Shabu Shabu 4/18/08

Today was another rainy day in Japan. Although, the rain did pour down on us we didn't let it get our spirits down. Instead, we felt it fit to do some indoor activities. Tokyo's Ginza area is pretty comparable to New York's 5th Avenue. Shopping here was fun regardless of a minor tiff we had that both made us sore. Though, being friend's for so long we knew what it took to quickly resolve it and move on to some fun. The department stores were pretty comparable to ones in the States except for the general layout where instead of being only two stories most of the malls had at least nine. The malls' exterior were impressive to look at these sky scrapers had enormous product placements in the form of video advertisements. It was futuristic in a sense and what interested me was why in the States we don't see this type of technology advancements. It was almost hard to appreciate the good marketing scheme because it was overwhelming. After walking around for half the day and buying only little affordable knickknacks we rode the train to the Edo-Tokyo museum.

The museum's girth was astonishingly large. It was filled with life size replicas of battle scenes, traditional dancing scenes, and a full scaled ryokon. The inside of the museum was spacious and had many facts and displays about the history of Japan from shoguns to rickshaws. The exhibits and mini replicas of villages were wonderful.

All this walking around stirred up a healthy appetite. We took the subway to an unexplored Shinjuku and went out to Lonely Planets recommended Shabu Shabu. Dinner cost a mere 2500 yen each including sake and loads of meat and veggies. It was my first shabu shabu experience and I was disappointed in the bland and uncreative dish. Even cooking to meat was boring. Luckily, I didn't get sick eating all the beef, an item I haven't ate in nearly ten years. Both of us were still hungry after we left, though we weren't starving. We followed wearily Lonely Planet's guide to Golden Era and stumbled upon a punk-rock bar. What caught my eye about this bar was it was punk, red, and had a cute young yellow haired punky bartender. Katie and I sat and talked about everything from my boyfriend Ian, work, relationships, and so on. It was nice to let go of my thoughts to a good friend.

We talked with the bartender who told us about Japan punk made us tasty drinks lychee
soda and melon ball. The Japanese bartender was fun to talk to, he spoke English pretty well, but it was more like a guessing game trying to figure out what he was saying or like playing charades. Katie and I went home and slept very well.