Day Three Tokyo

This morning as I was walking to my brother's house, I came upon the typical sight of plastic water bottles, full of water, placed along the street corner.  

Japanese people do this because they think it will keep stray cats away, keep them from peeing in that area.  I've never read any evidence about this actually working as a deterrent but people do it anyway.  One of those strange things about the Japanese -- among many.

I also came across a small patch of preserved green space in between several large apartment complexes.

 The little shrine was in the center of the green space.

Here is the view from the hospital ward.

In the evening I met up with Mari at my favorite restaurant, Nakamuraya.  It was actually in a temporary space next door as they were reconstructing their old entire building.  They said it was going to take 4 years to complete.  Here's my favorite dish, the Napolitano.  It is not really Italian, kind of Chinese.  A tomato/pork/clam broth with flat and curly egg noodles.  YUMMERS!

Mari is actually preggers (4 - 5 onths) and after dinner she still wanted dessert so we went to this crazy fruit palace and had parfaits...

Dessert cost as much, maybe more, than our meals!  But it was worth it!

Day Two: Brother

It was a busy day, first running errands, then going back to the hospital, then out to lunch and an onsen.

Here's the bicycle shop:

Here is the ramen spot.  yummy!

the actual ramen:

Tokyo Trip Day One

Sorry I've neglected this blog for so long.  I had a baby, and then there was travel, but always too harried to document.

I'm in Tokyo now, staying with my friend Shirotama.  Below are Shirotama's 21 year old cat Mapu, and the amazing uni dinner we had...  yum!

The last day...

On the morning of our last day in Japan, we bid farewell to Chie, who was off to a meeting at a university. :(
We spent the early part of the day getting our final soaks in at the onsen, and then we were off to taste the famous Yonezawa Ramen. Actually I don't know if it is famous, but Ryo's dad goes out of his way to eat at this place. We got there right at noon and got the last table available. Pretty soon the place was packed with people waiting in the doorway. It was great to see all the locals, families, business people, retired folks all come out to this place.
This bowl of ramen was seriously near perfect. Very simple, light soup, great crinkly noodles with perfect width and texture.

After ramen, we went to a shaved ice parlor, the same store which Ryo's mother used frequent as a child. Back then, ices cost a mere 5 yen.Now, the prices reflect the times, but the method of making the ice remains the same.
This old lady hand-shaves the ice. That piece of wood with small spikes in it is used to grip the ice as she slides over the shaver. She also hand-makes the syrup, and mixes the ingredients before your eyes.Voila! This is Irwin's fresh lemon ice.I don't think anyone could finish the ice.

Then it was time to get on the shinkansen back to Tokyo. So sad to leave... Ryo and Mari looking at chotchkies at the train station kiosk before we got on the train. Goodbye Yamagata! Thank you Ryo-chan!It was a very nice surprise that my brother was spending the whole day at Narita (to pick up Ed Norton and Liv Tyler for promo for The Hulk) so I got to have a quick bite to eat with him.
It's hard to believe how much happened in two weeks. And now that I'm back in NY, I'm having seriously vacation withdrawal. It's hard to really give a shit about all the BS in regular life when you've been away for a while...

Catching up: Last Day in Kyoto & Meeting the Nagasawas

I'm already back in NY but have fallen so behind in my chronicling my trip because of spotty internet and, well, being so darned busy! I have to backtrack now and fill in the gaps.

So what I neglected to mention is that last Thursday, on our last full day in Kyoto, Irwin asked me to marry him. We had been discussing this amongst our many future plans, but I had no idea that this would be coming to me in this way at this moment. My brain exploded a little bit when he presented me with the ring, and when Chie came home from work, she immediately sensed something was up. It took me a couple hours to feel more grounded.
On Friday, we had ambitious plans to wake up very early and go to a special festival.　The Mitarashi Festival at Shimogamo Shrine involves walking through the river to purify yourself.


Later we went to a GIGANTIC flea market at Kitano TenMangu Shrine, where every month on the 25th, everything and anything you could possibly want to buy, or didn't even know you wanted to buy is put on display. The photo below doesn't really capture the density and variety of wares, nor the oppressive heat of the morning.
We met with Chie for lunch before getting on the shinkansen -- also met with Naoto Moriyama, who is on the faculty at Kyoto University of Arts & Design. This was Chie's way of planting the seeds of the idea of touring oph3lia to Kyoto -- how amazing would that be?!And then we were off! Our plan was to meet up with Ryo at Tokyo station and then continue on to Yamagata. Ryo is a friend of mine from work -- her cubicle is right behind mine. She works in the film program and has, over the years become one of the people I adore the most. So I was really looking forward to seeing her hometown, and her home.

I have to confess that, though I was super super excited about this plan of ours to meet up and hang out in Japan together, I was also extremely paranoid and worried that somehow my Japanese friends would be "different" in Japan (i.e. a different context than NYC, America) and that they would like be mean to me in Japan. These kinds of things happened to me a lot as a kid I guess, where you thought you were friends with someone, but then in a different context, they are too cool to be your friend or whatever. And being in Japan is always some key into my childhood psyche.

But all told my fears were completely unfounded, and visiting Yamagata with Ryo was one of the most awesome legs of this trip. Here we've just arrived at Yamagata station. We walked just a few blocks down the main drag -- during which Ryo ran into a family friend. This night Ryo's parents' theater had just had a special screening of Godzilla, followed by a talkback with a Godzilla expert (?!?!). We walked by their movie theater Forum (named in honor of Film Forum, I think!)And the posters of upcoming movies.Next door was L'atelier de Charlotte, a little bistro run by a couple who were huge movie freaks and fans of Charlotte Gainsbourg. The cute place was chock-full of everything Charlotte. This was the setting for the post-Godzilla dinner celebration.We were joined by Ryo's brother Jun, who had recently come back to Yamagata to start learning the family business to eventually take it over. He had spent 8 years in the boondocks as a music teacher in a middle school. He was a very serious guy!After several nice appetizers, the owner of the restaurant put on a great show with crepe suzette -- pouring blazing Grand Marnier down a spiral of orange peel. Ryo and her Mom look on.After dinner we walked another few blocks to their apartment. We were staying in her grandmother's apartment, which is on the same floor as her parents' unit -- in fact they were connected by a wraparound balcony with a great view of Yamagata -- mountains all around. Ryo stayed in the room with her grandfather's shrine.Her grandmother was staying with her parents while we were visiting! So gracious. Grandma has a 19 year-old cat named Tono who yowled a lot but was generally a cuddle slut. Apparently he and Grandma are inseparable. Ryo and her mom joked that her grandfather's spirit has inhabited the cat, and that is why the cat will not leave her alone.
The view from the balcony before going to sleep.

The Kyoto Heat Wave

Ordinarily I would not be one to be so affected by heat, but the temperature in Kyoto the last 24 hours has been no joke!

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the Kyoto station were all these posters and signs for the Osamu Tezuka World. Here I am with Pinoko.
Unfortunately the Tezuka "world" was more like a corner that occupied a section of the lobby of the theater above the station where the upcoming shows were Westside Story and Anne of Green Gables (no, not imports, but performed by Japanese actors.... need I say more?) But we managed to buy some key Black Jack paraphernalia and I got this pic of Irwin with his hero, the unlicensed playboy doctor.
On the first evening, we walked the Philosopher's Path and met up with Chie for dinner at her University where she hates working -- the Kyoto University of Art & Design's Art Center. It was a pretty impressive campus from an outsider's perspective. Buildings had goofy names like Ningen-kan (the Human Wing) and Kibo-kan (the Wing of Hope). There was an exhibition we peeked into which featured a humongous robot, which apparently also talked.

This morning we started off on Chie's bikes to a brief temple visit, and then to an old downtown stretch of shops on Nishiki Dori, specializing in foods an food-related items. Here's Irwin drooling over kitchenware.We were going to go to a ramen shop for lunch, but when we got there it was inexplicably closed, so we went to a soba joint next door instead. We had to share our table with another couple who were apparently on a date. It was pretty funny actually, overhearing their conversation. The guy was talking about how he had had 2 dogs, both labrador retrievers, but one of them died of cancer, and the girl was like, I didn't know dogs got cancer. We left the restaurant, biked over towards the river and spotted a cute cafe. We went in for some tea and cake, and found the SAME COUPLE continuing their date at this cafe! They must have thought we were stalking them. It was pretty funny and cute, actually. Well, at least we had found all the cute date spots in Kyoto!

In the early evening, after some time at the Keibunsha bookstore, we met up with Chie to go deep into the forest to Kurama, where there was a lovely simple onsen. The train ride into the mountain forest area was lovely, as was our bath. There was a seasonal eating area set up right over the river, but the meal courses were way too expensive for us, so we came back into town for dinner.Ramen-gai (or Ramen Street) was just a block away from Keibunsha bookstore, and it was basically our wet dream come true. Ramen places lining both sides of the street. We chose this place for its great facade.They were famous for their soup, created from seafood, vegetables and meat broth. I had their classic ramen, pictured below. I have nothing at all to complain about -- it was delicious!
Looking back on the day we accomplished quite a lot, especially considering the heat is seriously melting my brain. Irwin and I both got a bit sunburnt from our bike-riding. We got Chie some electric fans to stave off the heat. We need to plan a bit better tomorrow -- ploting our way across town from one air-conditioned spot to the next....

Irwin's Birthday

Soshigaya Okura, off the Odakyu line, is where my brother lives, and though I forget the reason, it is has dubbed its main shopping area Ultraman Street. I think the story is that the Ultraman factory (?) is near by or something. Anyway there are random Ultraman posters all around the station and an Ultraman statue in front of the pachinko parlor by the station.

We celebrated Irwin's birthday with my brother and his family which included shopping at UNIQLO (the largest store in the Kanto area -- with an onsen spa upstairs! What?!)


and then we went to the onsen at Yukari/Jindaiji.
This morning, Tsukiji fish market and uni breakfast YEAH!

Can someone PLEASE tell me what the heck these are???? Gross!!!!

A few hours later we were on a Shinkansen to Kyoto. We just arrived (it's almost 5pm). We're staying at Chie's place, which is so cute! More pics later.