Monday, March 21st: Night on the Town
Monday was a lot of fun. Breakfast at the hotel - a mix of Japanese and western food, hot rice, cold grilled fish, cold scrambled eggs, miso soup, cabbage salad, sausage (not quiet vienna sausage) coffee and tea. We then hopped on the train and went to Mitaka. We went to Studio Ghibli, the museum created by Miyazaki, for animation. It has a very interesting display of animation history and the history of his own works. There is a traveling Pixar display there, including a sketch of Disco Zurg - a joke passed between two animators. Watching the kids on the Neko Bus (Cat Bus from Totoro) was so much fun. The children were so taken with everything, it was fun to watch them explore. Children's laugher and amazement translates fine in any language.
We then had lunch in Mitaka. I couldn't tell you where we went, it was a block or so off the main street and it had the most amazing soup and noodles. We found it by following our noses.
From there we returned to Shinanomachi and hooked up with two new friends Satoko and Eric. They took us to the SGI headquarters district, where we got to visit the Toda center and a woman's kaikon and then to SGI headquarters where we were showered with gifts. We chanted and did gongyo, which was slower than I expected (I could keep up). We were originally standing on the side of the room since most seats were taken. A sweet little (literally) old lady came up and greeted us with such an excited expression. My Japanese is poor but I could tell she was excited to have American members at the facility, she and her husband gave us their seats. Shortly she came back and gave us these pretty little note books. We weren't sure where they were from, but the gesture was so kind. As we went out we gave a contribution, and that's where the little souvenir notebooks came from, so they must have made a donation that day and given us their little gifts. It made me very sentimental.
After we went to Rippongi Hills - the big party part of town and that's where I got the seeds of my hangover. We first went to the observation tower at the top of the Rippongi Hills building and took a long look at Tokyo at night - a very pretty sight. We went to a neat restaurant, below ground, that was a Japanese version of a Tapas place. We had yakitori, shrimp in a spicy mayo, radish salad, sake, shoju, beer, sushi, gyozo, and ice cream, but no water. Hmmm - maybe my first wrong choice. We then went to a bar called Heartland and had one more round before the smoke and lack of water got to me. We stumbled home - the end.
We then had lunch in Mitaka. I couldn't tell you where we went, it was a block or so off the main street and it had the most amazing soup and noodles. We found it by following our noses.
From there we returned to Shinanomachi and hooked up with two new friends Satoko and Eric. They took us to the SGI headquarters district, where we got to visit the Toda center and a woman's kaikon and then to SGI headquarters where we were showered with gifts. We chanted and did gongyo, which was slower than I expected (I could keep up). We were originally standing on the side of the room since most seats were taken. A sweet little (literally) old lady came up and greeted us with such an excited expression. My Japanese is poor but I could tell she was excited to have American members at the facility, she and her husband gave us their seats. Shortly she came back and gave us these pretty little note books. We weren't sure where they were from, but the gesture was so kind. As we went out we gave a contribution, and that's where the little souvenir notebooks came from, so they must have made a donation that day and given us their little gifts. It made me very sentimental.
After we went to Rippongi Hills - the big party part of town and that's where I got the seeds of my hangover. We first went to the observation tower at the top of the Rippongi Hills building and took a long look at Tokyo at night - a very pretty sight. We went to a neat restaurant, below ground, that was a Japanese version of a Tapas place. We had yakitori, shrimp in a spicy mayo, radish salad, sake, shoju, beer, sushi, gyozo, and ice cream, but no water. Hmmm - maybe my first wrong choice. We then went to a bar called Heartland and had one more round before the smoke and lack of water got to me. We stumbled home - the end.
