The Sun Also Rises

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and there was much rejoicing. we awaken to a semi-sunny Wednesday in tokyo - thank goodness! yesterday was nearly dominated by rain, were it not for the unrelenting enthusiasm of your humble travelers. after a morning of leisurely breakfast (thanks to troy for bringing me roasted seaweed - hallelujah!) and an extended effort to fill mother's wish and find bus tickets for a tour of the town, we set out. ponchos were laid aside (alas, i carted tarp for nothing) and gary bought more umbrellas.

we stopped at a tiny place with maybe six tables, all tucked with astonishing efficiency into a space smaller than our quite petite hotel room. excellent sukiyaki, tempura, udon and good miso. mother proclaims it "almost as good as mine. I'm a good cook, because you don't know any better." she has a point.

then we head to the waiting room for the bus tour. troy and ian choose something called Energy Gym from the vending machine, which troy reports tastes like "ground-up Smarties." this compels ian to buy one too.
one of us is mildly disappointed that we are not taking the Hello Kitty tour, but we all settle into our seats and soon are zipping about town. the tour is in japanese so i can offer only the vaguest of summaries. we skirted the imperial palace, marveling at this architecture tucked amidst the high rises and traffic. further travels took us to the tokyo tower, a version of the eiffel but with quite a different view. enjoyed a fleeting glimpse of what might be Kikkoman headquarters, which i silently vow to explore should we return to this fine city.

Double-arch bridge at the Imperial Palace.

Kusunoki Masashige. Fierce warrior with a sparrow nest in his horse's tail.

Tokyo, old and new.

Evening brings us to Shibuya. Madness. Ian's shoes are soaked beyond hope and he finds a new pair in the shops here. He gets in some sort of trouble for changing into the new ones in the street and is dragged back into the store with much drama. [ Hey, I seem to have found one of the shift keys! so exciting. ]

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[ lobby laptop time is up.... more to come ]

random bits....
..people biking to work (not unusual) with umbrellas (impressive) while smoking (are they kidding?!)
..much more polite than my countrymen in individual interaction, but will run you down on the sidewalk or in the subway
..the guy at starbucks who, upon seeing me looking a bit bedraggled, dashed over with paper towels to dry myself. don't think he realized i had not dried my hair this morning. :)
..store people with megaphones