Tokyo Part 1

We had planned in advance to meet up with two families from Bellevue who happened to be in Tokyo at the same time. The arrangements were a little complicated since we didn't know exactly when we would arrive at our hotel, and none of us had a cell phone that worked in Japan. To our pleasant surprise, we arrived at our hotel to find that the Lins were already waiting in the lobby, so we dropped our luggage in our rooms and went out to dinner with them. In the meantime, the Houlahans were getting anxious that we hadn't contacted them yet, so they decided to venture out to find us. We were amazed when Sheila and Gary showed up while we were eating: we had asked the front desk at our hotel for directions to a restaurant nearby. So we ended up having a great impromptu get-together party with everyone.

Eleven noisy Americans shattering the sedate atmosphere of the Japanese restaurant.

From our friends, we learned that we could use international ATMs at all 7-Eleven stores in Japan, so it would be much more convenient for us to withdraw money. One would think that Japan's capitalist system would have taken care of this problem a long time ago, but better late than never.

Speaking of money and restaurants, we had an interesting adventure the next day when we ventured out to Ginza, a high-end shopping district, for dinner. Due to a festival that day, many shops were closed and we had trouble finding a restaurant with food that Sheila, a vegetarian, could eat. In the end, we wound up in an Italian restaurant. The pasta dishes we ordered were all good, but Sally decided to be adventurous and order the chef's recommended crab legs. We assumed that $16 dollars would buy quite a lot of food, but when the dish arrived it held exactly FOUR crab legs (and not even from a king crab). Sally scraped every bit of crab meat off the shell, helped us finish our pastas, and was still hungry afterward. We had a running joke about the quantity of those crab legs for the rest of the evening.

Despite its huge population, Tokyo did not appear to be overwhelmed with people or cars (unlike, for example, New York or Shanghai). The subways and trains were busy but never truly overcrowded. Even in Ginza there were far fewer people than we expected to see, though possibly this was because it was a holiday. We were surprised to see how many bicycles there were in the cities. In Tokyo, there are actually bike lanes on most roads. Drivers treat the bicycles and pedestrians nicely, though they can be pushy when making turns. We did notice a surge in subway passengers at about 10 pm. Apparently that is the time that the "salary men" and businessmen leave the restaurants to go home after their post-work social gatherings (drinking and dining). What a life!