First official visitor to Tokyo

My good friend and former college roomie stopped by Tokyo for a visit on her way to Hong Kong.  She was our very first visitor who’s stayed in our apartment.  So Henry and I opened up the air mattress and inflated it for the first time.  It fits very snugly in the extra room/office.  So here are some of the highlights from her visit.  When she arrived (thanks to Henry’s excellent, detailed instructions) we went out for some Japanese Italian food at Shibuya Pasta.  Henry was the brave one and tried the spaghetti with grated daikon, seaweed and cod roe.  He said it was ok but probably wouldn’t find himself craving it.  Selina tried the meat sauce spaghetti with Japanese mushrooms.  I tried the clams with butter garlic sauce.  Not bad at all.

While I went to work the next day, Henry and Selina went to the Imperial Palace and Asakusa (Sensoji Tmeple).  But first, a breakfast of beef bowls at Yoshinoya. Apparently, if you want a tour of the Imperial Palace then you need to make an appointment, otherwise you can just walk around the outer garden and moat area.  While they were walking around, they noticed workers trimming trees so they looked like large size bansai trees.  

After a stop in Roppongi for a lunch of sushi bowls, they went to Asakusa and had some soba before I met them in Ginza in front of the Kabuki-za theatre for one act of a kabuki play.  I’ve actually never seen kabuki and it was quite interesting.  It reminded me a little of classical Chinese opera but not quite as colorful or with such loud music.  As with most things in Japan, it seemed simpler, more serene.  They do speak with strange inflections though and now I understand where the strange voices of some of the characters in Japanese anime come from.  After the kabuki play we went for some chanko nabe and unique sashimi (see Henry’s post below). 

The next day, Selina and I headed to Mt. Fuji and Hakone on an English guided tour.  The views of Mt. Fuji were quite beautiful.  We stopped by the visitor center and near the base of the mountain because the road was too icy to go much further in the bus.

 Then, we stopped by Hakone and Lake Ashi before heading up the mountain in gondola.  At the top of the mountain, it SNOWED!

 Big fluffy flakes of snow swirled about as we gazed down at Hakone and Lake Ashi.  Hakone was quite nice, nestled in a valley between various mountains.  Autumn is supposed to be the high season since people come in droves (mostly from Tokyo) to see the colorful autumn leaves.  There are supposed to be some wonderful onsen ryokans (hot spring inns)  as well.  We took the bullet train back to Tokyo and rested before dinner.  Dinner was at Ninja Akasaka and deserves a separate post below.

We had sushi for lunch the next day and went to check out the Meiji Shrine.  (So a Temple in Japan always refers to a Buddhist Temple and a Shrine always refers to a Shinto Shrine.) Wednesday February 11th was a holiday in Japan, National Foundation Day to be exact so we were expecting crowds but we also saw the occasional van decked out in Japanese flags blaring what we assumed to be national pride messages.  When we got off a Harajuku station, we noticed quite a lot of people in happi coats (traditional Japanese coats with distinctive crests worn for Japanese festivals). When we got close to the shrine we noticed the mikoshi or Japanese portable shrines mostly seen at festivals.  We had heard about such festivals before so that wasn’t surprising.  What was surprising was that some men were wearing what seemed to be happi coats and ONLY happi coats.  

And it was still cold outside!  I thought perhaps they were wearing really short shorts underneath but…   We ended up at Togo Shrine down the street which was peaceful and hosting at least two wedding ceremonies.  All in all, I think if you’re not that into shopping and don’t want to see all the shrines and temples in the city, you can see all the major Tokyo sites in 3-4 days, then I would hit Kyoto and maybe one of the national parks outside of Tokyo like Hakone or Nikko.  Of course, at this time of year, you can go skiing/snow boarding as well either in Hokkaido or not far outside of Tokyo.