Tokyo Round 2

   Last November, I decided that I had to have a completely traditional Christmas. I don't know where that urge came from because I did not grow up in a house that was very traditional. Usually we didn't even put up a tree until the 23rd of December, and it wasn't a holiday that my dad took seriously at all until I was older. But this year, Josh and I were going to have all of it. And in a country where Christmas is seen as a date night, I decided the best place to get my holiday cheer was Tokyo DisneyLand. This turned out to be a terrible idea.

Look at the Christmas

   Our first mistake was going on a three day weekend. I'm pretty sure the population of this country doubles during a holiday because it takes three times as long to see anything or go anywhere. That weekend was no exception. Our night bus dropped us off at the front gates at the lovely hour of 7 a.m. The gates didn't open till 8 a.m. and already there were hundreds of people in line. With about 40 minutes till the gates opened, a nice freezing rain started. I can just save a few paragraphs of writing and tell you that it rained almost the entire 10 hours we were there. Yes that's right, we walked around in the rain for about 10 hours. I had no intentions of staying that long, but I was just in the weird mood where I was determined we were going to Disney ourselves out even if I caught pneumonia. Later we left and ate dinner at the always excellent Devilcraft Pizza. It's probably the best pizza place in Japan and a must if you're in Tokyo.

Country Bears show

It's a Small World. The closest thing to a drug trip I'll ever have.

   The next few days thankfully made up for our rained out Disney. The weather was still cold, but beautifully sunny. Nothing too exciting happened really. We explored the lovely old neighborhood of Asakusa and the main temple Senso-ji. The temple was swarming with camera crews setting up to film something, but all I could focus on was the hustle and bustle of the temple itself. The main path is lined with every type of souvenir store you can imagine. In the alleyways around the temple, there are stalls lined up with their owners calling out their traditional wares to you. Inside the temple itself, you could watch people talking to priests, praying, and lighting candles. We saw something that looked similar to a baby dedication. After all of the shrines and temples I've seen in Japan, most of them end up being mostly tourist attractions where people come, take a few pictures and then leave. It was nice to see a temple that had a lived in feel and was still being used to take care of people's needs.

Hey there, good lookin'

Little fat birds on buddha

If this sweater hadn't been about 30,000 yen it would have gone home with me.

   The rest of our trip mainly consisted of eating. We met up with some friends at a wonderful Italian cafe that served some great cappuccinos and macchiatos. Later we ended up in Nakameguro to try out the BBQ joint Hatos bar. Now it could be that we haven't had real American BBQ in over year, but I'm pretty sure that was the best BBQ I've ever had. It was smoked over cherry wood and had a chipotle sauce on it that was fantastic. I would move to Tokyo for that BBQ. It didn't hurt that they had an excellent selection of craft beers too. 

Guard Geese

Hatos Bar had a live DJ that night

  The last two things we did on our Tokyo weekend were two of my favorites. We went to explore Harajuku on a Sunday in hopes of finding the famous lolitas, but were disappointed. To make up for our disappointment, we hunted down the infamous Ometesando Koffee. This place really is in the middle of nowhere, located in a traditional Japanese house that was still clearly being used as a house by someone. The front entrance was just a little tatami room where a man made us the most excellent coffee that we drank outside on a little bench. The coffee was heavenly. Our last stop was a walk in Yoyogi park, where we were rewarded with a performance by old rockabilly dancers that looked like a scene from Happy Days. They were all decked out in leather vests, tight jeans, boots, and pompadours. The group was a little scary and I heard they're rumored to be wanna-be yakuza, but I loved watching them. 

Puppy had clothes!

 
   Tokyo proved itself to me finally. I've had mixed feelings about this city that dominates the world's image of Japan. When I read articles about Japan, the authors tend to make it sound like everything outside of Tokyo is completely barren of anything interesting or technological. This is so far from the truth that I tend to discredit any author who writes "however, outside of Tokyo" anywhere in their writing. This attitude also created a "F### Tokyo! It's not that great" mindset that I'm sure many Osakans share. This trip helped change my mind about the world's biggest city. Tokyo turned out to be a pretty cool place, and one that I plan on visiting many more times.