Japan IV
Alright, so I am going to finish this up while I still have any memory left. Two weeks late isn't so bad, eh? Our last leg, including adventures with Lani and Kiku, was in Kamakura and Tokyo.
We left Trish early Saturday, and our train was slightly delayed by the earthquake. It hit further to the north of us, so it didn't mess up any track we needed to be on. We just couldn't get on the train originating in Akita as was the plan. The train followed the same delightful route along the sea to Niigata, and the same sleepy route through mostly tunnels back to Tokyo. No double decker this time though, only the regular Toki. We navigated Tokyo station, and then were on our way to Kamakura.
Our hotel, Hotel New Kamakura, was very tricky to find. For one thing I got a little confused and left the station on the east side, rather than the west. (East side, represent! Moving on.) It was around some corners and up some alleys, it turned out to be quite difficult to find. We were able to find it after asking for help at a Mr. Donut. The guy there actually left the building to walk us to the hotel. This was awesome, we probably wouldn't have found it otherwise because the path from the plaza by the station is so tiny. Thus for breakfast every day in Kamakura we had Mr. Donut. They also played good music there before 9:00, like some If I Had a Hammer. After 9 though it turned into things like the Offspring's latest effort. Man, after Jennifer Lost the War they went downhill. First night in Kamakura, we find a place to eat. It is fantastic. They have a heated stovetop on the table, and you order something like yaki soba or okonomiyaki. By now we have seen these things made, so we pretty much know what we're doing here. I think we did quite well for ourselves.
First day in Kamakura, we use the last day remaining of our JR Pass to go one station north, to Kita Kamakura. I think "kita" means "almost, but not quite." This is a little bit different from "shin," which means "not close but with these fancy big shinkansen tracks we really can't get any closer." Kamakura is a big place for zen temples, and the ones here are often arranged linearly. You start at the front and they go all the way back, up into hills. Engaku-ji was the first one, lots of neat buildings and gardens around. Then there was a small one nearby, the Tokei-ji. This one was quite popular when we went because it was full of irises and hydrangeas, and they are in prime bloom in June. It's a quiet small place most of the time, but it was a real highlight at this time. Then we started our way on the Daibutsu hiking course. Before getting too hikey there was the Jochi-ji, a small shady place that had a Hotei statue. He is the god of happiness. His right index finger is a penis. I think this might contribute to his happiness? I'm not sure I'd be happy if my finger turned into a penis, I am getting by just fine with only one. And so we begin to walk. It's a lovely path and nicely marked, but there are things like a lot of tree roots and some non trivial elevation gain, so if you started your day planning on walking around a city and then have a real hike to do it might not be the most pleasant. Along the way we first get to a neat small shrine, the Kuzuharaoka-jinja, where they have a large rock and a bunch of small clay disks you can throw at the rock. The rock is surrounded by the shattered pieces of other disks. I threw one; I think they only wanted a dime donation for it, and I am presuming that it represented the shattering of my troubles. This was nice. Then we came across a statue of Minamoto Yoshitomo, who founded the Kamakura shogunate. He features prominently in the Heike Monogatari so I feel like we're friends. Then there is the Zeniaraibenzaiten. You go in through a rock pass and there is shrine stuff all around, some neat waterfalls, and most importantly, a shrine in a cave. Lots of paper cranes are hung from the cave ceiling. What you do is wash your money in the spring. This we did. It will bring us luck and good fortune. Woot. It was a very neat place. Then there is a bunch more hiking that happens before you reach the Daibutsu. While on the hike you get a lovely view over the city and its bay of the Pacific. The Kamakura Daibutsu is perhaps the finest. Such a nice serene expression, and I think it gains something from being in the open air. It used to have a house around it but a tsunami washed it all away many years back - it's quite fortunate it left the statue though! I am very happy about the Daibutsu. This was also a good place to have ice cream. Following the Daibutsu we went to a small temple, Kosoku-ji. This was another small one with some pretty in season flowers. Then there is the Hase-dera, which is not a small place at all. It was quite lovely, with a lot of nice features. It's got some lovely ponds, lovely views up a cliffish walk, and a whole bunch of neatly lined up Jizo Bosatsu statues. Also a bunch more carvings inside a cave, but these were not so photographable. They were of the musical one of the seven lucky gods and her daughters. After Hase-dera we had a little more time and went to the Goryo-jinja nearby, a small shrine but with some neat wood carvings and a really awesome tree. I very much appreciate awesome trees. Then, home we go. More yaki soba and okonomiyaki, because that place was fantastic.
Next we start our day off right and have some doughnuts. (Alright, I'm unhappy. Whatever is spell checking this as I write, either LJ or Firefox, does not recognize the proper spelling of doughnut. It wants me to say I had a donut. These declining orthographical standards shall not be tolerated! Amusingly enough, it also has a problem with "orthographical." Telling...) First there is a small temple right near the station, Daigyo-ji, that we poke around. It's nice to see some of the small neighborhoody places. Then we walk up the Wakamiyaoji, the broad boulevard that goes up from the sea to the main shrine of the city, the Tsurugoka Hachiman-gu. For the last bit of the walk there is a pedestrian path down the middle of the street lined with trees, which is quite pleasant. The shrine grounds are great, they're always nice and brightly colored, have some nice carvings, and they have a small collection of some old items. And more school kids asking us questions! Always fun. After this we start to walk north. First stop is the Enno-ji, a small temple with neat statues depicting judges of hell. The hellish art is always a bit more lively and expressive. After this is the Kencho-ji, another really large Zen temple, like Engaku-ji from the day prior. In addition to all the large lovely Zen buildings and gardens, there is the temple's guardian shrine in the back. This is way up some stairs, the Hansoho shrine. It sounds like Han Solo, which amuses me. Looking down at the last bit of stairs are statues that look like the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. I'm not sure what they're deal is. They were lead by a flying general with a long nose. Next up was the Choju-ji - but it was closed. Bummer. Then the Meigetsuin, which was full of some flowers, and the Yakuo-ji. The Yakuo-ji was along a neat old street that cuts through the hills, but was not too remarkable. By now I was feeling the film hurt so no pictures of these two. Then came the Kaizo-ji, which was also a small place but it had a fabulous moss garden, and moss gardens are most definitely favorites of mine. The Jokomyo-ji had a tree with beautiful white flowers, I think a Japanese sort of magnolia. The Jufuku-ji had a neat moss lined road, though it was already too late by the time we got there to go into it. The shrine next to it, which had no name marked, had a delightful large tree. The last few we saw this day were mostly of the neat small variety, they all had little charming bits that were nice to see winding down after the very Tsurugoka Hachiman-gu and Kencho-ji. For dinner we went to an Italian place that was really great, I got a delightful pumpkin pasta. Japanese pumpkin is a tasty thing. They are not as bound to what we (or the Italians) might consider Italian food to be. We had a friendly waitress, too, she was an art history student who had been to the US and was hoping to come here to study in the future. She was keen on talking to us, and this was very pleasant. Yay for Hana.
Next day, we started our day off right, and had some doughnuts. Then... then I stopped writing down what we did each in my book. This is not so good. Alright, so, completely from memory... We went to Shinjuku! This is a main downtown area. East of the station you have some department stores, some red light district (nothing too flashy in the afternoon though, when we were there), some tall buildings. We find the internet! We use the internet and I get messaged by Kiku '06, who is in Tokyo as well! We plan to meet for dinner. Awesome, friends in Tokyo! Then we go to the west side of Shinjuku, which has even larger buildings and a little park. We went into the municipal government buildings, which allow you to go way up to an observation deck for free. We observed! It was a lovely view over the city but too cloudy to see out to Fuji. So sad. Then back on the first floor was the tourism bureau, where I picked up every English publication we could find. Then we met up with Kiku near her work. Ooh, I can go plug her art a bit! She's also working with an animation festival in Hiroshima, but I don't have any links for that. We walked around a bit, were told not to take pictures of the Russian Embassy (but such beautiful Soviet style architecture!), took plenty pictures of the Tokyo Tower, ate some fruit, and found a place for dinner. Yay for dinner. We made it home just in time to check in to our hotel.
The next day we museumed. We went over to the Ueno park, and saw a bit of the park grounds first. There is a lovely statue of a samurai walking his dog, a shrine by a bridge, an old Tokugawa era shrine that survived the trying times Tokyo has had in the last 300 years, and a statue of a Meiji era prince looking like quite the western general. It's a lovely bit of park. The main reason we were there was for the Tokyo National Museum. This is a fabulous museum, housed in a few buildings. There was no special collection happening, so that was right out. There was the collection of treasures from Horyu-ji. This was probably the best collection they had. Since we came to see it, I am not bummed that these were all missing when we were in Horyu-ji two weeks prior (right outside Nara, oldest wooden building, remember?). There was a really fantastic ceremonial canopy on display, and a whole bunch of bronze statues. The bronzes were all in Asuka and Nara period styles, with a lot of elongation and flowiness. They were fantastic. After viewing the Horyu-ji stuff, it was time for ever popular over priced museum lunch! It's a crowd pleaser in every country. Then there were the main collections. These had a lot of great pieces of historical art, some really cool pottery and swords. Some excellent statues - there was a great one of Dainichi that they had just acquired that had some fancy crystals put inside of it. The modern art section was also really nice, but pretty scant. If we were in Tokyo longer I'd have loved to check out a more dedicated museum for modern stuff, but it can be pretty hit or miss with these things. Some really nice paintings too. After the main collection we had to move a bit speedily through the archaeological collection (delightful! yay for haniwa statues!) and the other Asian civilizations collection (also delightful!). After this we went to another shrine nearby, it was another older one that has survived. Less fancy than the first one we saw that day, but still excellent. In the evening we went for some more internet - and Lani '09 is also in Japan! She has no LJ either. What bums these people are. Anyway, we plan more dinner for Friday, our last in Japan. Or maybe the plans were made on the following day. Whatever, plans were made.
Next day we get up and check out the Senso-ji, the very large temple near where we were staying. It is a delightful temple! The highlight was absolutely without a doubt the cat sleeping underneath one of the lion-dog statues. Too cute! Let me tell you, if you want to feel an enlightened mind, a happy sleepy cat is much better than any Buddha statue. At least this is what I say. After Senso-ji we head over to the Sumida-gawa to take a boat down the river. The boat passes by a bunch of bridges. They are pretty good bridges! The boat deposits us at the Detached Imperial Garden, which has another name. These are some beautiful gardens. There are lovely pine trees and rocks, and some awesome ponds. The ponds are formed from sea water, so you get an interesting effect. We ambled around there for a while. There are nice views of the tall downtown buildings rising up over the peaceful gardens, and you can look out over the Tokyo Bay. There are some tea houses on the property to, and a duck hunting blind as well as a monument made in the 30's to pacify the spirits of all the ducks killed earlier on. Leaving the garden you are right next to Ginza, the old downtown Park Avenue ish place. Not a lot of specific attractions, just a neat place to be and have some downtown time. Maybe if you liked shopping more than we did you would have a really awesome, focused time, but we just ambled. There was the kabuki theater, and the Sony building (full of loot they wanted to show off), and we could walk up to the Imperial Gardens but then not go in. Too late! Then it is time to find dinner. Dinner we could afford, a non trivial task in Ginza. Indian food pulls through!
Next day is our last in Japan. We first went down to Shibuya. This is a place that reportedly the youths are all about. There is a statue of an Akita dog who did the thing that Fry's dog did in Futurama. This is even sadder when it is real so they made a statue for him. There are also a bunch more stores! We walk up a bit to the Meiji-jingu. This one is a reconstruction but it is still done all with traditional construction methods, so it was quite nice. And in lovely park grounds! The torii for the shrine were made with huge 1500 year old cypress that had to be brought over from Taiwan in the 70's. Maaaaybe I'd have been more OK with letting the trees be, but still, the torii was excellent, as was the main shrine. Then we went to Harajuku. It is also popular with the kids these days. Kinda reminds me of St. Mark's back in New York. Young rebel culture, available at conformist prices! What a deal! We spent a good long while in Kiddyland. This is the best store in Japan. The second floor is the best floor in Japan, because it had all the Ghibli stuff. I acquired a cellphone ornament and a picture frame which both featured Catbus and Totoro. They also had videos going, and we essentially just stood there and watched all of Laputa: Castle in the Sky. You don't even need subtitles to know what is going on in this film, for the most part, and it was excellent. If we had taken a few steps to the left we also had the option of watching Kiki's Delivery Service. One day when I have more money than Croesus I will buy the ridiculously large Totoro. (Spell check has regained some of my respect for knowing who Croesus is, or at least knowing that I spelled his name correctly.) After this we had ice cream (it was a good vacation for ice cream) and wandered through Harajuku some more before meeting up with Lani and Kiku. There was a long group dinner, some ambling through entertainment places, and McDonald's ice cream. Good times were had by all! This dinner was I think the only one where I failed at ordering. It looked like a lovely beef and cabbage dish, and it was, except that the beef was all liver. Lose lose. Then we bid our adieus and made our way home. It was so excellent to catch them!
Next day we did have a good amount of time before our flight left. We ambled around the area near our hotel some more. There was one district that sold tons of restaurant supplies. The most interesting ones were all of the plastic food items they use for displays. There were also some neat small shrines and a temple. At one they were preparing for a festival, a few people were set up already. I got a free hot syruppy cucumber thing drink! It was really odd, as you might guess. Then back we go to the hotel, we hoist our bags, and we set off for the airport. We totally pwn airport food pricing using a bunch of McDonald's coupons that Christiana was handed in Shinjuku. They must honor them everywhere in Japan, even inside airports! Woot. They're not just for ice cream anymore.
<\lj-cut>
So, the Tokyo airport is the best airport in the world. This is because there were representatives from a scotch company (Balvenie, iirc) handing out drinks. This does not happen nearly enough in American airports. And then, we were home. We were greeting by a miserably failing T filled with drunken louts arguing about baseball. Welcome to Boston!
We left Trish early Saturday, and our train was slightly delayed by the earthquake. It hit further to the north of us, so it didn't mess up any track we needed to be on. We just couldn't get on the train originating in Akita as was the plan. The train followed the same delightful route along the sea to Niigata, and the same sleepy route through mostly tunnels back to Tokyo. No double decker this time though, only the regular Toki. We navigated Tokyo station, and then were on our way to Kamakura.
Our hotel, Hotel New Kamakura, was very tricky to find. For one thing I got a little confused and left the station on the east side, rather than the west. (East side, represent! Moving on.) It was around some corners and up some alleys, it turned out to be quite difficult to find. We were able to find it after asking for help at a Mr. Donut. The guy there actually left the building to walk us to the hotel. This was awesome, we probably wouldn't have found it otherwise because the path from the plaza by the station is so tiny. Thus for breakfast every day in Kamakura we had Mr. Donut. They also played good music there before 9:00, like some If I Had a Hammer. After 9 though it turned into things like the Offspring's latest effort. Man, after Jennifer Lost the War they went downhill. First night in Kamakura, we find a place to eat. It is fantastic. They have a heated stovetop on the table, and you order something like yaki soba or okonomiyaki. By now we have seen these things made, so we pretty much know what we're doing here. I think we did quite well for ourselves.
First day in Kamakura, we use the last day remaining of our JR Pass to go one station north, to Kita Kamakura. I think "kita" means "almost, but not quite." This is a little bit different from "shin," which means "not close but with these fancy big shinkansen tracks we really can't get any closer." Kamakura is a big place for zen temples, and the ones here are often arranged linearly. You start at the front and they go all the way back, up into hills. Engaku-ji was the first one, lots of neat buildings and gardens around. Then there was a small one nearby, the Tokei-ji. This one was quite popular when we went because it was full of irises and hydrangeas, and they are in prime bloom in June. It's a quiet small place most of the time, but it was a real highlight at this time. Then we started our way on the Daibutsu hiking course. Before getting too hikey there was the Jochi-ji, a small shady place that had a Hotei statue. He is the god of happiness. His right index finger is a penis. I think this might contribute to his happiness? I'm not sure I'd be happy if my finger turned into a penis, I am getting by just fine with only one. And so we begin to walk. It's a lovely path and nicely marked, but there are things like a lot of tree roots and some non trivial elevation gain, so if you started your day planning on walking around a city and then have a real hike to do it might not be the most pleasant. Along the way we first get to a neat small shrine, the Kuzuharaoka-jinja, where they have a large rock and a bunch of small clay disks you can throw at the rock. The rock is surrounded by the shattered pieces of other disks. I threw one; I think they only wanted a dime donation for it, and I am presuming that it represented the shattering of my troubles. This was nice. Then we came across a statue of Minamoto Yoshitomo, who founded the Kamakura shogunate. He features prominently in the Heike Monogatari so I feel like we're friends. Then there is the Zeniaraibenzaiten. You go in through a rock pass and there is shrine stuff all around, some neat waterfalls, and most importantly, a shrine in a cave. Lots of paper cranes are hung from the cave ceiling. What you do is wash your money in the spring. This we did. It will bring us luck and good fortune. Woot. It was a very neat place. Then there is a bunch more hiking that happens before you reach the Daibutsu. While on the hike you get a lovely view over the city and its bay of the Pacific. The Kamakura Daibutsu is perhaps the finest. Such a nice serene expression, and I think it gains something from being in the open air. It used to have a house around it but a tsunami washed it all away many years back - it's quite fortunate it left the statue though! I am very happy about the Daibutsu. This was also a good place to have ice cream. Following the Daibutsu we went to a small temple, Kosoku-ji. This was another small one with some pretty in season flowers. Then there is the Hase-dera, which is not a small place at all. It was quite lovely, with a lot of nice features. It's got some lovely ponds, lovely views up a cliffish walk, and a whole bunch of neatly lined up Jizo Bosatsu statues. Also a bunch more carvings inside a cave, but these were not so photographable. They were of the musical one of the seven lucky gods and her daughters. After Hase-dera we had a little more time and went to the Goryo-jinja nearby, a small shrine but with some neat wood carvings and a really awesome tree. I very much appreciate awesome trees. Then, home we go. More yaki soba and okonomiyaki, because that place was fantastic.
Next we start our day off right and have some doughnuts. (Alright, I'm unhappy. Whatever is spell checking this as I write, either LJ or Firefox, does not recognize the proper spelling of doughnut. It wants me to say I had a donut. These declining orthographical standards shall not be tolerated! Amusingly enough, it also has a problem with "orthographical." Telling...) First there is a small temple right near the station, Daigyo-ji, that we poke around. It's nice to see some of the small neighborhoody places. Then we walk up the Wakamiyaoji, the broad boulevard that goes up from the sea to the main shrine of the city, the Tsurugoka Hachiman-gu. For the last bit of the walk there is a pedestrian path down the middle of the street lined with trees, which is quite pleasant. The shrine grounds are great, they're always nice and brightly colored, have some nice carvings, and they have a small collection of some old items. And more school kids asking us questions! Always fun. After this we start to walk north. First stop is the Enno-ji, a small temple with neat statues depicting judges of hell. The hellish art is always a bit more lively and expressive. After this is the Kencho-ji, another really large Zen temple, like Engaku-ji from the day prior. In addition to all the large lovely Zen buildings and gardens, there is the temple's guardian shrine in the back. This is way up some stairs, the Hansoho shrine. It sounds like Han Solo, which amuses me. Looking down at the last bit of stairs are statues that look like the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. I'm not sure what they're deal is. They were lead by a flying general with a long nose. Next up was the Choju-ji - but it was closed. Bummer. Then the Meigetsuin, which was full of some flowers, and the Yakuo-ji. The Yakuo-ji was along a neat old street that cuts through the hills, but was not too remarkable. By now I was feeling the film hurt so no pictures of these two. Then came the Kaizo-ji, which was also a small place but it had a fabulous moss garden, and moss gardens are most definitely favorites of mine. The Jokomyo-ji had a tree with beautiful white flowers, I think a Japanese sort of magnolia. The Jufuku-ji had a neat moss lined road, though it was already too late by the time we got there to go into it. The shrine next to it, which had no name marked, had a delightful large tree. The last few we saw this day were mostly of the neat small variety, they all had little charming bits that were nice to see winding down after the very Tsurugoka Hachiman-gu and Kencho-ji. For dinner we went to an Italian place that was really great, I got a delightful pumpkin pasta. Japanese pumpkin is a tasty thing. They are not as bound to what we (or the Italians) might consider Italian food to be. We had a friendly waitress, too, she was an art history student who had been to the US and was hoping to come here to study in the future. She was keen on talking to us, and this was very pleasant. Yay for Hana.
Next day, we started our day off right, and had some doughnuts. Then... then I stopped writing down what we did each in my book. This is not so good. Alright, so, completely from memory... We went to Shinjuku! This is a main downtown area. East of the station you have some department stores, some red light district (nothing too flashy in the afternoon though, when we were there), some tall buildings. We find the internet! We use the internet and I get messaged by Kiku '06, who is in Tokyo as well! We plan to meet for dinner. Awesome, friends in Tokyo! Then we go to the west side of Shinjuku, which has even larger buildings and a little park. We went into the municipal government buildings, which allow you to go way up to an observation deck for free. We observed! It was a lovely view over the city but too cloudy to see out to Fuji. So sad. Then back on the first floor was the tourism bureau, where I picked up every English publication we could find. Then we met up with Kiku near her work. Ooh, I can go plug her art a bit! She's also working with an animation festival in Hiroshima, but I don't have any links for that. We walked around a bit, were told not to take pictures of the Russian Embassy (but such beautiful Soviet style architecture!), took plenty pictures of the Tokyo Tower, ate some fruit, and found a place for dinner. Yay for dinner. We made it home just in time to check in to our hotel.
The next day we museumed. We went over to the Ueno park, and saw a bit of the park grounds first. There is a lovely statue of a samurai walking his dog, a shrine by a bridge, an old Tokugawa era shrine that survived the trying times Tokyo has had in the last 300 years, and a statue of a Meiji era prince looking like quite the western general. It's a lovely bit of park. The main reason we were there was for the Tokyo National Museum. This is a fabulous museum, housed in a few buildings. There was no special collection happening, so that was right out. There was the collection of treasures from Horyu-ji. This was probably the best collection they had. Since we came to see it, I am not bummed that these were all missing when we were in Horyu-ji two weeks prior (right outside Nara, oldest wooden building, remember?). There was a really fantastic ceremonial canopy on display, and a whole bunch of bronze statues. The bronzes were all in Asuka and Nara period styles, with a lot of elongation and flowiness. They were fantastic. After viewing the Horyu-ji stuff, it was time for ever popular over priced museum lunch! It's a crowd pleaser in every country. Then there were the main collections. These had a lot of great pieces of historical art, some really cool pottery and swords. Some excellent statues - there was a great one of Dainichi that they had just acquired that had some fancy crystals put inside of it. The modern art section was also really nice, but pretty scant. If we were in Tokyo longer I'd have loved to check out a more dedicated museum for modern stuff, but it can be pretty hit or miss with these things. Some really nice paintings too. After the main collection we had to move a bit speedily through the archaeological collection (delightful! yay for haniwa statues!) and the other Asian civilizations collection (also delightful!). After this we went to another shrine nearby, it was another older one that has survived. Less fancy than the first one we saw that day, but still excellent. In the evening we went for some more internet - and Lani '09 is also in Japan! She has no LJ either. What bums these people are. Anyway, we plan more dinner for Friday, our last in Japan. Or maybe the plans were made on the following day. Whatever, plans were made.
Next day we get up and check out the Senso-ji, the very large temple near where we were staying. It is a delightful temple! The highlight was absolutely without a doubt the cat sleeping underneath one of the lion-dog statues. Too cute! Let me tell you, if you want to feel an enlightened mind, a happy sleepy cat is much better than any Buddha statue. At least this is what I say. After Senso-ji we head over to the Sumida-gawa to take a boat down the river. The boat passes by a bunch of bridges. They are pretty good bridges! The boat deposits us at the Detached Imperial Garden, which has another name. These are some beautiful gardens. There are lovely pine trees and rocks, and some awesome ponds. The ponds are formed from sea water, so you get an interesting effect. We ambled around there for a while. There are nice views of the tall downtown buildings rising up over the peaceful gardens, and you can look out over the Tokyo Bay. There are some tea houses on the property to, and a duck hunting blind as well as a monument made in the 30's to pacify the spirits of all the ducks killed earlier on. Leaving the garden you are right next to Ginza, the old downtown Park Avenue ish place. Not a lot of specific attractions, just a neat place to be and have some downtown time. Maybe if you liked shopping more than we did you would have a really awesome, focused time, but we just ambled. There was the kabuki theater, and the Sony building (full of loot they wanted to show off), and we could walk up to the Imperial Gardens but then not go in. Too late! Then it is time to find dinner. Dinner we could afford, a non trivial task in Ginza. Indian food pulls through!
Next day is our last in Japan. We first went down to Shibuya. This is a place that reportedly the youths are all about. There is a statue of an Akita dog who did the thing that Fry's dog did in Futurama. This is even sadder when it is real so they made a statue for him. There are also a bunch more stores! We walk up a bit to the Meiji-jingu. This one is a reconstruction but it is still done all with traditional construction methods, so it was quite nice. And in lovely park grounds! The torii for the shrine were made with huge 1500 year old cypress that had to be brought over from Taiwan in the 70's. Maaaaybe I'd have been more OK with letting the trees be, but still, the torii was excellent, as was the main shrine. Then we went to Harajuku. It is also popular with the kids these days. Kinda reminds me of St. Mark's back in New York. Young rebel culture, available at conformist prices! What a deal! We spent a good long while in Kiddyland. This is the best store in Japan. The second floor is the best floor in Japan, because it had all the Ghibli stuff. I acquired a cellphone ornament and a picture frame which both featured Catbus and Totoro. They also had videos going, and we essentially just stood there and watched all of Laputa: Castle in the Sky. You don't even need subtitles to know what is going on in this film, for the most part, and it was excellent. If we had taken a few steps to the left we also had the option of watching Kiki's Delivery Service. One day when I have more money than Croesus I will buy the ridiculously large Totoro. (Spell check has regained some of my respect for knowing who Croesus is, or at least knowing that I spelled his name correctly.) After this we had ice cream (it was a good vacation for ice cream) and wandered through Harajuku some more before meeting up with Lani and Kiku. There was a long group dinner, some ambling through entertainment places, and McDonald's ice cream. Good times were had by all! This dinner was I think the only one where I failed at ordering. It looked like a lovely beef and cabbage dish, and it was, except that the beef was all liver. Lose lose. Then we bid our adieus and made our way home. It was so excellent to catch them!
Next day we did have a good amount of time before our flight left. We ambled around the area near our hotel some more. There was one district that sold tons of restaurant supplies. The most interesting ones were all of the plastic food items they use for displays. There were also some neat small shrines and a temple. At one they were preparing for a festival, a few people were set up already. I got a free hot syruppy cucumber thing drink! It was really odd, as you might guess. Then back we go to the hotel, we hoist our bags, and we set off for the airport. We totally pwn airport food pricing using a bunch of McDonald's coupons that Christiana was handed in Shinjuku. They must honor them everywhere in Japan, even inside airports! Woot. They're not just for ice cream anymore.
<\lj-cut>
So, the Tokyo airport is the best airport in the world. This is because there were representatives from a scotch company (Balvenie, iirc) handing out drinks. This does not happen nearly enough in American airports. And then, we were home. We were greeting by a miserably failing T filled with drunken louts arguing about baseball. Welcome to Boston!