See You Tokyo

Beijing: The guy on the left has his shirt pulled halfway up. A common style for men in Beijing, a method of cooling oneself.
The Water Cube on Saturday night. After we watched Diving.

The National Stadium at night.

Inside the Water Cube.
The Water Cube with different colors. Taken by some two Chinese girls who spoke Japanese as well. Very cool.
Our upgraded room, we did the math wrong and ended up booking for one less night than we needed so we had to stay in this one for the last night. REALLY NICE
Japan: Daiki in his room. I stayed in his bed, he slept on the floor on a futon.

An average Japanese meal. I think this could be the one that got me sick actually.
There is Daiki finishing second! Men's 800 Meter.
We got stuck in the rain on a night out. Luckily there was a small shrine for the gods whose purpose was to help those in need, funny because we were in need of shelter and that's what they served us for. Coincidence?
Another average meal, actually this is a nicer meal than most. Yes that is an entire fish. Yes I did eat it.
At the Tukiji Market, those are frozen Tuna.
This is also at the Tsukiji Fish Market, that guy is driving a little vehicle that almost killed me at least thirty times. Watch out for those if you ever come!

I am heading out of Tokyo tonight on a night bus to Osaka. I'll hopefully only be staying in Osaka for a few days because it is, unfortunately, very expensive. My plan is to spend at least one night in a capsule hotel and then the rest in a cheaper hotel. Hostels in Osaka are very few, and those that do exist often cost more than the cheap hotels.

I have been sick for about a week now, my stomach seems to be battling the different foods and I may have ingested food that should not have been eaten. But a little sickness won't stop me!

So for the past few days, despite sickness, I have been able to make a few jaunts into Tokyo. So let me fill you in. First off, we arrived late Sunday night in Narita Airport just outside of Tokyo. Jen left with her friend Ellie who lives in Roppongi and Daiki and I took a bus to Tokyo, then the train to Koganei, the city he lives in, and then walked from the station to his house. Daiki has one older brother, Naoki, he is 20 years old.

On the first few trips we went to Shinjuku and Ginza. Most notably we went to Tsukiji for the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest in the world. Although we were not able to see the auctioning part of the market, what we did see was amazing. Busy, dangerous(there were hundreds of the carts shown in the last picture of this post driving around with little care for pedestrians), and full of variety; big fish, small fish, dead fish, live fish, poisonous fish, fish eggs, cheap fish, expensive fish, and so on. After the fish market we went to the Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple, a true Japanese temple with a mix of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Which reminds me, I read a report that mentioned the number of Japanese who consider themselves religious. Something like 110 million consider themselves to belong to Shintoism and another 92 million to belong to Buddhism, which comes to a grand total of more than 200 million Japanese who consider themselves religious. Not bad for a country with a population of less than 130 million!

While in Ginza we visited the Sony Building. We saw the impressive digital aquarium and 3D aquarium and, of course, the Sony show room full of not-yet-released electronics. It was very cool and I was most impressed with the printers, which, by the way, were open for anyone to use. We also went to Kabuki! We saw two stories, the first was about a father lion and cub lion. The father lion would throw the cub lion off a cliff over and over and the cub would climb back up, so as to make the cub stronger. One time the cub didn't come up for a long time, the climax of the story, quite a climax.. Eventually the cub makes it back, sorry to ruin the end for anyone interested in seeing it for themselves. If you do see it the real draw for this show is the swinging of the mane, which apparently is extremely difficult to do and requires every muscle in the body to do correctly. The second, and much more interesting story, was about a gang member whose boss dies in front of him and feels he must bury him. Unfortunately for the gang member, he has no money. To make a long story short the gang member takes the body of the boss and makes him dance until people give him money/sake for the funeral. A very funny show.

Two days ago we made a trip to Yanaka, an old fashioned town within Tokyo. It was an interesting change in pace from the constant rush that exists within the great majority of Tokyo. While there we saw some small shops selling various things from simple children's toys to gross tasting 'treats' that the Japanese find to be quite tasty somehow.

Yesterday we went to see Tokyo Tower. It is modeled after the Eiffel Tower, but it is slightly taller and weighs almost half as much. When we arrived we got MacDonald's Japanese style, aka, very small. I got a big mac, which was just as gross as it is in the States but more expensive. After MacDonald's we went up to the Main Observatory Deck, 150 meters high, which was nice, not too spectacular, but observatories like those don't often excite me. So then we went to the Special Observatory Deck, 250 meters, from which we could see the top of Roppongi Hills. Outside the tower we got Crepes, delicious, and watched a monkey perform for money. It was impressive but we didn't donate, I can't imagine many people did because, from what I know, it is really not part of Japanese culture. In fact it was the first time I had seen a street performer in Asia. I had thought I'd seen one in Beijing but it turned out to be a crowd surrounding an Olympian who was being interviewed.

Lastly, my iPod broke and I will have to erase all of the data I have in order to fix it. Very sad.