We're not lost; we're just taking the scenic route.

 Well, we spent quite a few hours in the Ginza area, wandering around taking pictures. It's quite a beautiful area to wander around in, and not too busy or crowded fairly early in the day. Not outside the main streets anyhow.

The manholes in Japan are always entertaining.
At first there was a vague notion to find the Pokemon Center, but after a rather long walk, we started asking for directions. We were starting to get hungry too.

 

A first glimpse of Tokyo Tower, and...I'm not entirely sure what to make of this restroom, surrounded by quaint greenery and set into the ground from the sidewalk...

Eventually we discovered the Pokemon Center: I was clever and saw a lady with her child carrying a Pokemon shopping bag, but the guys ahead of us technically found it first, by sheer walking power. The Pokemon Center is...less of a center, and more of a shop: lots of Pokemon merchandise, and those little marble lottery draws, but not a museum or anything at all. I guess the word "Center" usually brings to mind some sort of informational/museum-like place, with a shop on the side. Doesn't seem be the case so much here, as we will see later with the Tokyo Anime Center.
Then there were goofy photo shoots outside. Then on with the wandering!

(Maxim, Elliot, and Guillaume)

Tokyo's very layered like this (with walkways going above streets, and trains above that,etc):

A nifty thing in which to clean one's glasses--just on a street corner

We did check out part of the Sony Building (above)--mainly the floor where they show off their 3D video technology. I kind of fell asleep during the demonstration. Not because it wasn't interesting, but because I hadn't really had good rest the night before, the lights were dimmed, and  I was starting to get really hungry. I can report that the part of the 3D demonstrations I was awake for were actually very impressive. But it was definitely time to go hunting for food.

First I cut off zeir heads, zen I pull out zeir bones...

 So I promised an explanation of Golden Week earlier: it's a series of tubes--I mean holidays--including Greenery Day, Constitution Day, Showa Day, Children's Day, and perhaps some others I can't recall. This year we had Thursday and Monday through Wednesday off. For some reason, the university didn't give the students Friday off, even though many probably wouldn't show up just for that one day. It's pretty much the only vacation during the spring semester in Japan, and very busy, so it's important to make any necessary reservations for that week as soon as possible.

And on with our Tokyo adventure.

After our delicious breakfast at Starbucks, we went to visit a much less aromatic sight. The Tsukiji Fish Market is the largest wholesale fish market in Japan and in the world.
As such, it's incredibly busy, smelly, wet, and open to tourists for only certain hours of the day.


Don't get me wrong--it's a very interesting place to wander through, or rather, squeeze your way through the aisles, dodge all the bikes speeding through the larger passages, and try not to let forklifts run over you.
If you're ok with people chopping up sea creatures, and a few small tanks of bloody water, then probably the only thing that will terrify you is the heavy traffic in and outside of the warehouses.




Remember the song the chef sings in The Little Mermaid? Start there, and add in some Sweeney Todd gore.



Not that they're cruel to the fish and squids, etc.  As far as slaughter goes, decapitation is probably about as humane as it gets. It felt a little numbing watching it, after taking Marine Biology and such...although we did go on a fishing boat as a field trip for that class. Most of the students actually caught some fish too. I didn't feel much like partaking, even though I don't have a particular fondness for fish.

This thing looked prehistoric

In any case, maneuvering around Tsukiji kind of feels like playing Frogger. And if you ever go, be prepared for the workers and customers to give you dirty looks for being tourists and crowding their sky.

Or sea.

~~~

Some sights on the way to Ginza

 

les poissons, les poissons, hee hee hee haw haw haw...

You have discovered Tokyo: Gain 9,000 XP.

Why would I have a bit of writer's block now, of all times, when I have sooo many posts to write? I ask you.


So the night bus rolled into Tokyo an hour and a half earlier than scheduled, at 5 am Saturday morning. Tokyo was completely empty. It was empty even until 8 o'clock--long past when I'm used to seeing cities wake up. At home, the gears are already turning at 6 in the morning. While we were waiting for Margot and Sabrina (of France), the last two members of our party, the rest of us (representing France, Germany, Korea, and America) wandered down the street towards the Imperial Palace grounds. But only just across the bridge a little ways, then through a small, mostly concrete park, back towards the station.

A man was riding his bike through the park in the above photo (which you're not supposed to do), and I suppose he either didn't see the small gap/waterway in the concrete, or he thought the bike could go over it. Unfortunately, he and his bike fell into the water. He laughed it off a bit and got back up on the concrete, legs completely soaked, and rode off. It was kind of funny but also kind of sad; it was one of those laughs that was meant to hide his embarrassment.
Very Japanese. Not the kind of laugh where you're actually laughing at yourself...

Finally around 7 am, Starbucks opened, and we scrambled in for tea, coffee, and breakfast. Our group was pretty evenly split over the issue of whether tea or coffee was more delicious.

(Maxim, Momo-chan, So Rim, Thomas, Sun Young, and Elliot)

Not sure who looks more excited, Maxim or Elliot...

Good news, everyone!

So, I did have internet access at the guesthouse--sometimes. It was time that was scarce. Between sight-seeing, showering, and sleeping, there wasn't any time for posting at all.
The overnight bus rolled into Kyoto station around 6 am this morning. I somehow stayed awake through my 9 am class, and I took an unintentional 4-hr nap this afternoon. I am now refreshed and currently working on uploading the hundreds of photos I took over Golden Week while I work on my homework. I probably will have trouble sleeping tonight with that enormous nap I took earlier...and it doesn't feel good to have feet right now.
I'll start the Golden Week posts tonight--since we crammed so much sight-seeing into each day, I'll probably divide entries up by area, rather than by each day of our vacation.
Prepare yourself for crazy massive postings for the next couple of days.

Golden Week...not so golden this year

So said one of my sensei. We had Thursday off, today we have classes, and next week we have off until Wednesday.
Just posting this in case our hostel doesn't have internet service/wireless.
If we do have internet, I might just explain what Golden Week is....   =D
But I have to run now!

"I am no better than monkey"

Last night could be called a milestone in my culinary--well, my history of food-preparation.

I haven't felt much up to getting out and seeing places since last Friday when I realized I had a sinus infection. I spent most of the weekend keeping to myself and keeping myself entertained with movies and such. A couple of days ago I started losing my voice because I've been taking an expectorant, so of course a bunch of people thought I was getting sick just now.

I think I'd take a standard cold over sinusitus right now--I'd much prefer to be taking a cough supressant and fevering-out the illness. Being well enough to go to classes and not having a voice to ask questions or discuss things is almost as irritating as the infection itself. 

In any case, I was feeling well enough to attend Emi-chan's sushi-making birthday party last night, for which I'm very grateful. Now I know how to make sushi! Or how to make the actual roll...still not clear on the preparation of the rice.


My first sushi roll turned out pretty well too. I only used cucumber and shredded tuna mixed with mayonnaise, so naturally it was delicious.


And very beautiful if I do say so myself.
I kind of squashed the last 2 pieces when I was slicing up the roll though. 

 

So that was pretty much my first experience with making traditional Japanese food. I'm not counting packaged ramen, frying gyoza, or stir-fry. There were also various birthday partyish activities: we sang, Emi-chan opened her presents, we danced to YMCA in Japanese, people were dared to eat sushi with too much wasabi. Or Mei-chan did because she lost the Japanese version of mass rock-paper-scissors. A bunch of us had pitched together money and bought her a good set of watercolor pencils--one of Emi's hobbies is drawing fashion designs--and art supplies are a tad more expensive here, compared to what I remember anyway. Masuo and Kurachi gave her a Birthday Book (you know, those kind that have things that happened in history or whatnot on the day you were born, astrological stuff, etc) and a homemade royal sash, respectively. Maybe it was more of a pageant sash--I didn't get a good look at what was written on it--but seeing as the latter was modeled after the former, it's hard to tell.

Between all of us, Emi received three birthday cards, I think. One was a cute puzzle card, and the other two were traditional Japanese birthday cards, which are actually 1'x1' paper-covered pieces of cardboard or bristol board perhaps...That description sounded kind of unceremonious. They're actually very nice looking and convenient, especially for a group of people living in a dorm, because you can write, draw, and decorate both sides however you like. When someone's birthday comes up, you can always find their card lying around on one of the tables and jot a short message of birthday good-wishes, even if you have to find a creative way to squeeze it in between everyone elses' Happy Birthdays written in various languages.

MONKEY SIGHTING #2!!!

 

On the way to my class earlier today (or yesterday, more precisely), I saw about 6 or 7 monkeys in the trees over/behind the fenced area next to the sidewalk. I think they were all macaques, but there may have been a couple of different subspecies. Or the smaller ones could have been juveniles, but they didn't look particularly immature to me. Juveniles are usually a little fluffier, for one...

Ha, as mature as monkeys can be, in any case.

 

The smaller ones were actually in the trees overhanging the sidewalk, and all I had on me at the time was my keitai, so the pictures aren't that great. Had to get close enough that they wouldn't run off too quickly--some of them did anyway--and I was pointing my lens up into a bright sky, which was very beautiful and pleasant for walking today, but slightly obstructive to good photography.

 

Finally, pictorial truth. There are monkeys.

Now I just need to catch one on campus or on I-house, doing something...monkeyish.