2/24/2013: My plan
was to walk from the hostel to the Ryogoku neighborhood and visit the Edo-Tokyo
Museum. Then visit some Japanese gardens nearby, eat some lunch, and grab a
train to the west side of the city to check out Shinguku and see the Meiji shrine.
I left the hostel around 9:15am and walked along the big river for about 20
minutes. Crews were out getting ready for the Tokyo marathon, which was
happening later that day. I fairly easily found the museum around 9:50, bought
my ticket, and found the spot where you ask about English-speaking volunteer
guides. I was in luck, and I had a private tour of the museum, which was pretty
interesting. Tokyo's original name was Edo until it was officially made the
capital of Japan, at which point they changed the name to Tokyo, which means
Eastern Capital (Kyoto was the previous capital, which means "capital
city"). The history begins a little before 1600, where the city was a
"military city," run by the shogun and half the population were
samurai warriors. The guide was an elderly Japanese man with a thick accent,
but seemed to know a lot. After almost 2 hours, we had finished the Edo section
(up to around 1886), and he had to return to the desk to do another tour and I
was left alone to learn about the history of Tokyo up until present time. A lot
of the displays in the more modern section were dedicated to the Allied air
raids of Tokyo in WW2, so it's probably best we parted ways before reaching
that awkward section. In 1943, the Allies had bombed the city so much that it
had been essentially levelled, and over 100,000 people had been killed. By
1964, 21 years later, Tokyo was hosting the Olympic games, which is an
impressive turnaround. I was starving, since I hadn't eaten breakfast, so I
left the museum and found a noodle shop nearby. I had Tempura Soba, which was
delicious. I couldn't really find the gardens, and I was very cold, so I hopped
on a train and headed to Shinguku. It wasn't any warmer there, so I forced myself
to walk around for a bit but hated most of it. I decided to just head back to
the hostel and get a warmer coat and do some touristy stuff in that
neighborhood.
I was talking to one
of the girls working at the hostel about
where I should grab my final dinner in Tokyo, and an Australian guy came up and
introduced himself to us. His name was Sash (at least his nickname) and he had
just landed in Japan about 2 hours ago. I invited him to dinner after the girl
recommended Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake). The place turned out to be very
Japanese - we had to take our shoes off at the entrance, and the tables were
short with just cushions on the floor for seats. I was glad Sash had come
along, since it would have been intimidating on my own. We got a table after
waiting about 10 minutes and each ordered the "pork and egg pancake,"
which is what the hostel girl had recommended. At Okonomiyaki, the table has a
grill on it, and the customer is responsible for cooking the meal. Two Japanese
girls sat at the table adjacent to ours, so we kept a close eye on their
cooking process to make sure we weren't doing anything wrong or offensive. The
pancakes ended up being really delicious, and we had tried some interesting
drinks too. It was a great experience. We talked a little to the Japanese girls
next to us - we had guessed that they were 16 years old but they said they were
20. An apparently drunk Japanese guy came up to our table and started talking
to us in Japanese but didn't get very far before realizing we didn't speak any
Japanese. He looked to the girls next to us for help but they only knew a
little English. We ended up just exchanging "sorry" to each other (he
said it in English, I said it in Japanese). I bet he would have been fun to
talk to.
Sash and I headed
back to the hostel and he said he'd be interested in heading to the Tsukiji
Fish Market with me the next morning before I left for Korea. I went to bed
somewhat early.
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