Tokyo

The Russell sabbatical blog has officially changed it's name to the Russell and Margie sabbatical blog! I am so excited to have Margie finally with me for fun and adventures in Japan, Vietnam and Thailand.

Tokyo is a lot like controlled chaos. There are over 22 million Japanese that use the subway system daily in the city. With this many people one would think it is chaoitc, but amazingly it is quite the opposite. Everybody walks in straight lines, there are designated areas to stand when the train arrives so you don't block the people exiting, using cell phones on a subway is a no-no, you could search all day and not find a piece of litter, and the trains arrive and depart on time to the second (By the way, Vietnam is the exact opposite fo this). You could spend hours if not days in Tokyo underground shopping, eating, drinking and never see the light of day.

I'd like to say we did a lot of sightseeing in Tokyo, but to be honest, we mostly saw whatever was next to the restaurant that we wanted to go to. Tsukiji fish market is the largest fish market in the world. There is a lot of fish in that place. But most importantly there are city blocks that are more or less all sushi restaurants. We almost missed our flight out of Tokyo because we wanted to hit one more lunch in Tsukiji before our flight!

So how do you order food in Japan when you don't speak Japanese? Most often, the point and grunt method works, especially when most restaurants have plastic models of their menu outside the restaurant. Or there is always technology to help you out. At one sushi restaurant, your meal went like this:

Step 1: Review the menu that was displayed on the ipad mounted to the table.

Step 2: Place your order on the ipad
Step 3: Recieve your food that is delivered to your table from the chef via an automated conveyor belt

Step 4: Repeat steps 1 though 3 as necessary.

Step 5: Have the waiter come over and scan your table with a magic wand that automatically calulates your total bill based on the embarrassing number of emptly plates.

What about if you want a drink and don't speak Japanese? Go to the vending machine bar for a beer or two. Located right on the street is a stall with about 6 vending machines filled with all sorts of canned Japanese beer with a small bar in front of them to drink and watch the craziness of Tokyo pass you by. Brilliant. Plus you don't have to tip anybody a dollar just for pouring you a beer.

What is that you say? You miss hearing about my VW van? Yeah, me too, but luckily we spotted a VW van in Tokyo that was converted into a portable espresso stand. Enraged with jealously. . . . I'll put this next on my list once I get the reverse gear working again on my van, except mine will be a portable Heineken and Jagermeister stand. Then again, reverse really isn't that important.. . ... .

While visiting the Imperial Palace we saw some rock climbers scaling the walls outside the palace. Turns out they were the palace gardeners picking out all the weeds between the rocks an throwing them down into the moat. They were about 3 stories off the ground without any ropes or gear. Looked like a lot of fun, but kinda made me second guess how impenatrible this wall was from invaders back in the day.

All in all our trip to Tokyo was great, and I think Margie proved she is now 100% Aoki as she gobbled down just as much sushi as I did!