Saturday we were back on our feet for a day of sightseeing and eating. We met K., the daughter of a family friend in the old city of Asakusa, site of the renowned buddhist temple Senoshi-Ji. At the temple, K. taught us the proper way of asking for good luck – chuck a 5 Yen piece into the alter, clap twice, bow, and ask for blessings. She also showed us how to have our fortunes told by shaking a metal container that spat out a rod with a number corresponding to a drawer with a slip of paper fortelling good or evil. I was quite satisfied with my “Best fortune,” but H. had to ward off the evil spirits of his “Bad fortune” by ritually discarding the text. On the way out of the temple, we stopped at the shinto shrine, where A. went into raptures over the baby monkey of the temple drummers, and then shopped our way out of the area (My dermatologist would approve of my new sun hat).
Lunch was okonomiyaki, or do-it-yourself pancakes, under K.'s supervision. Wonderful, although sitting next to the roiling flat top grill was not ideal in the heat. Afterwards, we wandered towards the kitchenware district to marvel at the plastic food and toy with buying beautiful chef knives (damn carry-on!). We also stopped at a high-end washi, or rice paper, store, and I decided my next apartment will incorporate a gorgeous printed screen (alas, one won't fit in my Schwab dorm room).
We the replaced the relative quiet of older Tokyo with the blaring noise and teeming crowds of Akihabara, or Electric City, the place to buy electronics and the gathering place for magna and anime aficionados. We almost lost H. in the bustling electronics department stores that make NY's J&R look puny in comparision. While we were fully expecting to be blown away by the gadgets, we were a bit underwhelmed, with the 3D aquarium we'd seen in the Sony building in the Ginza the day before outclassing even the snazzy smartphones of Softbank.
Our final stop before our pre-dinner crash was the Tokyo dome, to pick up baseball-themed gear as gifts. Some developer had the brillant plan of pairing an amusement park with the baseball stadium, and we enjoyed ice cream under the tracks of a roller-coaster while lamenting how old , creaky and uninterested in park rides we had all become. That quarter-century really makes a body feel ancient!
Dinner was accompanied by the full sensory overload of Shibuya, a Times-Square on ridiculous steroids area of multi-story restaurants, clubs and shops. We got the full experience as we wandered looking for a restaurant before stumbling downstairs into an izakaya for sake and some traditional fare.
Sunday morning we squeezed in one more Tokyo neighborhood before our early-afternoon shinkansen or high-speed train, to Kyoto. It's embarrassing to admit that most of my familiarity with Harajuku comes from Gwen Stefani. Maybe we were in the wrong area or were too early or people were on vacation, because the famed Sunday costume parade was nowhere near as outrageous as her videos. We did see a few girls in costume, but the most interesting clothing we saw was in the windows of the stores that lined the packed streets selling all sorts of fashions. While I toyed with adding a flowered peasant skirt or tiered blouse to my wardrobe, we took in the hectic atmosphere of the area, filled with Japanese tourists and the occasional American in sneakers.
All in all, I'd say we eased into Tokyo, staying in Ebisu and starting in the more western parts of the city. It was not until we hit Shibuya and Harajuku, the younger, more urban areas that we really felt out of place. It will be interesting to see how Kyoto differs. Let's just hope it's not as hot as everyone keeps saying!
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