Catch My Tokyo Drift?

....Heeheehee...

HI THERE!

Hey hey guess what? We went to Tokyo!! ;D

I'll start with the moment we stepped out of the airport and onto the street....

Oh wait, before you do that, I must tell you that this may very well be the longest blog I have written, so you might want to go to the bathroom, grab a nice cup o' joe and settle in. OR not. Up to you! ;)

It was a dark and drizzly night (around 6p.m. I'd say), and there we stood at the curb, waiting for Daniel's dad (who works as a taxi driver), to come pick us up.

Naturally, I was a tad nervous and excited to meet the guy so my heart quickened everytime a taxi passed by....there were a LOT of taxis :\

Finally, a shiny white taxi rolls up. A guy jumps out, runs up to us and says "Hayaku, hayaku!" (FYI:"hurry x2"), grabs our bags and loads them up in his trunk. Daniel whispers to me, "Is this my dad? he doesn't look like him."

HUH-WHUTT?!

[note: that last time daniel saw his dad, was over 10 years ago during highschool -but seriously, one SHOULD be able to recognize someone after only 10 years right?!]

Of course I'M no help since the only thing I've seen was a picture of him 27 years ago -carrying a 3-year-old Daniel!

We cautiously move the rest of our things into the trunk -staring at him- trying to discover a facial feature that we might recognize... We hop in the car, still worried that this might just be some ballzy taxi driver -after all this IS Tokyo!

But then he asks us about our flight with such detail that we realize it's him -WHEW!

With that all sorted out, I give him my (now late and awkward) introduction speech -he laughs, saying there was no need to be so proper.So I immediately ask him how he would prefer I address him. My choices were: 1. Danieru no otoosan 2. Matsuo-san or 3. Papa-Matsuo. He cheerfully picked the last one.

So that night, after checking into our first hotel, he took us out for Chinese food. He said it was the best chinese restaurant in town...at the end of dinner, I agreed everything we ordered was deeeelish! After a nice conversation full of japanese and english (and me as the translator), we called it a night.

The next morning, Papa-Matsuo took us to our second hotel. The New Sanno Hotel. We would be staying here for the rest of the week. This hotel is for Military and DoD only. When we first got there, the security guys gave us a lot of trouble. They didn't allow taxis to drive up to the front entrance...plus there was a bus behind us trying to park where our car was! The only way to get out of the way was to back into the front driveway! But even after Papa-Matsuo explained what he was going to do, the security still freaked out -even some of the staff from inside came running out and started yelling at us! GEEZ! But after he finished backing up (got out of the way of the bus) and got back on the street, they FINALLY understood. And lemme tell ya, it's FANTASTIC! The place was real classy-like, and the service was amazing! At the front desk, they told us that they could upgrade us to the Lincoln Suite for the first night. This room was reserved only for VIP! Of course, we took it. I'd like to think they gave it to us because of the whole drop-off drama they put us thru!

Here's some pictures of the suite: SWEEEET ah?!





Okay, so I've been thinking about how I would write this blog. Should I write it by days or by category? I've decided it would prolly make more sense to do the latter -the previous idea wouldn't be such a great idea since I can already hear myself saying "And then we did this,.. and then this..and theeeeen...." oh brother.

1st subject: FOOD!

CHINESE? On our first night in Tokyo, Papa Matsuo took us to what he claims as "The Best Chinese Restaurant in Town." I don't think we ever caught the name of the place, but it's a nice little 2 story place, in an area called Shiba. But dude, that place was Goood! Some of the stuff we ate were totally new to me -I'm not even sure what was innit all -but it was still mui ono! Of the many dishes we got, my favorites were this beef w/ green bean dish (Dare I say, much savorier than the one at Little Village in downtown) and their cake noodle dish -Hoo man, that one was hard to order!- I didn't know how to explain it, and Papa Matsuo didn't know what it was so all I could say to the waitress in japanese was: "The crunchy noodles that are stuck together and it has sauce and other stuff on top of it." Shameful. But she figured it out and boy am I glad she did! Mm mm!

SUSHI. Of Course. Yet again, another place that we were unble to retain it's name. But this one was a little shop run by Papa Matsuo's golf buddy. This is the place we experience REAL Toro. Do you guys know Toro? I'm sure most of you do, but if not: Toro is fatty bluefin tuna belly. There are 2 grades of this stuff: Chu-toro and O-toro. Chu-toro is "middle" grade and O-Toro is the higest grade. Real O-toro will literally melt in your mouth -and of course, this stuff is pretty expensive too. Since Papa Matsuo insisted we order the best, we ordered both toros. Our reaction: WOW. It really DOES melt in your mouth...and da buggah taste good too! It was hard to go back to regular red Ahi sushi after that!

MORE SUSHI: This time we had it for breakfast! It was at the Tsukiji Fish Market. At 5:30 a.m. there is a fish auction that pretty much every Tokyo guide book insists you go and see. Unfortunately, we got there just when it ended. That's okay tho, we still got to see massive Ahi's (much much bigger than our Gir) getting carted away to their winning bids. After walking around the big market area full of all kinds of fish, we decided it was time to eat them. We picked a cute little sushi shop on the main street and dug in. It was good -but we gotta admit, not as good as Pap Matsuo's friend's sushi!

YAKINIKU. Korean Style, in Shinjuku. We went here with Misako (Daniel's mom's long-time friend) and family. They fed us SO MUCH. I totally got my Kal Bi fix -and then some. This was a family of eaters! There were 6 of us, and they ordered about 8+ platters of various eats to cook up AND each of the 2 daughters got their own big bowl of Bi Bim Bap atop a heap of rice! But I guess we shouldnt have been too surprised since this family runs a manju and snack shop! For our last dinner in tokyo, they asked us to have dinner at their house and while Misako was cooking a grand meal, the rest of the family was trippin' out that we didn't need to gorge ourselves on snacks while we waited for a little less than an hour!

NEW SANNO'S RESTAURANTS: We went to two really nice places in the hotel. One was a Japanese restaurant. We decided to go to just because it was convenient. We didn't think it was going to be anything special. We even wondered why an american/military hotel would even MAKE a Japanese restaurant in the midst of well,...it's native country! But of course, regardless of my doubts, it was wonderful :) Since we went a bit late, we almost had the place to ourselves! They do Teppanyaki (kind of like how Benihana is). The chef cooking up our stuff was a cool, mellow japanese guy who spoke really good english. The food he cooked us looked and tasted fantastic, but looked like such small portions -but after we finished the last dish, we were SUPER full. Sha-zam, like magic! (lawdy, did I just say "sha-zam?")

We also went to the hotel's fanciest restarant: Wellington's. This was a new and amusing experience for us since we've never really done "fine dining" before. We knew it was a classy place, but we didn't realize just how classy! I managed to pass dress code with what Sarah calls my "Naked Eye" dress ( http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn56sIX5KWE) and mary jane shoes. Daniel however, didn't make the cut with his button-up shirt, dark jeans and Vans shoes. Awww. poor ting. But instead of shunning us away, they offered up a closet of dress pants and shoes where he could borrow from! At first, all the special attention was kind of awkward. We had about 3 guys waiting on us! The "champange and food" guy, the "basket of warm bread" guy and the "I'll answer any of your questions, is there anything you need?" guy. But even with the 3 of them, they made sure to give us our space. Oh yah, and the food was excellent too ;)

Basically, we had a good and tasty experience with pretty much everywhere we ate! Well, except for ONE place. After ending a late night at the club on the final night, we went to a little mini mart and bought some musubis -we were STARVING. His one, with smoked/cooked salmon innit mustve gone bad cause the poor thing got really sick the next day. At first we thought it was a hangover, but since he really didn't drink all that much and had a mean tummy ache for the entire morning, we ruled out the booze and figured it mustve been that damn musubi! Then Papa Matsuo told us that during the summer, it isn't a good idea to buy musubis with meat innum... NOW he tells us!

Onward to SHOPPING and EXPLORING:
With Papa Matsuo as our personal chauffer for the first 2 days (he had to work for the rest of the week), we got to go pretty much wherever we wanted! At first we felt guilty to have him drive us everywhere but he insisted and he was happy to do so. The awkward part was that he would take us everywhere and wait in the car until we were done with the place -then take us to the next place! He said that walking around tokyo didn't really interest him. I guess cause he's lived there all his life? He assured us that he would be fine waiting -as his car has a t.v.

Palette Town in Odaiba: This place surprised us. When we first entered we saw a huge Toyota musuem/gallery. This place was bizarre. They had all the latest models and some cool futuristic prototypes. They even had a cute toyota car ride with their tiniest car. We decided to skip on that. But here's a picture with me in one :) Anywho, the surprising thing was how massive this place really was! After walking thru the Toyota place then thru a big game center,we came out thinking, "What a weird place. I guess we should head back to the car now..." But then we walked back to the main entrance and saw a rather unassuming door downstairs to our left. We figured it didn't hurt to see what that was all about and we went in. DUDE... it was a HUGE indoor mall! Whaaat?! What was even weirder was that they designed it to look just like Vegas' Caesar's Palace Forum Shops! It was a pretty neat place -I think when I come back to Tokyo, I'd like to spend a little more time here. Oh oh! but before I get to the next place, I gotta tell ya about the really cool "thing" we experienced at the game center! There was this black fabric-covered cylindrical room in the middle. It was maybe about 20-25ft across inside. And for 600yen you can sit in this room and be engulfed in 3-D! The theme this week was horror. We thought it would be fun so we went for it. There was a small group of 20-somethings (4 girls and one guy) behind us debating on going in -but I guess since they saw us go in, they decided to try it too. Oh my lawd, it was hilarious. I'll admit, they had some pretty freaky things in there like the massive 3-D fleshy worms (with sharp teef) that shot from one side of the room to the other side (how'd they do that?!) and the crazy lookin' bloody guy that came bolting out at you, cackling, with his massive shears and those blades shooting out -cutting your head off! Me and Daniel were "woah-ing and laughing but the girls were screaming! One girl even burrowed her face into her friend's back and started crying! yikes!

Harajuku: Thanks to Gwen Stefani, pretty much everyone knows about this place. The place where all the kids (and excentrics) come to "express" themselves. This place is fun to just walk around and people-watch or get that random odd accessory. We went here twice during the week. The first time we went, we were lucky enough to catch a big celebration happening at the park by the subway station. The event was called Super Yosakoi. From what I could tell, Super Yosakoi is a event where big groups of people dressed in lovely matching outfits, dance syncronicly (?) (syncronycically? syncronized-ly? well u know what I mean) and they compete with other groups. There were even Chinese and Korean groups! Anywho, it was really neat... it looked like so much fun too! Made me kinda wish I was in one of 'em. On a related note, I just heard that Yosakoi is coming to our town! Oh boy, oh boy! I'm SO THERE.

The second time we went to Harajuku was on our own. We went to visit the MoMA store. No Museum tho, just the store. I couldn't believe they would have one WAAAAY over here in Japan! I HAD to check it out. The store was a pretty good size, about the size of maybe 2-and-a-half Starbucks. I spent a nice chunk of money there :) I was happy.

We also visited the Meiji Shrine there. Picture taking a nice 15 minute stroll thru a lush wooded path and it ending at the grand entryway of a shrine. Beyond the huge wooden doors was a big open courtyard and the shrine sitting just beyond it. *sigh* On one side of the courtyard there was a great big tree with a fence around it. The fence was covered with thousands of people's wishes. People from all over the world, written in countless languages. Amazing. Many of these wishes asked for good health for family & friends and for love. It's nice to know that despite our many differences, we all basically want the same thing. After adding a wish, tossing a coin and paying our respects, we headed back. I felt refreshed and content. I dunno how Daniel felt, but I'd like to think he felt the same. We walked a different path back and realized that no one else was on it. hrm... strange. Then it started to pour. As the heavy-heavy rain came coming down, and the sky suddenly getting darker, the once lush and peaceful path seemed rather creepy. Slightly worried, we walked faster, huddled under a broken umbrella. Then Daniel started to stare and squint at something up ahead on my side of the path. He started to say, "Is that a house over th.... AAAAH!" I screamed. I hate him so much. By the time we got out of there, the rain had stopped, and any residual peacefulness we felt had gone with it ;)

AKIHABARA: This is the electronics district. Alls I gotta say is: TOO MUCH. Personally, that place is just overload. But I'm pretty sure Daniel dug it. A couple of times I heard him say, "Holy crap, I can't believe they sell this here, that's crazy!" ...Oh well, at least I found the laser pointer I was looking for (toy for the fuzzy beasts back home).

OBON FESTIVAL in Roppongi. Let me just say this: This Obon festival was NOTHING like the one in Sasebo -nor like any in Hawaii! Basically, the streets packed with the usual little booths -selling food, toys, accessories, games... but this one had BOOZE. A lot of the bars in the area got in on the action and served up glasses of Dom Perignon (with fresh strawberries -ooh lala) and X-rated (the pink drink) at very reasonable prices. So naturally, the majority of the people we saw in these streets were drunk 20-somethings. A lot of the girls wore their yukatas with red light up devil horns that were sold on the street. I wasn't too sure how to feel about that -seemed a bit offensive. But then, after a couple of drinks, I really wanted to find a pair of green ones! Shameful.

And noooooow, we reach the segment I like to call: MY FAVORITES...

HASEGAWA KYUGUTEN, a japanese archery store owned by the family of Mizue, a Kyudo sensei and friend of mine. :) I can't tell you enough how excited I was to go to this place! I'd say just as (or maybe even a bit more) excited than meeting daniel's dad! teehee...visions of arrows danced in my head...hmm...What color should I get? I hope they have one that I like! So silly yah? When we got there I basically FLEW out of the car. And then of course ever so quietly opening the door, popping my head in and saying with my most polite voice: "Sumimasen...Ohaiyogazaimasu..." Mizue's mom came out and greeted me with a smile and we went straight into business! I was looking for a whole set: a Bamboo bow and a set of 6 arrows. She had me try a couple of bows to see which one felt the best. Then she went to the back to wrap the handle with my chosen pattern. In the meantime, Mizue's grandma came out and helped me pick out a set of arrows sized just right for me. There were SO many lovely colors to chose from -I was a tad concerned that I might have trouble deciding! But when she put the whole batch of them on the table, I knew exactly which one I was taking home with me. It seemed to say "Psst! Hey you! lookit me! I've been waiting for you!" I lovingly call this color: "mint-aqua"

SEA-AQUARIUM & CITY LIGHTS in Roppongi Hills. Roppongi Hills is this set of HUGE twin buildings -taller than the Tokyo Tower! At the top of one of these buildings is a art museum and a creatively designed, beautiful aquarium. What you also get when u buy a ticket to any one of the exhibits is a free panoramic view of the city thru high, glass-to-ceiling windows. Oh man, it was fantastic! And because it rained, soft, thin gray clouds wafted in and out of our view of the tokyo city lights. Some may say it ruined the view, but I thought it was pretty cool -plus it reminded me how high up we were!

ABSOLUT ICE BAR TOKYO in Roppongi. This little bar is based on the Ice Hotel in Sweden. What's even crazier is that they ship in all ice stuff FROM Sweden! At 3500yen for cover, the price was a little steep, but we just HAD TO try it! What we got for that price was a big heavy silver coat with a faux fur-lined hood, a pair o thick, insulated gloves and a drink (served in a cup made of ice). The music in there was a nice chill, atmospheric, housey type of music that perfectly matched the surroundings. And our ONE drink was reeeally yummy! I was kind of sad when I drank all of it (but passed on getting another -it would cost 1200yen). You also only get to stay in there for 45 minutes, but after sipping our drinks, taking pictures and soaking in the experience, we were ready to move on to the next place. The place was small and pricey, but we both agree that it was amusing enough to be worth it -at least once!

CLUB WOMB in Shibuya. After the Ice Bar, I was ready to go to a club. In Sasebo, there are NO CLUBS. Now folks, it's not like I'm a heavy clubber, but I like to go out one in a while and shake my kaboose every once in a while. So when my buddy Charlie told me about Club Womb, I was stoked to see what it was all about! Good thing I had wrote down the address from their website before we left the hotel cause it was pouring outside and we couldnt see a thing! The taxi driver took the address and entered it into his hooked up GPS. We were there in no time. But when we got to the address and got ou, we couldnt find a "Club Womb" sign anywhere! Just a big unmarked building. There was a guy in the front, holding an umbrella and waving us over. He said to me in japanese, "I know what you are looking for" and points to a short set of stairs with a big orange door at the bottom. The door opens from a guy on the INSIDE and he waves us in. SO COOL! We felt so covert! They even had a finger scanner at the front for members! Wussup wit dat?! That can't be for real, can it?!

Well folks here we are, we have reached the end of this blog... FINALLY! Hope this blog was a least a little entertaining (or useful! -if you havent visited tokyo, you really should!) Anywho, thanks for being part of this one-sided conversation! :D luv u guys!

-M2

ps. saw this great sign in the subway: