Shinjuku

It's 7 am and I just woke up from a nice heavy sleep. Today we leave Tokyo for Nikko. We aren't sure what the internet situation will be like once we leave Tokyo so you might not get any more blogs from us for awhile.

I'd like to tell you a little more about Asakusa. There were a lot of stalls selling everything from mochi and hot bean paste buns to woodblock prints and bamboo samurai swords. This area seemed really touristy but in a good way. We also visited a Matsuya department store while we were there. Matsuya seems to be like their version of our Macy's. Basements of Japanese department stores are interesting vast repositories of aisle after aisle of packaged and prepared foods. Each sales person called out a greeting to us. I wish I knew what it was. While were there I visited the bathroom and noticed that while I was doing my business a recording of a waterfall played to mask the sounds of my urine tinkling off the porcelain hole in the floor.

After Asakusa we went to Ueno Park to visit the zoo and unwind a bit. We saw some very interesting street performers including a young Japanese male in a kilt playing a bagpipe to recorded midi files and two young Japanese men in drag performing a cabaret of sorts. The photos we took do them more justice than my descriptions.

The zoo was full of tiny adorable Japanese schoolchildren. One of them yelled and waved at me "gaijin! gaijin!" I waved back. I suppose it would be like a Western child bowing and yelling "Japanese! Japanese!" at them. (Gaijin is the Japanese word for foreigner and waving is a Western thing.) We saw a giant panda that looked very sad.

After this we visited the Ameyoko Market near Ueno train station. It's another crammed shopping district. I wanted to buy some oranges but they were 500 yen apiece. I am so used to eating fruit every day and was craving it terribly. Instead I settled for a slice of 100 yen pineapple from a street vendor. We saw the exterior of a capsule motel. The sign outside had a red circle crossing out cartoons of a drunk businessmen and a tattooed man. The few Japanese who do have tattoos are yakuza (members of a crime syndicate.)

Last night we finally made it to Shinjuku. We began in West Shinjuku. This is the heart of the world's second most powerful economy. 250,000 business people come to work here every weekday. On the streets it appears to look a lot like midtown Manhattan but with shorter buildings. We took an elevator to the 45th floor observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices to watch night fall on Tokyo. We were awestruck by the view. The city is massively huge. It just goes on and on and on. Looking out those windows upon the endless stretches of buildings upon buildings made me feel very small and insignificant.

Please note that I am not a person who is normally prone to hyperbole. I know it seems like I'm using a lot of grand terms to describe Tokyo, but it is an extreme city.

We then headed to East Shinjuku. This is where the West Shinjuku salary men go at night to drink, gamble, eat, and errrr...enjoy adult entertainment. I guess you could call it a red light district of sorts. Wandering around, we happened upon the colorfully named Piss Alley. This a cramped and dilapidated area Ridley Scott based some scenes from "Blade Runner" off of. You know that scene where Deckard is slurping down a noodle bowl and the guy comes up to him and says "they say you Brade Runnah?" It looks just like that.

We found this tiny little hole in the wall Indian restaurant that served incredible nan. It was a counter and maybe 5 seats and was run by a very friendly Indian man. Mike asked him where the Golden Gai district was and he told him something along the lines of it being an unsavory place and not a place where a young man with a nice girlfriend should go. I guess this stuck with me as we explored the streets of Golden Gai. The tiny little walkways and 3 seat counter bars were incredibly fascinating to peek at but I couldn't shake the creeping feeling that I didn't belong there as a foreigner and as a woman. All of East Shinjuku kind of made me feel this way with it's pounding loud neon gambling parlors and sex shows with sleazy looking men lurking outside. However, it was interesting and I don't regret going and seeing it.

Time to pack up and get ready to leave. I will try and blog in Nikko if we are able to hop on the internet somehow.