and we are back in Tokyo!
Here's what has been going on:
After my last post we headed out for more yakitori, and then we were off to Gion for another night of street-wandering and beers.
When we came out of the German pub the night before we spotted a sign for a bar that we decided we had to come back to:
But finding your way back to a specific place in Gion, as tourists, is pretty difficult. After much re-tracing of steps and wrong alleys walked down, and about an hour and a half, we found ourselves at the Rat and Boar, where there was the bartender and two locals drinking. We wern't sure if we would be comfortable there, but after about 5 minutes we were laughing and talking with the 3 guys - we really had the best time. We talked and laughed and bought eachother drinks for maybe 3 hours until we were all giggling - it's amazing how easy it is to work past any language barrier here - "mind and body speak" as one of the guys said that night. Our two friends left and then it was just us with the bartender for a while
I took his picture so that I can send him a little painting of it. He had art and postcards on the walls from all over - people stop by and drink and then send him stuff when they get home.
Then, it was back into the streets.
We really like Gion. The walk home after that night was a little rough, but we had some help finding our way from some other travellers we met:
And we slept in a little the next morning. Which was OK, because we were off to our next hotel, which was in fact a ryoken, which was actually about 2 blocks away from K's House - so we didn't even have to drag our luggage that far. We checked in and then went for coffee and toast down the street. The toast here is huge and fluffy and full of butter and like a whole meal.
This coffee shop on the corner doesn't look like much, but when you go in the tables overlook a gigantic basement cement cistern-thing that's loaded with giant koy. Woa.
After coffee we went to nijo castle, which was gorgeous and very neat - the nightengale floors are awesome and I really liked the paintings inside. No pictures are allowed inside, so I bought postcards of some of the paintings.
I am wearing long sleeves in this picture because Kyoto is so freaking hot and sunny that I started getting a wierd sun/heat rash thing. It's fine now, I've been staying out of the sun and it's gone away. Bleh.
Anyway, the walk from Nijo castle to the Imperial Palace just happens to go past this place:
-we're dorks,remember?-
This place was very interesting. Lots of displays of old old old manga, the gigantic wall of manga, and demonstrations... and there was a pretty neat gift shop that had this little gem:
Yep, I am now the proud owner of a small reproduction of the Scroll of the Frollicking Animals. Hooray!!!
OK, then we walked to the Imperial Palace, and didn't see much but it was a nice walk. We were pretty beat so we headed back to our Ryoken where we were shown into our room, had some nice green tea on the balcony that overlooked the garden, and then had our first onsen-style bath, which was nice after the walking walking walking. Then up to the room to rest before dinner
Dinner was very tasty. We ate everything. That Ed ate everything amazes me still - when we met he wouldn't eat sushi and now he eats anything Kasekai that's put in front of him, even stuff I think twice about.
The seafood again was great. Instead of sea breem we had mackerel, and shrimps, and tons of other stuff, it was a 2 hour meal with many many courses. This is the rice and soup course.
Kasekai makes us sleepy, so we crashed right after dinner on our futons. Then it was up at 7 for breakfeast:
Which was very tasty but I couldn't eat the sesame tofu stuff (grey, above). Then we got a ride to the Shinkansen from the inn-keeper's husband (very nice!) and we were off to Tokyo, the good old Oak Hotel, and Harajuku!
It was good to go back and see some of the stuff we missed the first time, like the Rockabilly guys
And Takeshita Street - where I am happy to say that one of our big goals for Tokyo was met -
Take Funny Pictures in a Harajuku Photobooth!!!
They're little tiny stickers. Score.
After that it was off to Shinjuku
Where we had some beers on the street
...and we *finally* sat down to a nice good sushi dinner. It was great. We're going back to this place tomorrow night. Then after dinner we hopped back on the train to Ueno, where we finished the evening here:
I could do an entire blog post about this store. If you are into any sort of toys, whether obscure or popular or anything, you must stop here. It is right across the street from Ueno Station, and it is no less than SEVEN FLOORS of plasticy, plushy, cutesy, obscure goodness.
Any toy you ever want, they have it. Old vintage stuff, new Juxtapose stuff, and everything in the middle. And, bubble vending machines on every floor.
But in the end this was all that mattered:
We were starting to think that we'd never find anything Cromartie-related, and then there it was, this little box. Mission Accomplished! We have Cromartie High School junk!! WOOOOOOO!!!!
We bought four! Whatever could they be?
The Pohs, a Mechazawa, and Freddie and his horse!!!
OK, sorry, we're geeks, but we're happy geeks.
Off to bed! More tomorrow
xoxoxo
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