stuff.

Mt. Fuji in the distance
Akihabara

We thought about buying a handheld 36-language translator but didn’t.  Filbert looked at the new $2500 Sony laptop that basically can fit in your hands (about the size of a paperback) and drooled over it, but in the end we walked away with nothing.

Overpriced coffee

We decided we needed a rest so we bought some overpriced drinks (coffee for Filbert, iced chocolate for Snookums) and sat and people-watched for a while.  It was worth it and we noticed that Japanese really just wear black and dark clothes.  There is very little color.  Snookums was wearing a bright orange printed seersucker blouse that her Mom made that really stuck out!  We also stumbled across a geek convention, i.e. the 2007 Japanese Animation Masters.

We found a building that had two floors of restaurants and went around and looked at all of the plastic food displays and decided on tonkatsu in order to eat a good one after yesterday’s 7/11 version.  We were each served a wooden tray that had green tea, fried pork cutlet, finely shredded raw cabbage, miso soup, rice, and two kinds of pickles on it.  There was tonkatsu sauce (kind of like steak sauce but much better) and ginger-soy dressing for the cabbage on the table.  Oishi-des (delicious)!

We went back to the Hyatt and Snookums had an afternoon nap.  A blimp was flying around the sky and went right by our window. We don’t know why it’s here, but it was neat.

We ate dinner, as always, at the Regency Club.  Tonight, though, was packed with Japanese couples.  There were only two other Caucasians, unlike other nights when it’s been all businessmen and no couples/families.  The hotel was filled with Japanese—we speculated that it was because they were on a weekend getaway to Tokyo.  We managed to people watch for about 1-½ hours and had a fine time.

Blimp

October 7 (Sunday, Day 6, Tokyo) –

We woke up around 5:15 AM and Filbert immediately decided to watch the SDSU vs. Georgia Southern football game via the internet.  (Georgia Southern won with 7 seconds to go on a 54-yard field goal.)    Our plan for the day is to go to the morning flea market at Togo Shrine and then to an afternoon festival, Ekoda-no-Shishimai (lion dance), at Hikawa Shrine with a history and tradition of 700 years.  We’ll see if we last that long!  Snookums suggested that this festival will be the equivalent of a U.S. church carnival – nothing big or fancy, but she went to these types of things every weekend when she lived in Tokyo and always enjoyed them since they were so “Japanesey”.

By the way, the weather for Tokyo has been absolutely magnificent for our visit.  It’s been in the mid-70s during the day and then cools off to the 60s after sunset.

As it happens, we didn’t make it to the festival but did go to the flea market at Togo Shrine.  We didn’t buy anything but we did see the Cosmos Sports Club have some kind of event.  We deduced that the Cosmos Sports Club is for kindergarten and preschool kids.  Anyway, they all had uniforms on of shorts, t-shirts and little matching hats (the Japanese have a thing for hats).  The kids were in a line and the music started and one by one they marched (with arms and legs flying high) into the courtyard of the school.  Many, if not all of the parents were there as was an official photographer.  It was pretty darn funny to watch from the alley.

Snookums (in orange blouse in the middle of the photo) at the flea market
Kids
We’re in front of Togo Shrine
Togo Shrin

The trip continues in Part Five, here.
Part Three is here.
Our Round The World Trip home page is here.