Day 1- First day in Tokyo!

"Enjoy your fright."

Jetlag doesn't cover it. It feels like someone poisoned me and then duct taped me to a chair for 12 hours. We arrive in Tokyo via train. Quick & easy & super cheap. Dropped off bags and walked around Ueno Park until 2PM.

Also there are many many people enjoying all of the Sunday activities in the park. Food, music, pedal boats on the lake, and of course the Temple. We catch a free drumming concert in the park. Japanese girls got MAD rhythm!

Beyond the park everything is a blur. Too many lights and colors & smells for people who have been awake for 24 hours. We get lost in the Ueno shopping paths. At some point we notice that we are the only foreigners.

We're starving. Very hard to pick a restaurant. No English anywhere! Some photos on menus. We somehow manage to pick a restaurant that has a menu with NO English & NO photos.

We are at the mercy of our really cute waiter. Works out fine. Lunch is sooo good. With miso soup and salad and what we come to call "poison tea". I swear it tastes like death, but everyone is drinking it, even feeding it to their babies.


The lunch total for 2 lunches is 1700 yen---12 euros. We are happy and go head back to the hotel. We both pass out. When we finally wake up---It's time to find food again! It's like hunting.

We go out.

Walking through Tokyo at night is like being in a beautiful dream where no one speaks your language, but somehow you understand everything anyway. The lights in Tokyo make New York City seem down-right dull.

Dinner: we follow the plastic fake food samples to a great dinner for 1200 yen. Cheap food here! I accidentally order French Boy some liver. He eats it anyway. The French will eat damn near anything.

After dinner coffee and cake at a coffee shop. I accidentally order French Boy the wrong coffee. He drinks it anyway.

Ordering food = lots of pointing and bowing and pointing and smiling and hoping for the best. Also---always hand the cashier money with both hands it's more polite & Japanese-like. DEEP SLEEP.