It's A Zoo Out There

Yesterday, the Hodemonster Family took Krust and I to a neighborhood called Ueno, a quaint little district containing quite a few temples, parks and other green areas, an ancient market street, and a zoo. Let's take it from the top.

After a 25-minute train ride to get there, we took a stroll down the Ameyayokocho, a bustling open-air market street that I'm told used to be a black market in the years following World War II. It had all the gritty, smoky charm you would expect from an Asian street market, until you looked at the price tags for everything and realized you were basically in a department store with a different flavor. Regardless, not a bad flavor.



Plus, bonus points to any area that has restaurants with life-like plastic recreations of their food in glass cabinets, designed to lure in customers:


We went to a tiny little traditional-style mom-and-pop restaurant and ate a tempura meal, deep-fried seafood with rice and the ubiquitous miso soup. Tempura is deep-fried in a very specific way, which results in characteristically lumpy and rather light-colored bits. It's delicious, especially with the curry salt and the tentsuyu sauce. It's also hilarious, especially when a chopstick-challenged Icelander spazzes out all over the place and drops an entire piece of squid into the saucebowl.

Or so I'm told.


After this we took a stroll down Ueno Park's lovely main garden path, where Krust and I were treated to the sight of our first ever cherry blossoms. It seems the sakura trees are blooming already in some parts of Tokyo (though not down here in Shinagawa-ku just yet). I'm told they're going to get thicker still, but here, at least, is a preliminary taste:
















Next up, we headed to the Ueno Zoo, which lies at the end of Ueno Park's main walkway. I decided right away that if I were going to take a picture of every animal in there I would run out of batteries or patience (whichever came first) very soon, so I went real easy on the camera. I did capture a few of our more remarkable animal friends, though (I'm not used to moving targets, so please forgive the blurring):



This is Ling Ling. He likes hang-gliding, knitting and judo, he's a great listener, and he has absolutely no qualms about taking a heroic dump in front of a number of camera-toting visitors. He's also dirty and scuffed, he walks with a loping gait that sort of makes you think he might have a hip condition, and seeing him there is just a tiny bit heartbreaking.


Those are the elephants. They smell bad. Really, REALLY bad. They're also either really capricious or their captivity has made them really perverted, because every once in a while one of them would stick his you-know-what up another elephant's you-know-what, then do you-know-what with it. Oh, but I've said too much already. Dear lord, how graphic.
















These three species were in the same pen together. The llamas, the tapirs and the capybaras. If that isn't a joke devised by the most fiendish surrealist in the world, then I shall consume my own posterior. We were physically unable to stop laughing. The whole thing was like a bawdy farce from a silent movie directed by a lunatic sex criminal.

All of these weird-ass animals are milling about, minding their own business. One of the bigger capybaras, who has been nonchalantly sidling up to the smallest one for the past 30 seconds or so, jumps on the latter's back and starts humping her (or him; what do I know). The small one gives a terrific squeak and bolts. The bigger one, not being so crass as to give chase, begins slowly sidling up to the small one again.

Ten seconds pass. Suddenly, for no good reason, one of the two tapirs breaks into A FEARSOME DEATH SPRINT right across the pen. If you've ever seen a tapir sprinting frenziedly, you know what I'm talking about. It looks like God had some bugs in the code and couldn't find people to fix them before the seventh day deadline.

So then the second tapir sees the first one doing the mad death sprint, and at that, it too goes into a death sprint of its own. So now there are two of nature's most baffling creations sprinting breathlessly back and forth FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY AND HONOR AND GLORY, and the capybaras are looking at them wondering what the hell's going on. The llamas, meanwhile, have this sort of airy detachment going on, like they've seen it all before and are trying to figure out a way to charge people extra for watching.

Just as the tapirs abruptly slow down and go to have a drink at the small oasis, we hear a squeak from the other end of the pen. The bigger capybara has finally sidled close enough up to the smallest one to mount her (him) again. Once more the squeak, once more the bolt. The big guy begins another slow sidle.

FIN

We also saw some polar bears.


Ferociously underwhelming. All they did, the poor things, was walk back and forth on the tiny crag of space alloted to them in their fake-ice environment, like it was their runway and they were stuck in a perpetual Groundhog Day-style fashion show.

"Maybe they're looking for their Coca-Cola," remarked Hodezor.


Japanese snow monkeys. Uhh...

We also saw some flamingoes! And penguins! Ha ha ha!
















If flamingoes weren't so hot pink, I swear, they'd be extinct from uninterestingness by now. Seriously - we stood there for fifteen minutes, and all they did was blink. At least the penguins waddled single-file back to their cave, giving us leeway to antropomorphize them in all sorts of incredibly endearing ways.

By the way, I am really glad humans don't control evolution.


Obligatory funny building shots of the day:

TAMACHI-ROPPONGI SUPER HAPPY FUN PARTY

Honestly, I have no fucking clue how I'm going to fit all of today into one blog.

Okay, here goes nothing.

I.

Okay, so Krust and I kicked the day off by going on a random romp through whichever neighborhood was the third stop left-wise on our line (we decided this through a very solemn process which involved going "second," "no, third," "no, second, bitch," "no, third," for about six minutes). It turned out to be a stop called Tamachi.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Tamachi:

"Tamachi (田町) is the informal name for the area surrounding Tamachi Station in Minato Ward, Tokyo, generally referring to the districts of Shiba, Shibaura and Mita. The name, meaning literally "field town", probably derives from the earlier presence of rice paddies."

In other words: it ain't Shinjuku, renowned for neon and debauchery. It ain't Harajuku, renowned for cosplay freaks and creative fashions. It ain't Shibuya, chic nightclub nexus of the East. What it is is a shitty-ass no-name part of town, home to office-space skyscrapers and action-figure salarymen in matching black-and-white suits.

Let's see what kind of color a couple of retard tourist Icelanders can wrest from this place, shall we?

As we came out of the station, we were faced with a bunch of really tall buildings. Since we've been here for, like, totally five days now, we're completely at ease with really tall buildings. We're not impressed with them at all. We don't feel compelled to take pictures of them at all.




































We had so much fun walking through this neigbhorhood. For one thing, there were the tall buildings, with which we were not at all impressed. For another, there was the way that, when we walked slightly out of the main concentration of skyscrapers, the neighborhood turned into this knotted lump of big and small, old and new, kind of like a miniature condensation of the very thing that makes Tokyo as a whole so fascinating. Take this, for example:


This tiny side street, just off the main thoroughfare. Laundry hanging in the windows, sliding paper doors facing the street, and (just behind us, not pictured) rows and rows of teensy-weensy cramped shops selling sushi platters and snacks and all sorts of fast food. And all of the young salarymen standing there, lined up to get their small sliver of authentic life, perhaps their only small escape from the straight-laced drudgery of their workaday lives. It was absolutely beautiful.

We trundled on down to the river, where we were treated with the sight of this guy:


The picture doesn't really show it, but that guy was going crazy. He looked like Mr. Miyagi in a business suit, and he was doing these mad Tai-chi ch'uan stretches, probably on his lunch break from work. He was going back and forth like Jane Fonda on fast forward, his black tie barely keeping up with him. We laughed so hard, we almost fell in the river.

After our marvelous little jaunt through Tamachi, we (somewhat more consciously) decided to take a stroll through the area around Tokyo Station, which is where the Imperial palace and most of the governmental buildings are located. After a quick train ride to Tokyo Station and a short walk down to where we felt the imperial gardens would be most likely to be located (we were right; we just walked in the direction where we saw the most green), we were greeted with the sight of...

A whole bunch of tourists in a group, walking towards a gate guarded by seventy million guards.

As they passed through the checkpoints, chaperoned needlessly by guards grabbing their elbows and ushering them forward in single file, Krust and I decided that we might want to save this whole thing for later, when we had someone with us who actually knew what the hell was needed to go into that place. Instead, we walked to another part of the gardens and took a gander at this fairly staggering misé-en-scene:


I have no doubt we will be going there before this trip is over, but today wasn't the day. So long for now, Mister Emperor Man. You haven't seen the last of us.

After a stroll through some adjacent areas (and a lovely meal at a veritably microscopic back-alley restaurant), and a gander at some thoroughly unimpressive skyscrapers,
















we headed back home to rendezvous with the Hodemonster and his lovely wife.

Thus began Part II of today's super happy fun party, The Roppongi Adventure.

II.

So there's this place, right. It's called Roppongi Hills, which is kind of a misnomer, right, because Hodezor and Hanako, since Krust and I arrived, had occasionally said "We should take them to Roppongi Hills and walk around," and we'd always thought, like, "Oh, okay, it's a nice wooded green area with lots of natural beauty."

Of course, we're in Tokyo. So, yeah. Roppongi Hills is a skyscraper.

I don't know what we were expecting.

So this afternoon we loaded the evil genius into his baby carriage and headed out to Roppongi Hills. We were assured that we'd see and experience lots of tremendously awesome things. "Feh," we thought. "It's a tall building. We're not impressed with those anymore."

As we walked through the suspiciously clean streets of Roppongi, we began to notice a building sticking out of the not-so-murky murk.


As we got closer, it became apparent that this was no average building. It was, in fact, an awesome ultra-mega-ROBO-BUILDING. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I'm sure your imagination can fill in the blanks. If you're having trouble, here's a visual aid.


So we go into this architectural monstrosity, and we head into a marble-festooned courtyard with a counter, and Hanako says something in Japanese to the inhumanly cheek-boned woman behind the counter, and we store our umbrellas in specially designed umbrella storage units complete with a special key for each umbrella (I am not making this up), and then we are ushered through a mysterious looking pathway where I, despite the rapid clip at which we are being ushered onwards, am able to ninja-snap an Engrish shot for your benefit:


We're taken to an elevator. An inconspicuous-looking one, if a little on the swank side. Sure. Fine. We step inside. There are four buttons. One of them says "1," the second says "2," the third says "3," and the fourth says "50." Just as the thought "I wonder if they have the same number system as us" begins to cross my mind, my stomach gets left behind me on the second floor. I watch, ears popping, as the LCD number on the floor display skyrockets upwards. 15, 29, 35, 41, 50, DING! We're on the 52nd floor.

We step out of the elevator, shell-shocked. Ahead of us, amidst the gleam of polished marble, is a gate that says "Tokyo View." Hanako ushers us forward, we enter through the gate, and there before us is Tokyo. All of it. Every single building in a 20 kilometer radius. In three-hundred-and-sixty degree panoramic view.

I tried as hard as I could to do the experience justice, but the limitations of
A) my skill as a photographer
B) the capabilities of the camera, and
C) the plate-glass windows

sort of hampered it. Regardless, here's the closest approximation I can give you.






























It was, in a word, staggering. I have never experienced anything like this in my life. I've been to the Grand Canyon. I've gaped over Jökulsárlón. I've seen Jennifer Aniston naked. Nothing -- I tell you, nothing -- has ever compared to this.

Nothing builds up an appetite like a good bout with jaw-dropping awe, so we headed on down to a lovely Indian restaurant (also in Roppongi Hills) called Diya, where we were treated to the most amazing Indian food I have ever tasted in my life. We were given a whole bunch of dishes so I won't bore you with all the pictures, but two things in particular merit a special mention:
















Of the lamb chops, Krust had this to say:

"I've often heard people use the expression 'it just melts in your mouth,' but I've never actually felt it happen before now."

That pretty much exactly describes it. Seasoned with cardamom, coriander, turmeric and god knows what unholy sell-your-soul secret ingredient, this was bar-none the most savoury meat any of us have ever had. It was so soft, you could have bitten it off the bone with your lips.

And the Nan bread... oh, dear lord. Kabuli Nan, it's called, and it contains cashew nuts and raisins. For anyone who's tasted cashew nuts, raisins and nan bread, just try to picture these three things together in one flavor-circle. Add a slight bit of salt, and then multiply the flavor by twenty. There you go. You absolutely won't believe it's possible until you try it.

This restaurant comes about as highly recommended as I could possibly recommend anything. If you're ever in Tokyo, go here. That's a fucking order. Diya Indian Restaurant, Roppongi Hills. No arguments.


After this wonderful trip, Krust, the Hodemonster and I headed out to Yoyogi to meet up with our posse for more poker, beer and Playstation soccer. As a side note: if anyone is into both PS2 and soccer, get Winning Eleven 10. I have never liked soccer in my life, and this game is actually turning me into a fan of the sport. I mean, what the fuck?

Okay, it's 3:43 in the A.M. and the wonderful nutcases who've graciously allowed me to live in their apartment are waking up in 17 minutes to watch an Arsenal game on television. I'm gonna see if I can get 10 minutes in.

Love, smoochies, the works. You know the drill.

The Interactivity of Food

Yesterday was a relatively quiet Monday. We skipped out at lunch to meet up with Mark, Wayne and some of the other guys from Fujikyu and Saturday night. Wayne's one-year exchange program in Japan is over and he's headed back to Taiwan, so everyone was gathering to see him off. After a breezy afternoon drinking beer and having the Hodemonster take us for all our money in a game of Texas Hold 'Em ("Always fun playing you guys," he remarked at the end of it), we headed out to a Japanese-style steakhouse. It was slightly different from a western one, in the same way an apple is different from a combine harvester.



The first thing that struck me was the payment method. No waitress takes your order. Instead, this:

A vending machine with buttons for each dish on their menu, along with each side order and drink. You stick your money in, you push your button, you get a ticket for each order along with your change. Go to the table, sit down, put your tickets on the desk, the waitress comes by to pick them up, you get your food. None of that outmoded and misunderstanding-riddled "human contact" stuff.

The second semi-shock was the food. The Japanese are really big on interactive food; very often, the consumer participates in some way in the cooking of his meal. Thus, our steaming plates were filled with uncooked meat and vegetables, and had a protective paper wall, presumably to save our forearms from flying grease.

After inexpertly poking around the plate with my chopsticks, trying to turn the meat around and burning my hands and screaming and dropping the chopsticks and having everyone laugh at me and getting pissed off and trying even harder and dropping them again and you get the picture, I finally had this:

A gloriously miscooked smorgasboard of beefy madness, with a side order of soy-sopping rice. (I'm kinda surprised at how little soy everybody seemed to use; when I happily pumped my standard amount onto my rice, Wayne stared at it like it was enriched uranium.)

The food was decent enough. The meat was slightly stringy and the rogue flying bit of grease would occasionally jump out with a shrill cackle and land, pinprickly, on my skin; but such considerations are not of any importance to us fearless Tokyo travellers. I've done Typing of the Dead, bitch. I can take you burning into my elbow.

After the meal, we wandered back out to the streets of Yoyogi.


After walking Wayne to his taxicab and seeing him off, four of us went to play pool at a quiet little pool hall in Yoyogi. We then took the train home, where Hanako had a wonderful kimchi nabe dinner ready for us.

You guessed it - more food interactivity. Kimchi nabe is a steamboat dish, where a broth is brought to the boil on a portable stove right on the dining table, and the diners stick the ingredients they would like in the bowl, then ladle them out and eat them with chopsticks. Kimchi is the word for pickled Korean vegetables (a particular favorite of mine), in addition to which we had pork, fat-ass Japanese mushrooms (delicious), bean sprouts and tofu. A wonderful meal.

Today, Krust and I are going to venture out on our own, jump into a completely random train and get absolutely lost in translation. A full report shall be forthcoming, assuming we manage to find our way back.

Peace.