teamEggers

Ebisu / Yebisu & Odaiba Island

Ebisu: ‘hood in Tokyo. Stop on the yamanote line. One of the 7 lucky gods (he’s the god of good fortune, fishing & merchants)

Yebisu: Beer. Specifically, one of Tokyo’s oldest breweries. It started in 1890 and is now owned by Sapporo. It tastes… much like all japanese beers. You’ve had kirin/sapporo/asahi right? Like that.

After ramen, Will, Dave, Jon & I took to exploring the city. I’m not sure if we had a plan or if we just happened to be in Ebisu, but somehow we find ourselves at the Yebisu brewery/tasting room/museum.

Hey, have you met Dave? Dave works with jon/will. He’s a nice chap. Very pleasant, easy to hang out with. Generally goes along with everything. Has a white DSLR. yeah. it’s weird. So is ordering everything from vending machines. Even my beer? Come on.

Anyhow, after hanging out for a bit in Ebisu, we mill.

Dave had recently discovered the island of Odaiba. Discovered. Planted a flag on that shit. Please excuse my poor word choices – Dave knew about this place, it was a beautiful day, and our band of four was looking for adventure…

Who knew there were beaches, boardwalks, and palm trees in the center of Tokyo? This city’s got it all!

What the heck is that? Will decides that we have to go into the ball. I’m skeptical. Why am I always skeptical? Can someone teach me how to be less uptight? I’m serious.

Walking down the boardwalk, we’re chilled by the wind but determined to find the ball.

Getting closer, but what is it? Can we go in!?

Hoo wee, what a view. Tokyo Tower (on the right) looks like a rocketship.

We make it up and find a viewing deck inside. If you don’t want to pay and go into the main viewing area, there’s still a killer view. We didn’t know it then, but the building we were in was the Fuji TV headquarters – known for its unusual architecture:

photo c/o Wikipedia

We stayed up until the sun set over the city, and then headed back into the technicolor wind.

Nagi (Ramen) in Shinjuku

An impromptu Standing Bar, Ramen, and a quick jaunt through Shinkjuku. How much more do you need?

Shinjuku station terrifies me. It’s the last place in Tokyo that I dread going to. Up until today, my favourite thing about this station was finding the right exit, and getting the hell out of it. Until today. Today, I discovered a gem of a place: a wine & belgian beer store. Quality.

They have a little table for standing and drinking your beer at, though since “take out OK” combined with how I was supposed to be meeting jon in a few minutes, I opted for a beer to go. I mean, what is a Standing Bar other than a place where you can stand and drink your beer in peace? So I found a safe spot in the train station, pulled out my book, and made my own. Have I mentioned how I love that drinking in public is not illegal here?

Now. I’m meeting jon at Shinjuku station. This was my idea, despite the afore mentioned fact that I utterly despise this place. What brings us here? Ramen, of course. Not just any ramen, but a sister-location of the Tastiest Gyoza in the City. Enter, Nagi.

Tonight takes us to a tucked away part of Shijuku, called Golden Gai. The streets of Golden Gai are narrow and densely packed. The bars are tiny – most only seating 4 or 5 people at a time.

Like it’s neighborhood, this Nagi is maximalist. Its very small, cramped space is made even smaller by the addition of things everywhere.

Good things, like menus and chopsticks, but it’s a bit overwhelming nonetheless. We’ll call it the Shinjuku Style.

Each Nagi location (there are four of them) does its soup slightly differently. This broth was really fishy on the nose, but I thought it tasted a lot more mellow and roasty once you got it in your mouth. Jon wasn’t really a fan of how strong the broth was. The majour downside for me was how soft the noodles were. I like em bari bari (al dente) and so this was a lot like mush in my mouth.

Great egg though. The ramen was not bad of course. I just thought the other Nagi was much better. Certainly not worth battling Shinjuku station for.

Later that evening, we wandered through the streets for a bit. Look at this old man. I wanted to put him in my pocket.

I leave you with some sage advice:

Yokohama F. Marinos (Soccer)

It’s Soccer DAY!!

But first, a very happy happy birthday to our Mother (in-law), Ann. I hope you had a great day and did some special things. We’re thinking of you!

Back to Soccer. We got a good sized group together to check out the first F-Marinos (home) game of the year. So much fun! (left to right: Will, Ian, Dave, Jon)

(left to right: Julie, Michelle, Sayo, Toshi) It’s always good to see Sayo & Toshi. They’re good peoples. And I got a new coat!

There are two things that I find fantastic about soccer in Japan. Number 1. The beer-kids have KEGS in their BACKPACKS. How do i get this? Seriously.

Second, the stadium food is SO much healthier than American stadium food. Garlic fries, anyone? no go. How about some pretzel sticks & edamame?

A pickle? Look at that head! Those crazy Js.

Speaking of those crazy Japanese, they really know how to put on a good show. Way to be superfans, yokohama.

Sports are always better when your team wins. Our team, in this case, was The Awesome-O with a 3-0 game. Victory lap!!

You know the phrase about how you should follow the rules until you know them really well, and then you’re sometimes allowed to break them? I don’t think the Japanese have earned the right to make up words with the English language yet. I just don’t trust them. It seems so much more likely that this was an instance of poor spelling rather than wit. What is dynamism, anyways?

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Thanks for tuning in!

Snow Fest, Part 2

Is it bad that I want to stay in bed and read all day? Every day? I’m such a slug.

Also, despite my mothers frantic fears, there was no tsunami action in Tokyo. Should you have been worried, let me quell that by saying that we’re just fine. We spent the day in Tokyo (shinjuku and shibuya, mostly) eating ramen, wandering about, and drinking in the streets. With the exception of some rain showers in the morning, it was a very water-free day.

Part two of our Yuzawa trip, coming at you. In this episode, Jon and Michelle find a place to sleep and look at snow sculptures!

**

You’ll remember that we came out to the mountain town of Yuzawa without a hotel booked for the night. (scroll down if this doesn’t sound familiar. you probably missed part one!) We stopped in to the tourist association and found someone that spoke a small amount of English. Boy, what a help!

We really, really didn’t want to spend 300$ / night on a hotel (which seemed to be the going rate for most of the places we had found, and was also the reason why we didn’t book something BEFORE getting on the train). Other than that financial limitation, we tried to communicate to the guy that we didn’t really care about much else. Remember, I was okay with sleeping in the train station if it came to that!

A few phone calls later, he circles something on the map and tells us that it would be $50. … okay? okay! well. we still have no idea what we’re going to, but at least he circled it on the map. That will probably come in handy later.

We’re in the mountains this weekend to visit the Tokamachi snow festival, which is a 30-minute train ride away from where we were at. I think a lot of people were in town for this snow fest, because the trains were crazy packed.

The japanese need very little encouragement when it comes to having full-costume mascots. This is the suica (train pass) mascot! I hugged Suica the Penguin! Isaiah, are you hearing this!!?

We wander out to the streets and follow the crowd into a snow-walled off area filled with tents and sculptures. Speaking of trains, look at the level of detail!

This area is known for growing rice, so there’s a lot of sake makers around too. (remember, sake is basically rice wine) $1 for sake? count us in!

I love that this culture embraces drinking in public so wholeheartedly.

SUMO snow man! This isn’t the kind of stuff we made in our backyard. Tokamachi’ans really don’t mess around with their snowmen!

Just look at the level of detail!

But you know, not everyone… got the hint. Shouldn’t there at least be snow in the snowmen? Nice try, folks.

Boy. All this walking around in the snow is making me hungry. If only there was a guy selling meat on a stick around here somewhere…..

Did I mention how cold it was yet? And wet? Cold and wet!

Unlike jon’s (much more practical shoes), my tennis shoes aren’t waterproof. My toes were angry with me, and so when the opportunity came to warm myself with a beer around a trash-can-fire, like a hobo, my toes simply wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

They do this crazy thing all over Tokamachi & Yuzawa. Having lived in both Wisconsin and Colorado for some time, it struck me as odd that I’ve never seen anything like this before. It appears that the snow melt runoff is piped into the streets to keep them from freezing. Neat, huh? Neat that is, until you accidentally step in it and get your (already angry) toes more wet.

but you know, it’s okay. We’re having a good time and we’re together. And we did come for the snow, after all.

Dinner in Shibuya

The plan for the evening: Head over to Shibuya to meet up with some of Emi’s friends for dinner.

The restaurant that Emi picked was on the 15th floor of a building in central Shibuya. The exterior walls of the elevator were clear, so we had a fantastic view on the way! On the walk over, as we passed through the busiest intersection in the world, I thought aloud: We live here. Life is fantastic.

While it looked normal enough from the outside, once you poked in through the curtains you enter into a *giant* restaurant. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a restaurant so big in Japan. The window seats were reserved for large groups, with tables set into various sized cubby holes. The interior of the restaurant had about 20 tables – and they were jam-packed when we arrived. The vibe seemed to be both young and international.

Emi’s friends thought we should alternate and mix up a bit, so we weren’t just talking to the people that we came with. I think our side of the table was a little hesitant at first, but I’m glad we ended up doing it. Emi’s friends are so nice! I remember saying the same thing about Sayo’s friends last year – I wonder if we just run into the best that a country has to offer, or if all Japanese people really are this fantastic.

We left ordering dinner up to the people who knew the food best, so we were plesantly surprised every time the waitress brought a few thigns out. Overall, the food was really light – lots of things set on different types of lettuces. Some one ordered orange chicken (the kind you get at chinese restaurants), and I was utterly dismayed to find out the Japanese word for it is “orangey chickenu”. Seriously?

But mostly, we drank. A lot. For two hours, the waiters plied us with monster-sized pitchers of Kirin:

We stopped for a picture on the way out. Too bad you can’t see the backdrop of the city that we were standing in front of.

At the end of the night, we say goodbye to our friends and hurry to grab one of the last trains home. The train is standing room only, and I’m happy to have a finagled a corner spot where I can lean against the walls.