He says: Day 13

It's our last day in Tokyo and we're going to start this one out slowly. Breakfast, blogging, reading the newspaper and watching the rain in Tokyo. It's actually so cloudy/foggy here that we cannot see a skyscraper that is 3 blocks away from our 32nd floor window.

It's amusing because normal business atire is black and gray, but in the rain you see all sorts of different colored umbrellas. Nothing shocking or terrible bright, but it's nice to see blues, greens and some pinks walking the street for a change. As the day itself gets more gray the people get more colorful to achieve balance. It's a nice image.

Let's see, yesterday was a trip to the Tokyo Hands building, which I was lead to believe was a shop for crafting, and indeed it has hand crafted goods and things for making art projects, dresses, woodworking and other crafts. It also had lots and lots of gadgets, from the USB powered Owl that sits on your computer and looks upon you wisely, to the 3ft high Alien statue to the latest in make up. I think at some point they just realized 'what the hell we have all this space, let's fill it up'. It only lacked the 6 floors of computers, cameras and video games most other shops have to make it blend in with all the other department stores. To be honest it was refreshing to see a place without all that tech for a change.

At the top of the Tokyo Hands building is 'Nekobukoro' or 'Cat world' It might be 'Cat Appartments' or 'Catapalooza'. The meaning is the same for us. They had a lot of cats wandering free.

Now the purpose of this takes a bit of background. Space is a premium in Japan, and therefore most Japanese, esepcially young Japanese adults just making their way in a crowded city, live in very small spaces. It's true, I've seen it on TV. Anyway, these spaces are so small and they spend so much time trying to avoid going back to those small, lonely spaces they don't generally have pets. Nekobukoro, like any good business, sees a need and fills it. They have a floor of the department store (Smaller than you'd think, think your average Radio Shack) filled with cats. Anyone can then pay the equivalent of $5-$7 to go in, sit among them, and if they let you, pet them.

There were about 12 cats wandering about. They play, they fight a little, they run from the crazy humans trying to pet them. It's all good fun. They have 'cat skyways' or little planks near the ceiling they can walk around on if they want to avoid the floor to get just about anywhere. They have lots of resting places to look cute in, etc.

What interested me was the demographics. Describe that place to me in the US and I'd tell you it'd be full with a lot of crazy cat ladies who can't ahve cats and some random screaming 12 year old girls with mean parents who won't let them have cats. Actually, not in Japan. The largest demographics was couples. 4 of them when we were there not count us. Mostly late teens to mid twenties. I guess that's their date place. There were a couple single females there dressed in office attire. I pictured them as on their lunch hour and having a bad day at work and wanted to get away and look at something cute for a while that wouldn't give them something stupid to work on in their office. There was one mother/daughter, with the mother being in her 50's and the daughter in her early 30's. Probably their afternoon get together.

...and lastly there were 3 14-ish year old boys. Yes, 14 year old boys in Japan dig cats. One was actually so excited that a cat stopped and let him pet it it that he hurredly took outand handed his cell phone to his friends to take his picture while he posed smiling with it. It was kinda surreal and the distinct lack of 'typical male bonding' by mocking someone enjoying something like that was pretty cool.

After that we went out and hit up some conveyor belt sushi. Literrally, it's a sushi bar with a conveyor belt, and the chefs make sushi, put it on the belt and you remove what you want and eat it. You keep all your dishes and in the end you pay some small amount per dish when you leave. Pretty amusing and innovative, I thought.

After a rest at the hotel for a couple hours to recoup we headed out to our next destination, Nakano to find an authentic Ainu restaurant. I'm sure I'm about to say something horrible un-PC here, but the story I understand of the Ainu is they're kinda like the Native Americans in the US. An original tribe to the area that was basically marginalized, coralled, and 'integrated/assimilated'. I don't believe it was until the late 90's they were even legally recognized as existing.

Anyway, in a fit to see more different things we tracked down the one place in all of Tokyo that serves authentic Ainu food. This, to us, meant "yuk" which translates as "red deer". They serve it both raw and smoked, and with a couple bottles of what they said was an indiginous beer (Tasted like bud light to me but what do I know.) A very tasty meal. There was a bit of a story getting there. We took a wrong turn out of the station for what we knew was a '4 block walk'. And 90 minutes and 4 miles later....we finally found the place. Oh, and it was pouring the whole time.

However, they were pleasant, and I believe shocked to see American's wander in and not demand sushi and tempura. The fact that we knew their native dish, their location and the name of the their tribe seemed to sit very well with them and they took excellent care of us. Some very happy, giggling women sat at a nearby table and one knew pretty decent english and chatted with us for a bit.

We finally got home from our hike/feast around 10pm, grabbed a bottle of $5 sake from the convience store (which was better than the $15 bottle of sake we got at dinner 2 nights ago to my mind) and crashed in our room happy and tired.

On the last day now we've been talking about what we'll miss from here. I think mine is the newness of it all (to me anyway). I like puzzles quite a bit and it's hard not to see all this as a giant game on some level. 'Can I get directions with only minimal command of the language', 'what will I end up eating if I pick the red dish compared to the other red dish on the picture menu', etc. It's a challenge being here in a way it's not at a place you have a full understanding of. To a degree that's a detriment, you can't get in a cab and say 'Take me to your favorite restaurant' and find some place totally new. But overall, i find it a joy. Although if there's a next time coming back here, I'll know more of the language for sure.

This was highlighted to me in Kyoto, where the staff speaks very good english. We also met 3 people who worked there born outside Japan (Canada, Austrailia, and Britain), who therefore knew perfect english. The staf just assumed you wnated to speak in English and greated you that way. IT didn't feel like Japan in the hotel. Outside, sure, but inside you could be anywhere. In Tokyo though, the hotel assumes you at least want to speak Japanese and are willing to switch for complicated concepts. It feels less like hand holding that way.

On one hand it's sad to leave, but on another it'll be very good to be home. On both hands, the 14 hour plane ride will be annoying though. :-)