Well, this is a "real life" blog rather than one about SL, but since I have this blog set up, I figured it would be easier to just send a link to this rather than to email everyone. I probably won't get to blog often while we're here but since I hapen to have Leila's laptop handy, I thought I'd write about our first day or so.


So, we are in Japan at last! We arrived yesterday, Sunday 4/5, at about 5pm local time, which is 13 hours ahead of our time EST. We flew Northwest Air and had two very nice flights, with no delays. We slept a little on the plane, but our plan was to go out to dinner and do a couple of things before heading back to Leila's apartment, to try to get acclimated and ready for bed. We took about five trains to get from Narita airport, which is quite a ways outside of Tokyo, to the stop just before Leila's regular stop. We got off a bit early so we could drop off our bags at Leila's GEOS school, where she teaches. We took the elevator up to the little school office and saw her classroom which is also small, but with lots of pix of friends and family and a big map of places she's been. She uses these in her lessons to have conversations with her students.


From there we went around the corner to go to a favorite restaurant of hers, called Gyukaku, which serves Japanese bbq. This is not quite like any bbq we'd had! First, they bring this big metal hibachi filled with hot charcoals and place it in the center of your table, directly under this big metal vent which sucks all the smoke (well, most of the smoke) out. So right away, Joel and I are just imagining all the lawsuits of millions of dollars that this set-up would engender in the States! Then you order little dishes filled with different kinds of raw meat--tongue, beef, pork, etc. and you cook the pieces on the grill. Some of these you just eat dipped in various sauces or garlic butter which has been melted on the grill, and others you wrap in a big lettuce leaf slathered with a combination of something like mayonnaise and bbq sauce that you mix together. Delicious, and fun. You just keep ordering little plates until you don't want anymore. For dessert, little fish-shaped waffles filled with "anko", a delicious sweet bean paste. You put them on the grill, too, then eat them warm. Yum!



Then we got back on the train for one stop, and when we got off, Leila got her bicycle (which she's ridden to the train) and Joel and I shlepped our luggage to her apartment. Whew. This was quite a long walk--maybe 20 minutes, dragging the suitcases...not exactly the high point of my day, as you might guess. We finally reached Leila's place (not a minute too soon) and climbed the stairs to her tiny little apartment. Cute, but tiny! At the top of the landing (she's got her own little stairway) is a little washing machine, then a little kitchen with ittybitty fridge, stovetop, and sink on the right, and door to bathroom on left. Then in a door to the main room, which is about 8x12, I'd guess. A futon up on a high platform, a tiny fold-down desk, a little table in the corner with her tv, and a little closet...that's it! Joel and I bedded down very happily on two air mattresses she'd gotten. One we put in the space below her sleeping platform and I crawled in there to sleep, and Joel slept on another mattress on the floor right next to the futon. We were both asleep in seconds, because at that point, with the exception of a 3-4 hour nap on the plane, I think we'd been up something like 28 hours.


This morning we got up and out by about 10am and went down the street to a little resturant Yoshinoya. They don't really do "breakfast foods" here but I'd read a book recenty that talked about a traditional Japanese breakfast of a hot rice bowl with a raw egg mixed in. Turns out that Leila has had this and they had it at the restaurant, so we all ordered a big bowl of rice which also had some pork, made a little hole in the rice and poured in the raw egg, then mixed it all around. It was delish! Don't ask me how they get around the whole raw egg thing, when everyone in the US is so paranoid about this, but everyone eats it here and it doesn't sound like they've had any big run on salmonella poisoning!


Leila has been coaching us on common words and phrases that can be used to get by, and little niceties of etiquette. (For example, one does not put one's chopsticks into a rice bowl full of rice and leave them there sticking out; one crosses them neatly across the top of the bowl. This is because after a funeral, the body is cramated and chopsticks are stuck into the ashes vertically.) I'm also picking up the words you need to "get by".


After breakfast, we went for a walk to see the Dai Butsu (Big Buddha) at a temple within walking distance from Leila's place. (This was not my favorite part of the day because we had to walk for quite awhile and there were two large hills.) En route, though, we walked through a very pretty residential area. It's a little hard to describe the way things look here, because it's sooooo different from the States. The houses are packed together, most are small, though. Some are apartment buildings with many apartments, but most are small 2-3 apartment buildings mixed with single family homes. Some of the homes are beautiful. Even the crummiest looking buildings are quite neat, most with flowers or nice plantings, lanterns, etc. outside. For such a big city there is very LITTLE car traffic, even in the downtown areas that we went to later in the day, and the streets are incredibly narrow. Most cars and trucks range from small to teensy. The best part is that in the most out of the way places, one will just happen onto a shrine, or a temple, or a "bamboo park" (a big planting of bamboo which one can walk through). En route to the Dai Butsu, for example, we passed a tiny corner that had a tiny little bit of woods, on a steep hillside slanting down to a little pool. In the States, this tiny little corner in a crowded residential area would have probably been filled with trash, and just had a mud puddle in the bottom. Here, what they did was set up a little shrine that was set up just above a little spring that dripped noisily down into a little pool of water. Above it, there was a little wooden structure where one could offer incense, and people had made and hung these beautiful strings of tiny origami cranes as offerings. Similarly, later in the day, smack in the middle of the bustling modern Akihabara shopping district, we came upon a tiny corner that had been turned into a beautiful shrine.


Anyway, after the walk back from Dai Butsu, we got lunch at a favorite sushi restaurant where Leila knows the chefs--in fact, they've been so nice to her that I brought them "omiyagi" (gifts) of penny candy, because it's traditional to bring gifts for people and local goods from the West are considered a good gift. The sushi was very good and everyone was very nice. From there, we headed back onto the trains and went to Ueno Park, where we saw the few cherry blossoms still remaining because it rained last night! Boo! But still quite pretty. From there, we headed over to Akihabara, known for electronics, anime and manga, video games, and maid cafes! I know, I know, you're wondering what the heck a maid cafe is, now aren't you, admit it! Well, we went to one and it's kind of a trip. They come in all flavors, by the way, from the very tame like the one we went to, to the x-rated, apparently. The basic gist of a maid cafe is that it's a place you go where the waitresses are all dressed up like little dolls, short ruffly skirts, etc. and they giggle and act cute. Lots of geeky male customers, as you might imagine, but couples as well. While we were there, a group of six teenaged girls came in and a single kind of nerdy looking guy who was having a birthday. The places sale desserts, beer, cocktails, etc. and the maids will play games and make conversation with the customers...particularly the guys. Leila had written about going to one in her blog and I just had to see it for myself. At this point, Joel and I were beginning to fade, so we went and had a bite to eat and headed back to Leila's place. Tomorrow we're going to Yoyogi Park and a trendy shopping district in Harijuku and to Shubuya, in the southwest of Tokyo, and then get some ramen for lunch at a favorite place of Leila's and then do karaoke!