Japan! Part I: Tokyo

So we finally made it to Tokyo, though it was an exhausting journey where we lost of time and time zone quite a few times. We had to pay the price for it, as we lost an entire day of our life! Though we will gain these hours back (and have been previously) as we keep traveling...

The hotel was quite disappointing (monterey ginza) though well located.

Getting from the airport to the hotel was quite a journey itself.. we had to take a train and the subway and it was an excruciatingly long trip, about 2 hours.. getting used to the lack of english language and understanding how to buy the tickets were also a challenge. Sam got the hang of it for the both us, picking up where I gave up given how tired and sick I was by that point (yes I am SICK on vacation and have been for the last 4 days grrr!)

Being in Japan is a very different experience, one that one ca only take in without completely fully making sense of it all. it is kind of a take it all in and analyze later thing.

There are very convenient vending machines at almost every block where Sam got to try a canned coffee, which to our surprise came hot out of the vending machine...

The night we arrived in Tokyo, we ended up trying to find sushi for dinner. A small feat since pretty much no one speaks any english, all menus are in japanese or english version of the japanese words (not that useful if you dont know that maguro is tuna...) and we were exhausted..

We ended up taking about 2 hours to order take out sushi in a place located 3 minutes away from our hotel and recommended to us by them.

Well let me tell you, our first sushi in Japan was a bust.

Sam pointed at the first menu set on the menu, not realizing he chose the only vegetarian option (made of weird pickled mushroom and other not so fun veggies) and I got a mixed set composed of only a few nigiri suhi i ended up eating..

The sushi quality was actually very disappointing... kind of like supermarket quality.

The next day we visited the senso-ji temple along with another gazillion people that day :) that was fun. then finally had a decent meal in a random place.. Udon and soba noodle with shrimp tempura gave me new hope for our culinary experiences to come in Japan.

We got really brave after that and went for dinner to the Sinjuku area.. After some electronic shopping (not that interesting and quite pricey)

we wandered to yakitori alley to some of the narrowest restaurant you might have ever seen. It is basically like a kitchen counter with a tiny bar with a bench. My knees kept bumping the counter, it was TINY!

And probably the most unsanitary as well.

Yakitori are little skewers of marinated meat.. The place we stoppped at did only beef and pork, whichI thought made it simple. one of the guy spoke a little english and started asking what we wanted and he ended up chosing for us after asking a couple questions..

well that was interesting...! It was good, for the very most part, but I am pretty sure the second skewer we got was beef tongue (did not eat that) and there was pork cheeks too which I never thought I would eat but I could not tell which one it was, so i figured it could not be that bad.

The marinade was really good, but that meal really made me feel nauseaous for the next 36 hours.. It did not sit well with me and I actually went on japanese food strike for ~the next 18 hours :)

I have come to the conclusions that yakitori skewers here are really a way to use left over meat pieces no one wants in other dishes.. beurk!

they alley: