We landed in Tokyo at 10:40 this morning local time. After being greeted at the airport by the Hodemonster, we were promptly whisked into a train where we would spend the next hour and a half gawping at the houses in the Chiba district, the area that runs from Narita airport into Tokyo.
This place is the absolute antithesis to the American cookie-cutter suburb, where houses are hastily stapled together and farted off the assembly line to sit comfortably next to their carbon copy brothers for the remainder of their days. Over here, look in any direction you want and you won't find two houses that are anywhere near uniform. Big huddles next to small, rich next to poor. A bicycle sits next to a Lexus, a dingy yakitori stand snuggles up to a fancy restaurant. There are nooks and crannies and crevices everywhere, overhanging canopies, pieces of laundry strung between buildings, narrow alleways, ninjas chasing aliens, sushi raining from the sky. It's awesome.
After dropping off our bags at the Hodecrib (a cozy apartment in a ridiculously plush complex in the heart of Shinagawa district) and having a good long look at the latest generation of Hodemonster (who is the cutest baby alive, despite repeatedly attempting to consume my index finger), we headed down to a neighborhood Ramen place so that we could be initiated in the ways of Japanese fast food. We were given this:
An extremely spicy, perfectly wonderful concoction of sloppy noodles and other ingredients whose exact nature I have no way of ascertaining short of looking them up in the nearest AD&D sourcebook. Despite being an utter spastic with the chopsticks (reaping an intricate pattern of red ramen soup spots on my pants), I was able to wolf most of it down without causing griveous injury.
After this, we decided to head to the local liquor store to stock up on sake and Japanese beer. Now, there's a saying that all Texans (and probably most people who have ever been to Texas) are familiar with, and that saying is "Everything is bigger in Texas." Well, I'm very sorry, but there appears to be one area where the Japanese have got the Texans squarely pwned, and that is the "freakishly monstrous bottles of sake" category:
If I ever see a Japanese person drink a whole bottle of this - hell, if I even see a Japanese person
lift a whole bottle of this, I'll eat my own ass. I mean, look at that! They're bigger than Krust.
After stocking up on beer and sake, we retired back to the Hodecrib to rest and prepare for tonight's activity, which will reportedly be a Korean barbecue on an upper-level floor of a massive skyscraper with a panoramic view of a large portion of Tokyo. As I write this, I'm the only one of our little troupe who is awake; Krust and the Hodezor are conked out on futons behind me, and Hana-chan and Hodemonster V are in the master bedroom laying out evil schemes for intergalactic domination.
Me, I'm in no mood to sleep. Tokyo is right outside that window. Think I might go for a walk.
I may not ever want to leave here.
