So, I've decided that the easiest way to tell tales about our trip to Tokyo is to divide the days into individual blog posts. That way, it also works out to each blog post being about one district in Tokyo that we went to, since we essentially went to a district a day. (Tokyo is so big that it's divided into sections, called 'districts'. Each district caters to different types of people, and is known for different things for the most part.) However, this first post isn't really going to be about a particular district, it's just about us getting there, and our first night there.
The above picture is the outside of a restaurant in Tokyo that we saw as we were walking from the train stop to the subway station. The arms and legs of the crab actually move, it's pretty amazing! I was told later that this is a fairly famous chain of restaurants across Japan, and this is the main one. Apparently it only serves crab, and crab related food though (obviously...), so I had no desire to go eat there. But I'm getting ahead of myself!
The day started with us getting up, grabbing our bags, and driving to the local train station. We rode the local line over to Ninohe, where we then transferred onto a shinkansen, or one of the famous 'bullet trains'. The picture above is of the side of the one we rode as it pulled into the station. They go so fast!!!! It only took us a little over 2 hours to go all the way from where we live, the top of the main island of Japan, down to Tokyo. As we rode it, there were a couple places where it was already snowing, so I took some pictures of the snow on the tracks outside of our window.
When we arrived in Tokyo, one of the first things we saw was a beautiful stained glass mural of a woman standing by the sea. That's the picture you see directly above. It's a good thing they have such a peaceful mural there to calm passengers, because there is certainly nothing else even remotely serene about the main Tokyo train station. To say it was crowded would be the understatement of the year, and even with the English signs it took Aaron and me a good 45 minutes to find where the subway entrance was, and how to get to the exit by our hotel. We eventually figured it out though, and got safely to our hotel to drop off our bags. We were too early to check in though, so we walked around the neighborhood of our hotel and ate lunch at a nice little cafe near-by. The Hanzoman area, where our hotel was, is mostly a residential and business area, so it's very quiet. It was nice to come back to such a quiet neighborhood over the next few days, after we'd spent the entire day in the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. I didn't take any pictures though, since there really wasn't anything going on in the district worth noting. After checking in to the hotel later and resting for a bit, we got up and braved the intricacies of the Tokyo subway lines to go meet our friend Oliver. Oliver is another English teacher here in Japan, but he works for a private company called Interac instead of the JET program. We met him in a Japanese class that we go to every Tuesday in Hachinohe, the big city in our area. In any case, he just happened to be going to Tokyo the same weekend we went, and he promised to take us to a very special place. He promised to take us to 'La Jolla'.
Let me pause here for a moment. As you may or may not know, Japan has a pretty decent variety of cuisines from around the world, in that they have a lot of other types of Asian food and some European food here, and for the most part I can find anything I want to eat. I miss things like Macaroni and Cheese and other delicious American junk food, but pasta and other things are quite gettable. There's even Indian food here. There is one exception to my ability to get food here: Mexican food. There is NO Mexican food in Japan. They do not know what burritos are, enchiladas baffle them, and they think fajitas are a type of animal. Their knowledge of Mexican food is limited to the fact that there is something called a 'taco' in that type of cuisine, and what they see on American TV shows (i.e. Taco Bell fast food in sitcoms). Most of you know that with the exception of fajitas and quesadillas, I tend not to care that much for Mexican food. Before I came to Japan, that was starting to change a little bit. I was starting to appreciate things like chimichangas and such. Since coming to Japan, I've had the worst craving for Mexican food you could possibly imagine. I would kill for some salsa and chips, let alone a full blown meal.
Enter Oliver, and his knowledge of the existence of 'La Jolla'. 'La Jolla' is a Mexican restaurant in Tokyo. It is the only Mexican restaurant I know of, in this entire country. And oh, it was so..... so..... so..... delicious. It wasn't delicious just because it was the first Mexican food I had eaten in a good three months, it was actually fantastic just by itself. The owner and chefs had all been to Mexico and America, and spoke fantastic English. The only slight downside was the price. Most of the ingredients for Mexican food don't even exist on this side of the pacific, and as such get imported in at very high costs. For Aaron and myself to eat a fajita, a small cheese quesadilla, and for Aaron to have a 2 enchilada and a taco combo platter, was almost $100. Chips and salsa are not free, they cost $8, and you get as many chips as you would in a side combo bag at Taco Bell. A single, small bowl of guacamole was $9. But you know what? It was absolutely delicious, and after 3 months of dying for the chance to even SMELL guacamole, it was 100% worth it.
Next up: Day two of the Tokyo trip! Look forward to it!
