9/1/2001

9:10am
Last night was amazing. I'll call it my First Blind Date with Tokyo. Greg, Bob and I went for a walk to try to find a bar. We got lost in some alley, but found our way back. We continued past the subway station and past the front gate (were we walking North? I don't know). Finally we found a bar that said it was open. So we climbed the steps and bowed our way into Romi (the name of the bar). <-- 2="" a="" already="" and="" at="" bar="" be="" beer="" blue.="" bob="" burst="" but="" cleaver="" d="" electric="" everyone="" girls="" good="" got="" grapefruit="" greg="" guy="" had="" he="" i="" idea="" in="" it="" jinro="" juice="" laughing="" name="" no="" of="" on="" one="" ordered="" out="" p="" rocks="" saying.="" see="" so="" something="" strong.="" suggest.="" the="" there="" thought="" very="" was="" were="" what="" with="" would="">The girls in the corner laughed at us for a while, then courageously asked us if we spoke English... no, wait. Japanese. This kicked off 3.5 hours of the most fun I'd ever had in my life. Their English was moderately understandable and the bartender had an audio-translator for when we were really having trouble. Their names were Eri and Shiori, both 20 years old, in love with Luke Perry, Tom Cruise, and, apparently, Bob and Greg. I was their best friend. So much happened! Bob and Shiori settled into arm wrestling and impressing each other with parlor tricks. Another business man came in and he spoke with Greg about Wrigley Field, Soldier Field, Shakespeare, and other intellectual American things. Unfortunately, by this time, Greg was quite drunk and a little too loud and annoying. Anyway, time went quickly- the bartender poured us some cold sake (tastes like white wine plus vodka) and we all toasted. We also learned that "Saikoh!" means Best! and is usually shouted VERY loudly while punching one or both fists into the air. It was just so fun, I can't describe as much as I'd like to.

8:15pm
It's hard to chose between going into detail about things, or just writing about as many as possible.Today, so far, has been full of sights, sounds, and tastes. First thing in the morning we went to Ginza. Greg described it as the Mag Mile in Chicago, multiplied by 1000! Both in size, height, and space. The shops and malls seemed to go on for miles in every direction. Every street corner looked the same. It was difficult to keep track of the train station. We visited a large mall, I believe the name of it was Matsuzakaya or Mitsukoshi. Probably the latter, it's closer to the subway station. We first went into the basement and were stunned at what we saw: it was a food market with every type of food imaginable. Actually, there was nothing I could ever have imagined. Fish, cooked and uncooked, meats, fruits and vegetables, rolled sushi, pastries that looked like decorative soaps. Then we went to the top floor and worked our way down. Tons of women's clothing, and it was all very expensive.

A Ginza toy store was next, with 4 floors of pure fun: little gadgets that I don't know what they did, dolls, lots of stuffed animals and stickers, Disney music and figures. Greg bought some Flat Eric dolls and Cowboy Bebop figures. We left there and headed back, stopping at McDonalds to get a chicken and sauerkraut sandwich. We also went to the Mikimoto store. The jewelry there was amazing, so intricate, beautiful designs. The styles were different from home, more flowing. The pearls were mostly grey and huge. There was also one necklace with tiny tiny pearls all strung together. It was a very big necklace, but there were probably millions of these centimeter sized pearls. The prices were outrageous, nothing under 50,000 Yen, and mostly Y900,000 and above.

After a few minutes rest back at NYC (Yoyogi Youth Center) we headed off to Shibuya. Lots of walking! The most notable event was dinner. We were with Lindsay, Eric, and Emily. It was really embarrassing just how gaijin we were. First we practiced saying toilet- "toe-IR-ay"- and realized that it was probably an inappropriate word to be repeating at a nice restaurant. I ordered a noodle dish that turned out to be American spaghetti. And my Coke (really Pepsi) turned out to be Y480 while the mixed drinks the others had were Y360. Hopefully I won't make that mistake again.

The plan is to visit Shinjuku tonight and shrines tomorrow, as well as meet up with Takeshi.