Ginza, Asakusa, Akihabara, and Denenchofu

Our jet lag has finally started to break - what a relief! It is an unbelievably good feeling to finally be starting to get back to normal. Severe jet lag like this just can't be good for one's immune system.

Today we finally made our planned trek out to the Ginza district of Tokyo. Ginza is a place that I had never been to yet primarily because it is filled with incredibly high-end shops that I just don't have the income to patronize. It was quite interesting to finally go there and look though. To sum it up - lots of expensive cars, clothes, jewelry and very well-dressed people. Admittedly, it was quite nice.

Interesting way to entice people into a restaurant!

We chanced across a Nissan dealership that was displaying the latest versions of the Nissan Skyline and the Fairlady Z (350Z in North America). These cars sure aren't what they used to be. They are now very exotic sports cars with the price tags to match. The Skyline now apparently goes for more than $100,000! Definitely out of my league. There was also a Porsche dealer and a very nice Aston-Martin that we came across. The owner was obviously a James Bond fan - he even had a personalized license plate with the number 7 on it. Cheesy...

One of our missions in Ginza was to find a gift for my friend Takako whom I met last year in London at an MBA case study plenary session. Takako lives in an area of Tokyo called Denenchofu which is one of the higher-end districts of the city. Her father was in the Military and served in diplomatic roles in places like Turkey. For the last couple of years, she has invited us to her house to eat supper with her and some friends. As such, we wanted to make sure that we had an appropriate gift to bring to her home. We waited in line for over 20 minutes to purchase some tea at a very posh store in Ginza. It was quite the place.

We left Ginza to meet with Hana's friend Kaori and her son and daughter to stroll around Asakusa. There is a very famous and popular Bhuddist temple at Asakusa that we visited. This is the fourth time that I have visited this temple and it is always a very busy place - even more so at this time due to the approaching New Year's celebrations. After visiting the temple we made our way over to a very old amusement park that Kaori's kids wanted to visit. I'm not even sure what the name of the park was but it was very much like a small version of Buffalo Days in Regina. Apparently this park has been there for a very long time. I decided not to go on the park's roller coaster although everyone else went - I think that they all regretted doing so after! At least I didn't need a Gravol.

Upon leaving the amusement park (thank goodness) we went for lunch at a traditional okonomiaki (Japanese pancake) restaurant. This was a mom and pop establishment ran by two very old and traditional people. It was very much like eating at your grandparents' house. The old man that was serving our food was wearing an apron with a "Canada" logo on it. Turns out his daughter had moved to Vancouver and gotten married to a Canadian - a Canadian Japanese that is. He told us that he would never allow his daughter to marry a non-Japanese. Despite that, it was an interesting co-incidence that this fellow had a connection to Canada. The okonomiaki at this restaurant were excellent, despite the first pancake basically looking like a pile of very fresh vomit! This particular pancake was actually a special dish that is referred to as a "poor person's pancake" given that it contains fewer and cheaper ingredients - apparently it was a staple of the poor for many years. The old man told us that an American and Australian were in the restaurant the day before and they were unable to eat their pancakes because of their aesthetic similarity to puke!

Once we fueled up on okonomiaki, we headed out to Akihabara - Tokyo's primary electronics shopping district. We knew that we were getting close given the hoards of people and the dramatic increase in the number of otaku (geeks) in the area. Akihabara is an interesting place. If you are a gear head it is a paradise of cool equipment. There's really no point in buying anything though - if you are from North America you need to purchase an "export model" given the different electrical voltage standards in Japan. I ended up buying a couple of geeky things despite this...

Crowded Akihabara store

Having achieved our tea purchase goal in Ginza and spent some time with our friends at Asakusa and Akihabara, we headed back to our hotel room, cleaned up and then made the trek to Denenchofu. We had a very nice supper and chat with Takako and her friends. The couple that she invited were fluent in English and had lived in numerous cities in the U.S. including Boston, New York, and San Diego. We had a great time chatting and analyzing the differences between Japanese and North American culture.  It was a great evening.

On a different note - the weather here in Tokyo, while not really warm, is definitely an improvement over that currently being experienced in Canada.  A case in point, oranges are still growing on trees.  No chance of freezing here...