OHAYO!

online at last.

i've already been here 12 days now, and i can tell the time will pass much too quickly. as a remedy, i intend to post at least one point of interest for each day. i'll be using photos as a cue, so forgive the rambling nature of the blog.



day 1
narita express



welcome to tokyo.

my face is as green as the field. airsick on landing - that's never happened before.

it's hot here. really hot. 35c in the rain makes for a sticky mess. consequently, this is the only picture i took on day 1.





day 2
walking in naka-meguro



infrastructure. as you may know, stella stands about 5 foot nothing.

the driver was sitting inside eating lunch. i could tell he was eager to build something. like, say, a doorstep.






a rare sight - open channel flow.






with energy dissipators. tokyo is heavily over-engineered. which makes me giddy. i'm 100% surrounded by the built environment. there is no exposed soil, no birds overhead, no mountains on the horizon.






here's a typical rail station (train at top). amidst this clamor of infrastructure is a fine aesthetic appreciation - in the details.











a restaurant






and another. i don't know why everyone is so thin here. stella and i will surely die an unpleasant death due to overindulgence. the food options make me delirious - we've been eating up to 5 meals a day. but more on that later.





day 3
jazz festival in ikebukuro



transportation mode of choice. i must get one. i particularly like the caterpillar handlebars.

none of them are locked to anything, though most have a simple wheel lock.






it is telling that this guy is polishing the garbage can with bare hands. you could eat off the top.

there is something of a mental problem with cleanliness here. and i like it.






for example, here is our garbage collection point on the street outside our building. today is paper recycling day. we had to buy 4 garbage containers: combustible, non-combustible, paper, and plastic. stella is still coming to terms with the string bundle concept.




day 4
mejiro - our neighborhood



our neighbor. i want a bike like this. they're $110.






we live close to downtown, so parking is tight.






another restaurant. in the barrel to the left, we found this curious celebration...











we ate at this hole in the wall noodle shop. 8 people at a time, in a space the size of our bathroom. average stay: 6 minutes. our stay: 24 minutes, and afterwards we had to be rolled out the door.






this is the reason. the best cold ramen noodles i've ever had.





day 5
nishi-ikebukuro



our street in the morning...






... evening ...






... and night.






we ate at home for the first time. it's all about the food here. i think we have that figured out.





day 6
odaiba excursion



despite what i'd been told, many things are cheaper in tokyo than vancouver. for $7, we ate grilled chicken on shredded cabbage with roasted eggplant, rice, miso soup and tea. a freshly ground and pressed espresso here was 50 cents. you can see stella's chopstick entering the picture even as i shoot. so good.






where are we?

odaiba is a business park that's a cross between disneyland and las vegas. reclaimed land in tokyo bay, it makes for a heady counterpoint to downtown.











strange area because of the juxtaposition of wide open spaces and immense buildings.

the museum of emerging science and innovation (miraikan) was our second stop (after lunch #2).
















fort venus. a bizarre shopping experience, to be sure.






also home of toyota meg@web - a showcase where you can test drive cars on the closed circuit indoor/outdoor course.






and an enormous ferris wheel. second largest in the world after the millennium wheel.





day 7
mejiro



streets are narrow, but i've never seen an accident. bicycles and cars are ultra-patient - the pedestrian always has the right of way, and horns are never used.

the national motto must be "be considerate". oh, and be clean too.






some fine stone work. embedded traffic signage.