見ているだけ (Mite iru dake) - Just looking

Also, what happened to all the trash cans?

Time for some comfort to recover from Paul

This morning started with every intention of getting the previous post out, but we're not kids anymore, and bouncing back from a concert like that took some time. First things first, Tylenol, Advil, water, and plenty of groaning about everything hurting. This morning was the first day we woke up after around four in the morning, closer to seven this time. It was cracking us up that getting up then felt like sleeping in like bums. Never-the-less, the one cup of tea in the hotel room wasn't going to cut it, and we needed something familiar, and with a kick. Ready the Bat Copter for a trip to Starbucks!

Coffee rejuvenates the
soul, briefly

One of the things I find interesting is how I'll throw on a pair of jeans and a shirt (socks and shoes too, naturally), and I'm set to walk around at street level. All of the local people, however, seem to bundle up in heavy winter coats, often accompanied with boots. This leads me to believe, while it may snow here, it never really gets as cold for as long as it does back in Chicago. It's been fairly consistently between 50°f (10°c) and 60°f (15.5°c), sometimes even getting as warm as 70°f (21°c), yet everyone dresses like it's 32°f (0°c) and lower, and they are blasting heat everywhere. Perhaps it's the generally skinnier population and better diet. 

Speaking of diet, we've tried to share a lot about what we've consumed, and are really trying to try whatever we come across even though it could be just about anything. Through all the various types of sushi, and unidentifiable (by smell or flavor) other foods, there have been no stomach issues. No indigestion. No nauseous feelings. Not even a gurgling stomach, except when waiting too long to eat. That is, until we went to Starbucks. My stomach was really doing loops after that. The Art Girl believes it was all the heavy cream in the coffee. For several days now, everything we've eaten has been light and generally devoid of cream. Even that Choco Cookie Chou thing was pretty light. We both felt rather sluggish and heavy after there too. Sure the caffeine did its usual trick, but the rest just seemed to weigh on us.

After Starbucks we headed back to the hotel to finish recovering from last night, and write the post I had been meaning to work on. I had brought my laptop to Starbucks, but sadly I couldn't use their wifi until I registered, and I couldn't register until I validated my email address. There are three mobile networks here, and for some reason my work phone, which was supposed to have international voice, texting, and data, said its SIM was configured not to connect to these networks. I thought this was strange because my personal phone was all over trying to connect, and even did so before I stopped that craziness. Since we didn't pay for any international plans on our phones, I didn't want to risk accidentally using it and ending up spending a fortune when we got back.

Christmas trees abound in our hotel lobby, and two views from the top of our hotel building

Another fascinating this is the depth of adoption of the Christmas season here. Everywhere you go there are lights adorning trees, buildings and bushes, and many stores and restaurants play traditional Christmas music. You haven't really lived until you've eaten sushi in Japan, while listening to "Felis Navid" sung in Japanese! My research indicates that Japan started bringing in western traditions of Christmas during the late 1800s and early 1900s. This is, however, a non-religious affair, and more of a family and friends sharing of meals and gifts. They do decorate trees and have even convinced Santa to come visit them. 

Another element of Christmas they want to mirror is the traditional turkey dinner, but turkey is not readily available in the land of the rising sun, so an unusual solution has apparently resulted. A prized entree for Christmas dinner here is a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken; so much so that they will reserve theirs months in advance. This started as a few's humble creativeness in the early 1970s, but when the corporate eventually heard of this practice, the marketing campaign “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (Kentucky for Christmas!) was started in 1974, and since KFC has done everything it can to remain a Japanese tradition.

While I worked on the blog, The Art Girl took a quick nap, then by mid-afternoon we were back out. This time our primary objective was to find the source of the amazing smell in one area of Shinjuku Station. This turned out to be a Danish bread / pastry stall, though, the food clearly had the modern, perfectionist style applied. Not many European breads and pastries I've seen have perfectly molded shapes, but OH MY GOD the maple bread log thing was beyond ridiculous delicious. The Art Girl and I agree we could easily eat just those for the rest of our lives and be perfectly happy.

That shirt was flapping!

Now with a decadent carb load powering us, we delved deeper into Shinjuku station, finding that it went on much farther than we previously realized. And spent much of our time wandering around and shopping. Ultimately landing in Studio Alta mall which is geared towards Tokyo's young women. The Art Girl's kind of place. Everything is cute, colorful, over-the-top, dark, strange, old-school, or all of them wrapped into one polyverse of materialistic bliss. We were quite the site wandering around the mall, and many of the young girls working there seemed thrilled in our interest and fascination. There was a shirt I almost bought for someone at work, but decided against it.

Have you ever seen someone in America (or other 'western' countries) with Japanese or Chinese letters tattooed on them, and thought it probably means something totally different than what they thought? Well, let's just say I've never seen so many shirts, hats, and other clothing items with as crazy and inane nonsense as at Studio Alta. It seems to be fashionable to get a single English word or short phrase, like "Mate", or "Flap" and many others. I don't want to give too much away because there may be some coming back with us as surprises. Like I said, though, the girls working there loved our reaction to them. 

After our journey through Studio Alta we popped out the other side on street level on the East side of Shinjuku and wandered around amidst the neon and flashing lights. We really had no particular destination in mind and were exploring, criss-crossing our way around between Shinjuku-Dori and Yasukuni-Dori. It became clear to us that we were on the edge of Tokyo's red-light district (conveniently located in the major financial / business center area of Shinjuku) when we saw a sign for what Andrea thought might be a store that sells belly dance outfits, and tried to go to it. The place appeared to be on the 7th floor, and was accessible by a tiny, dimly lit elevator. When we arrived on the 7th floor, we stepped out to a tiny hallway that couldn't have been more than 15 feet long by 3 feet wide. It looked just like the entrance to a haunted house or something. We both agreed we were very likely somewhere we weren't ready to handle, so we scurried away.

Here are some pictures from our exploration on the east side of Shin-juku:

South view looking across Shinjuku-Dori

Looking back West along Shinjuku-Dori

     

 East along Shinjuku-Dori, one of the many well lit walkways full of restaurants, and the only picture to come out while on the seventh floor of where we did not belong.

We decided this was "Demon Ramen Restaurant"

This is where we're going for a meal tomorrow or Thursday.
Conveyor belt sushi, made fresh in the center!

I have no idea what this thing is, but sweeeeet.

Nearing that point where going further would be problematic we headed back to a place to eat that we spotted earlier in the day, somewhere along the path toward Shinjuku Station. On arrival, the waiter was eager to serve us, but spoke very little English (more than we spoke Japanese, though, so it was workable. I had my heart set on this place because I saw they had meat on sticks, and a hot dinner was right up my alley for today. We fumbled our way through ordering a couple beers, a shared salad, and the flight of meat on sticks that I so wanted. Shortly thereafter our waiter brought our beer, and small bowls of some sesame oil covered nut and vegetable dish. The salad we ordered was tasty despite the surprise addition of fried duck skin and a curious looking Japanese mushroom. 

Some of the biggest surprises came, however, with the meats. There was (following clockwise from around 9-10 o'clock in the below picture) bone-in dark meat with skin on double skewers, chicken and green onions, another chicken with a citrus-like salmon pateé, fried chicken fat nuggets, seared something or other with a raw center, and some sort of sausage patty that we assume was made using gizzards or chicken hearts or something. It was all very good, albeit different, and exactly what we were looking for. Something local, warm, and comforting, yet still far outside the comfort zone of familiarity.

Proof that we ate all the meats. The salad we ate most of, but by this point, and a second round of beer, we were stuffed.

 After finishing our meal, we gave our regards to the chef for a delicious meal, which really seemed to make our waiter light up and beam in pride. Our bill paid, and bellies full, we decided to head back for some Japanese/Danish maple bread crack. If only those things would survive a day+ of travel and storage, we'd bring back all we could carry. They will be dearly missed when we go back home. Curiously, there is a lack of garbage cans throughout the area. They are very in to recycling here. For example, at Starbucks the trash station has separate tubes for cups and lids that stack them up for recycling, and another section for other types of papers, and a tiny little area for actual trash. Props to them for making recycling so important and part of life, but for the love of Gojira, put some more trash and recycling stations around the city! We could wander about for ten minutes before finding somewhere to drop the obscene amount of packaging the wrap everything in.

To close out this post, please enjoy a few more pictures of our journey back to the hotel.

The underground tunnel leading in to Shinjuku Station

We call this the "Shinjuku Eye". It can be found as you enter into Shinjuku Station from the West

An example of some of the Christmas lights adorning the city

Jikai made (次回まで)

Till next time

-Geek