First Morning Walk

Sae and I, being quite excited and still slightly jet lagged went for our first walk around the area yesterday morning. We live more in the "political hub" then I first realized... this most likely because all the maps I've been looking at are in Japanese. :-) It was an amazing walk, hopefully one that we do often. Because of the type of area, it doesn't really pick up till later in the morning, so we were basically the only ones on the street and in the shrine for our walk, aside from the security personnel obviously due to the important buildings and politians everywhere.

We started the walk by traveling up a certain hill that I've given a name that probably isn't appropriate for this blog, but it is seriously the steepest hill I think I've seen with no stairway, etc. There is a one lane road down it, in the U.S. more like 1/2 lane road. then along the one side is a paved path for people to walk. There are literally 55+ men in suites and women in hills trotting up and down the hill to and from work with no problem... I'm looking for a gatorade and some guy to hand me a towel by the time I get to the top.

Once at the top you have the Mexico Embassy, and the office buildings for the political party that is currently in the power seat in the government. A bit further down we were at an intersection with the Diet Building (Japanese version of the capital building), High Court (Japanese version of the Supreme Court), and a massive Japanese garden. The Supreme Court is interesting, it's basically part of and on the same location as a large house and grounds of a very famous samurai. We made a right turn from there and walked to the end of the "capital building" block, where you are then facing the offices and seperate private residence of the Prime Minister. That's basically the third leg of our square morning walk.

On the final leg is the famous Shrine I had mentioned in a previous post, I believe this is the Hie Shrine, it is Shinto. It was quite serene and very peaceful as we were the only ones in there at that time of the morning. As we left the shrine and finished up our walk we came across a garden that is right outside of our building. It is dedicated to and in memory of the late president of Prudential Insurance in Japan (as we live in Prudential Tower). It is a garden for the blind, so is focused on touch and smell. It has rosemary bushes, thyme, about 20 other different types of bushes, flowers, shrubs, all with an intense smell to fit the theme of the garden.

Later in the day we went and did some grocery shopping. First one we came across was super small, they sold Whale meat though... pretty interesting... it's all for science... riiiggghhhht. The one we ended up shopping at wasn't bad, certainly the largest, but still postage stamp sized compared to US grocery stores. The aisles are small and people just squeeze around each other. I only knocked one thing off a shelf... not bad. Some intersting prices... 2 ears of corn: $5, a watermelon (small-med size): $25, 4 apples: $5. Meat is expensive, imagine paying something around a $1 per slice of bacon. You know what is cheap... shitake mushrooms, about what would cost $8 in the U.S. is about 90 yen (or 90 cents) in the U.S. so that was pretty sweet. From there we headed home, and took in all the sites. There is so much commerce and activity - it's mind boggling. In the next few days I'll try and take some shots that capture it.

To finish out the day we navigated the train system... it makes the CTA look like something in Tokepa, Kansas. The trains are rediculously clean, always on time, and equipped with comfortable seats - if you can get one. The stations are interesting, packed with stores, and sidewalk shops right outside of them because everyone takes the train... so they either need breakfast on the way in, or dinner on the way home plus general odds and ends, etc.

I started meetings this morning... at 3:30 AM local time. Good times. It's actually not too bad though, the sun starts coming out here around 4, 4:15. Sae and I went to the lobby of our buidling for breakfast. They serve breakfast mon-fri, pretty nice. Today I had a roll filled with potato and roe on it, a banana, and about a 1/4 cup of yogurt. Yesterday it was a roll filled with meat sauce and mozeralla cheese. Very interesting breakfast food, but quite delicious once you forget about the standard eggs/bacon/pancake concepts.

Alrighty, back to work!