20 Hours Of Fun: Return of the Tokyo

So a few weeks back word on the street was one of my uncles was coming to Tokyo to give some special talks. He asked if we could meet up. As it turned out there were some scheduling issues and we could arrange just 24 hours together. (I worked on Friday and he though he had hoped to stay til Sunday, he had to leave Saturday afternoon.) I thought of a handful of fun things we could do... Maybe we could visit Asakusa, Shibuya, or Shinjuku. Those are the Tokyo hot spots to hit, especially if it's your first time in Tokyo.

Well a few days before I went down to Tokyo he mentioned he was taking a bus tour of Tokyo, which pretty much eliminated all of my options and then some. So I thought hard of other places... the only one I could think of was Tsukiji fish market. I'd never actually been, but I'd heard good things. The one problem with this was that you have to go between 5am and 6am to see the real entertaining stuff. While times like this are easy for a jet lagged recent arrival to Japan, it's by no means deal for me on one of the few days can sleep in a bit so I continued to think.

I took the train to Tokyo after school on Friday and headed to where my uncle would be giving a lecture to some Japanese scientists (pathologists and toxicologists, I believe) and I would join them for the last few lectures (which would be in Japanese) and the reception at the end. Well... let me tell you, if there's one thing I've learned about Japan it's that they loooooooooove their receptions.

I made it at the exact moment my uncle's speech ended and he was walking to his "green room" of sorts to rest up a bit. We chatted for a while and I was introduced to all the people who had been helping him out. We watched a speech and then joined the hundred other doctors in the reception room for lots of drinking and lots of food. (My uncle and I didn't drink a lot, most of the older scientists did though) There were lots of jokes about things I didn't understand. My uncle and I got separated and I met his Japanese friends and we all chatted for a while. I then walked over to the food buffet and got ready to chow down when one of my uncle's friends approached me with a young Japanese pathologist.

"Michael, this woman would like to speak with you!" he said.

"Hello!" I said, "I'm Mike!"

The man spoke for the woman, "Is it true you speak Japanese?"

"Yes, I do."

She chimed in with a "Yoroshikuonegaishimasu." which is basically a "Nice to meet you." kind of thing... it's one of the things you say when you meet someone for the first time.

"Yoroshikuonegaishimasu" I responded, and of course as always it was followed by the Japanese folks laughing when they hear you speak Japanese. Japanese people tend to laugh at anyone who says any single word in Japanese. Not necessarily in a mean way, really. It's similar to the reaction one might have when parrot mimics human speech. "HAHA! DID YOU HEAR THAT!?!? CRAZY! Make it say something else!" It wears off quickly if you have a decent handle on Japanese so after a few sentences they tend to calm down. Every now and then if you say something REALLY grammatically correct they'll go "Woah, you're SO good." Which is nice to hear, except it's awkward because you're not really supposed to accept compliments in Japanese, if they say "you're good at Japanese." you must say "No, I'm not." if they say "You're so smart." you must say "No, I'm not." Even if they say "Your Mom looks pretty." Apparently, I still don't believe this one, you're supposed to say "No, she doesn't." You or no one in your family should ever receive a complement with a "Thank you!" or "Arigatou!" Though, sometimes it slips with me and no one seems to get offended.

ANYWAY, I'm off topic.

So after we exchange out little "hello" the man asks, "So, you are single, right?"

Awkward.

"No, I have a girlfriend." I said.

At the same time both the man and this pathologist go "AWWWW~! ZANNEN!" which is Japanese for "AWWWW~! TOO BAD!"

Then it got even weirder because the guy goes, "Well, nevermind." And the girl just turns around and walks away. Then it got EVEN weirder when he puts his arm around my shoulder and said "This is when you are supposed to pretend like you don't have a girlfriend!" followed by a firm pat on my butt. "Heh. Heh... Heh... uh... ok... well... this... shrimp tastes... good."

Later in the reception a woman called me "Gorgeous." Gorgeous isn't a word I'd ever used to describe myself and I know it's not a word anyone other than this lady would use to describe me. Maybe she meant something else like "porpoise" or that I looked like a woman named "Dolores." (I don't know any other words that rhyme well with gorgeous.) But then I again, I DID just get a haircut, so I AM lookin pretty good these days.

It was here that people started asking what our plan was tomorrow. Some of his Japanese friends would join us around 8:30 to go around Tokyo together, but we had to think of something that he'd like to do. Someone mentioned "What about tsukij!" and my uncle said, "I heard that's great! But you have to go early, right?" "Right." the person said. "Well," my uncle continued, "I'm fine with it! let's go." I decided, what the heck, if I'm gonna get up at 4:00 am to go to a fish market, why not. It was early, the party was wrapping up and I could get to bed soon because I was tired for traveling so much that day.

Post reception my Uncle mentioned he hadn't seen much of Tokyo at night and he wanted to see some cool spots. Shibuya is my favorite night view in Tokyo. Shinjuku and Ginza are cool, but Shibuya has one of the busiest intersections in the world. (It's in Lost In Translation if you've ever seen that. There's a building that has a giant TV on it and dinosaur walking across it... it's that area.) I thought it was closer to where we were, but I was wrong.

We stopped at the hotel and dropped out bags off and walked back to Tokyo station and took the train there. We arrived in Shibuya around 10. We walked around look at stores and then decided to take a rest in Starbucks which over looks the really busy intersection. We each had a scone and at about 11:30 we decided to head back and get some rest, since we'd be getting up at 4:00am.

We got back to the hotel at midnight and I set my alarm for 4. I closed my eyes and what felt like 30 seconds later my alarm went off. "Well," Uncle David said. "Let's go."

We went to Tsukiji Fish Market. For those of you who don't know, Tsukiji Fish Market is a morning Market where a lot of the fish for Japan comes from. It's whole sale. There were enormous octopus legs, fish you'd never even seen or heard of before, live fish, half alive fish, and of course dead fish. There were red fish, white fish, blue fish, bloody fish, green fish, eels, and various other monsters of the sea. The most famous part of this attraction is the "Tuna Auction" Tunas that are about 3 to 6 feet long are auctioned off and sold for thousands of dollars. Viewers are only allowed to enter one of the many auctions and they start at 5:15am and end at 6:15am.

It was absolutely worth getting up at 4:00 in the morning for, even though we were almost killed for every step we took. There are these motor-cart things that guys drive around to bring fish to the various market stalls. (We even witnessed a head on collision of two of the carts... the two men exchanged a look and no one seemed alarmed except my uncle and I.) We also didn't see the maps that are given to visitors at the entrance and got completely lost. We wandered into a section that visitors aren't allowed to go to. There were huge tanks of live fish. They were flapping around splashing water and leaping out. Eventually someone told us where to go, though, the people who work there are some of the most intimidating people I've come across in Japan. They have stone cold looks on their faces and are ready to plow you over with their carts at any given moment.

We got back to the hotel at 6:30. I slept until 7:30 then we got ready for our day ahead of us. A museum, a park, curry for lunch, and then we'd go our separate ways.

The Edo Tokyo History Museum was pretty nice except my uncle made the mistake of requesting one of the volunteer guides. The museum was a giant room where half is built to look like Edo-period Tokyo (a.k.a. Edo) and the other half is post Meiji resoration Tokyo (a.k.a. when Edo's name was changed to Tokyo.) Within this replica city there were true artifacts from these times, it looked exciting. Before we even took one step into the exhibit the guide spoke to us for about 15 minutes, (which with the lack of sleep gave it more a half-time feel so it felt closer to 30 minutes... maybe even 40.) Then we started looking at stuff. After about an hour we had made it through about 6% of the museum. Time was crucial today since we wanted to get lunch and go to a park before my uncle left for home so but no one had the heart to tell this old volunteer historian that we didn't need to know eeeeevery detal of Japan's history. (Though, I did learn that average height of females then was 140 centimeters (4'6'') and men was 150 centimeters (4'9'') Which is crazy!)

Eventually we told him and he gave us a speed tour so we could get to another part of the museum before we left.

We did a speed walk of the "Shin-hanga" exhibit. Which was the "Modern woodblock prints" of Japan. They came from the late 1800s through 1960s and they blew my mind. It was probably one of the most beautiful exhibits I'd ever seen and I unfortunately only had about 10 minutes to see it. I bought the book of the exhibit at the end though.

We skipped Ueno Park and rushed back to Tokyo station, got curry for lunch. Went back to the hotel, got out bags and made it to the station for goodbyes and then I got on the train back to Urasa and fell asleep.

WHEW! 24 hours in Tokyo, 4 of them were sleeping. I can honestly say I never thought I'd make friends with Japanese scientists, get awkwardly picked up by Japanese pathologists, or watch 6 foot sea monsters get sold for thousands of dollars while almost being killed by little fast motor-carts... adventures with family does it really get any better than that?

Stay tuned for some photos!

*I apologize if there are more spelling and grammar mistakes than usual. I still haven't slept much today.