Japan Thursday April 20 2006 number 2

Yesterday I went to a garden outside of Yokohama by myself – Sankeien Garden. The garden was beautiful, but half the fun was figuring out how to take the bus there and back. There was almost no English. Only my stop and maybe two others were said in English; if it hadn’t been for that I would have been totally lost. But I figured it out. It was fun. The garden was in a suburb of Yokohama so it was more residential and quieter. It seemed more like a place where people really lived. I saw playgrounds with children playing. I saw a westerner and his son kicking a soccer ball around. I saw two western children walking home from school, uniforms and all, looking just like the Japanese kids, but not Japanese.

The gardens were beautiful (have I said that before? I think maybe I have). This one was full of buildings that they guy that created the garden had moved from Kyoto or other places in Japan so that they wouldn’t be destroyed. So not only were there the usual lovely flowering trees and plants there were also all these little Japanese buildings nestled in the trees, at the edge of a pond, in a corner between two small hills. It was just so nice and peaceful; I took a pile of pictures.

On the way back it was hard to figure out which bus to take. It looked like the one that I had taken in the morning wasn’t going to come again for another hour, but there was a little old man sitting at the bus stop. I turned to him and pointed at the schedule. “Yokohama Station?” I repeated, pointing to the various buses in turn. “Hai! Hai!” he replied, pointing to the next bus that was supposed to come. “Yokohama!”. When the bus came he all but shoved me on: “Yokohama! Yokohama!” I sputtered out an “arigato gaziemus” and off I went.

Today I met Beth and another friend of hers in Tokyo. I had another subway adventure…I discovered that I really didn’t need to change from the subway to the train at the Yokohama station after; if I got on a limited express subway train at Mintatomuria I could stay on that train all the way into Tokyo and it was a lot faster than changing to the JR line. On the way there I got a little confused once I was in Tokyo and trying to change to the other subway line I needed in order to get to Ropongi, but I figured it out.

We ate in Ropongi at a very interesting Sushi bar. Apparently this is really common in Japan. You go into the bar, take off your shoes and put them in a little locker. Then you sit down at the sushi bar, and the sushi floats by your table on a conveyor belt! Its very handy, but kind of bad for someone like me that wants to eat everything they see – Japanese Dim Sum! I did control myself, since sushi is so filling. There were little spigots for hot water right there at the table, and powder for your green tea. So you put the powder in your cup and then press the button on the spigot – there you go, instant green tea!

 We didn’t end up going to the Edo Museum because she didn’t really have enough time, so instead we went to the Pearl Store, and OH WOW was that cool! The lady told us all about pearls and how to tell good ones from crappy ones. We tried on different ones, and I found one that I just loved. She took a picture of it for me and put my name on it, but she couldn’t hold it because it was a unique set. A black pearl in a silver setting…just lovely. I brought the picture back for Lee, hint, hint, hint. Maybe he’ll go buy it for me the next time he’s in Japan. That’s the idea anyway. And, as we turned to leave she gave us both a little present – a set of 5 little Japanese bowls! It was just really neat.

When I got back to the hotel, I WAS going to get room service, but first I wandered over to this high-end grocery store in the mall. I discovered that I could buy tempura and a fruit salad, a single Kirin beer, a little pastry, AND some diet cokes for tomorrow (rare items in Japan) so that’s what I did. Lee is out doing a business dinner tonight. Tomorrow we eat with the 3M guys one more time, but Lee has a business meeting at 9 PM tomorrow night (doesn’t THAT suck, its so that someone in the US can join them, a bigwig, so of course they don’t want to inconvenience HIM!). Then Saturday evening we’re joining Beth and Hector (her husband) for dinner.

I’ve just had the best time here…Japan has not disappointed me in the slightest. Tomorrow I’ll go to the Edo Museum on my own and maybe the Ginza department stores too, although they sound pretty overwhelming….