Tookyou so long

I went to 東京 this weekend. This can be romanized as "Tokyo" or "Toukyou" or "Tookyoo" but the one that's really correct is the second. You can also put a flat mark above each "o" in the first option but I feel like that doesn't tell you the whole story. I have decided to mix the last two romanizations.

It was fun. I can start with the Imperial Castle grounds, which are pretty and pretty strange. You can't go inside the walls (unless it's New Year's, I think), and the grass is cut to about a height of .1 mm, which makes it really prickly and hard to sit on. Then there's アメ横 (Ameyoko), a long street with tons of fresh fish and decently-priced clothes being sold really enthusiastically, as well as a really awesome supermarket that sells imported products, including COOKIES WITH A DECENT AMOUNT OF SUGAR IN THEM (this particular package was imported from Canada). I also got a new winter jacket there that it turns out isn't really that warm or that great-looking. Maybe I'll sell it at a used clothing store before I leave here and make a profit. hee hee. It was only 5180 yen, a 60% discount off the original price, I believe.

After that, we went to Roppongi where I learned I had missed Sébastien Tellier (the Greek god who represented France this year for Eurovision) by about 5 hours. Aww. There was another French act that was performing and it sounded pretty good. And the lights, the lights were pretty. Pictures on Facebook eventually.

Also that night, we went to Tokyo Tower by accident, thinking it was a smaller tower in Roppongi, and went to the 150m-high observatory. Tokyo isn't as pretty as Osaka is at night, but it goes. on. forever. There is nothing more strange than seeing a city extend seemingly infinitely in all directions around you. Admittedly, it was night, but I think in the daytime you'd still get that feeling.

We ate at a French restaurant that was on the cheap side for a French restaurant in Tokyo, which isn't saying much. The food was good, though. It's been so long since I've been to a restaurant where they give you bread for free along with the rest of your meal. And after that, home.

Or, rather, hotel. But something was very home-like about that hotel: the neighborhood around it (in Ueno) was very, very quiet. I couldn't believe how quiet it was. I said several times (as a joke that nobody really found funny haha) that "Tokyo's sure a quiet city, isn't it?" Even in Roppongi late at night, which is home to several clubs and restaurants that I'd think a reasonable amount of people would frequent, it was still rather quiet.

This country is too quiet.

The next day we woke up and made it over to Asakusa to see a temple or shrine whose name I forget. It's one of the oldest in the city (or maybe the oldest in Japan, or oldest in Tokyo; I can't remember) and was rather noisy. Isn't it interesting how the holy places are on the noisy side and the non-holy places are so quiet? Hmm. Well, the fake autumn leaves that they had above each stall in the shopping street right in front of the temple were quite picture-worthy. Oh, yeah; one thing I did this weekend was take too many pictures. And particularly yesterday.

Shibuya had a big, famous intersection where tons of people cross, but little else unique. The Italian restaurant we went to had a good pizza, though. Then we went to Harajuku. Oh, Harajuku, how I missed you. With little in the way of men's clothes, I didn't buy anything. Words pretty much fail this place, with its narrow, narrow main street and strange stores, many of which I can recall being there three years ago. I looked for good Engrish shirts; the Engrish I recall being good but the shirts weren't. :-*(

Train again, Ueno again. It was this day (Sunday) that I revisited Ameyoko and got my Adidas winter jacket. Then we went to Roppongi again and ate at a restaurant called Havana Cafe. I had a cheeseburger; 外人スマシュ! (Gaijin smash!). Then we almost managed to get back to the hotel at a decent hour but decided to do karaoke which became 90 minutes when we originally planned on 30. I couldn't hit the high notes on "Somewhere Only We Know"; lame.

Monday was a holiday, at least at our University. We took the opportunity to go to Mt. Fuji. Well, at least we tried, but we were informed later that the bus going to the mountain was out of service because of "many snow" (she probably was thinking 大雪, which means "a lot of snow" but could be literally translated as "big snow"). We went instead to a lake nearby, and this was probably the prettiest part of the trip for some reason. And this wasn't even the lake itself so much as the walk on the random streets on the way to the lake. I took about 400 pictures there and I still don't know why. The rain and the autumn leaves and the rather rural surroundings were the Japan I had been waiting to see. I don't know... I think that when you take Japan and add a lot of space to it, that's my dream Japan.

But as we took a gondola up Mt. Kachikachi which promised a view of Fuji on a good day, I realized I was sick. This is why my writing is so stunted right now and why the 7 hours I was on trains and in train stations on the way back were so horrible. But yeah, I was glad to be back someplace where I have a lot of memories from. And I took pictures of the Prince Hotel where we stayed from the Tokyo Tower. They came back blurry, as do so many memories. It was nice to see my memories in full color again, this time the color being autumn.