Thursday, February 10, 2005

Japan Recap, Part Three

So, with the family once again reunited, we fell into a routine of dropping the daughter at her grandmother's house every morning, driving back to the hotel, walking to Tachikawa station, and train-hopping our way around the city.

On Monday we simply did some shopping, slept late, had a nice lunch, and met my wife's mother and her husband for a sub-par dinner at a family restaurant.

Tuesday had us traveling to Asakusa, a very touristy but wonderful place filled with food and souvenir stalls. Asakusa is most known for it's temples, shrines, and 5-story pagoda, ...but most people seem to go there for the souvenirs.

This is the first place I've visited in Japan that had a large number of foreign tourists about. Lot's of Japanese women taking their foreign husbands through, translating all the memorials, signs, and traditions.

The wife hates history, consequently she doesn't know much about the history of her own country. Her eyes quickly glaze over when I ask her to translate an inscription on a statue or the meaning behind a mural.

I'll post pictures of all I saw later ...

As the sun went down the weather got colder and the wind picked up pace, ...so we hurried off the main path to a large marketplace that offered more shelter. Walking the long lines of storefronts we stopped at a small, quaint, traditional-style restaurant and settled down for hot green tea, unagi, rice, and soup.

The only patrons besides us were 3 men over 70. The wife suggested that this was a good sign. The food is probably very good and very authentic if it is popular with locals. And it was. You could tell each guy came here as part of his daily routine, ...just a small bit of food and quiet to ease the soul.

Wednesday took us to Shibuya and the famous crosswalk that appears in almost every picture of Tokyo, just as Times square appears in most pictures of New York. The Hachiko monument was the highlight for me. It's a statue of a dog named Hachiko.

Some time in the long ago past, Hachiko would come to the station at Shibuya to wait for his master. He came every day at the same time and waited for him. One day his master died while he was away, but poor Hachiko faithfully came to the station everyday for the rest of his life hoping to see his master. He never got discouraged and never gave up on his master. The townspeople felt sorry for poor Hachiko so they would bring food and water for him to eat so he would not starve. The Japanese revere Hachiko for his determination and loyalty, ...the train station is now called Hachiko station and a cute monument sits at the Shibuya crossing. It's a popular tourist stop.

Last stop was the Tokyo hands, ...the Japanese answer to the Harrods. You can get everything there from furniture to power tools to camping equipment to the highest-quality fashions.

This was our last real day of rest. Thursday we needed to check out of the hotel, drive the daughter to her grandmother's, drop our luggage off at her mother's, return to Tachikawa and drop off the rental car, take one train and one cab to get back to her mother's house, then hitch a ride with her sister to her father's house where we would be spending the night.

Talk about a pointless, annoying day. I calculated how long this would have taken had we been in the US, ...total transit time, 20 minutes. Here in Tokyo, this took all day. Literally. It took 9 hours.