July 4th Weekend

Matthew has no time to blog this week, so I try to complete the July 4th Weekend blog.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mburkmier/July2Weekend?authkey=Gv1sRgCO-FoIetm7iFbA#slideshow/5490394935535196562

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7/3
Have you watched this video I posted on my facebook? A little exaggerating video about Japan, but mostly it is true. Matthew and I were shocked by the information by this video about the Shubuya crossing. At the peak hour, over 3000 ppl cross at this intersection.....Let's go and see it!! So, on 7/3, we took a train for Shibuya.


Above this intersection, there was a Starbucks coffee where you can look down to see ppl cross this intersection. That would be the best place to take pictures but we saw tons of foreigners sitting at the table by the window and witness/videotape/take pictures of this crazy crossing. So we gave up having a table up there and went to the station building to have a nice view. (See the pictures)

As you see, it was so tiring to be among this ppl flood so we decided to visit a quieter area of Shibuya. What we found was the NHK, which is one of the TV/Radio stations. Near the NHK was Yoyogi Park. It was the site for the main Olympic village in 1964 but now became a big park for the Tokyo metropolitans. The Basket stadium and the Swimming/Diving arena still remain and are used for the residents now. At the memorial area, they had a "go-green" festival and we saw lots of "eco/natual" goods or plants.

Looking down this festival from the bridge, we found a huge Japanese guy sleeing on a bench among this festival (see the pic, so funny). He barely moved with his mouth widely open. By him, there were sandals and some plastic bags. "Is he a homeless?" "How can he sleep like that in this crowd?" It was clearly not only us who got interested and we saw some guys taking pictures of him.

We came back from Shibuya and headed to dinner. This night, we had "Kushi-katsu". It's basically a Japanese deep-fried kebab. Everything is a one-bite size. A wide variety of food like meat, chicken, pork, lots of different fish, squid, octopus, and vegetables is skewered on a bamboo stick. They are dipped in flower, egg and panko (in this order) and fried. You can order one by one but we selected the unlimited course. Another course serves only 10 sticks. (10 sticks! Give me more! Why do you think I joined the Burkmiers? Because I eat tons!) Matthew --- 22 sticks. Sae --- 24 sticks. I thought I could eat more. What a shame.

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7/4
One of the places in Tokyo Matthew REALLY wanted to go was the TOTO show room. If you say "What is TOTO?", please watch the "Cougar Town". They have a very funny episode about the remodeled bathroom. The main character played by Courtney Cox got a Japanese toilet, TOTO for her new bathroom. The Japanese toilet.... that is what we wanted to check out on Sunday.

If you know the Japanese toilet, please skip this section. The Japanese toilet....it takes care of you completely. When you approach, it opens a lid for you. If you are a guy or you like to keep standing, it lifts a seat up for you. If you do No.2, it washes you. Too hot? Too weak? It changes a water temperature or strength of spray for you. Oh now it is wet! Yes, it blows you. Oh wow, it stinks! Sure, it vacuums airs to hide what you did!

Dinner was suhi. A real sushi restaurant where sushi chefs are working. We sat at the bar and placed orders. Usually the Japanese sushi restaurants have some grades of tuna. The lowest grade, "tuna". The middle grade, "choo-toroh". The highest grade, "Oh-toroh". "Which would you like?" asked I, and Matthew said "All of them. I want to compare." Great. He didnt taste a difference between tuna and choo-toroh. But Oh-toroh. As the grade becomes higher, it contains more fat. It is not greasy fat but more deeply tasteful and tender. He also had a lobster, a crab meat, a wagyu beef, a california roll, a crab roll and more.

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7/5
It became my best day in Tokyo! We biked from our place to the Tokyo Bay. About 4 km. We stopped at the Hamarikyu Garden for 2 hours to see this garden. This Japanese garden used to be a falcon hunting place for the Shogun Tokunaga Family that ruled Japan for 300 years since 1600 and also a duck hunting place. Hi, American ppl, if you think of a duck shooting, you are truly American (lol). This duck huning is very complex. The target is green/brown ducks. Duck hunting was surprisingly simple, needing only patience, rice, and decoy ducks. Leading from a pond there are some small narrow duck blinds called hikibori. These are water channels about 1 meter wide and 20-30 meters long, each leading to a dead end. This hikibori was surrounded by mounds on both sides where hunters could hide silently in wait. By a pond, there is a small shed where observers could take a peek at a pond to lead ducks to hikibori. They used rice for feeding wild ducks and decoy ducks. Decoy ducks were well-trained by special noise and know that they can get more rice by coming into hikibori after this noise. The decoy ducks were basically domestic white ducks, raised in the ponds and returned safely to the water after each hunt. When wild ducks would follow the decoy ducks into the hikibori, the observer shut a gate at hikibori to separate from a pond. Then, hunters and observers startled wild birds to make them fly away but they were caught in the nets the hunters threw. Another noticeable character of this garden is a location. It is located by the bay and uses seawater for the ponds so that you can see some seawater creatures in this Japanese garden.

After the visit, we headed to north to see the Nihonbashi. Nihonbashi is a business area for more than 300 years around a bridge called Nihonbashi. Nihon means Japan and bashi means a bridge literally. This bridge was the final terminus of Nakasendo that ran between Kyoto (Old capital city) and Tokyo. From this origin, there is a point at the very middle of Nihonbashi (bridge), called "Killometer Zero Point", used to measure a distance from Tokyo to anywhere for maps/records.

From Nihonbashi, we headed to west, the Imperial Palace, and biked around the Palace to come back home. The total trip was about 20 km, 12.5 miles. It was a long trip but we could find the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world and the commercial bay area as well.

Dinner was dim sum! Dim sum is dim sum. No grades like tuna. Ah, I spend the whole hour to come to this line. I better save some space for Matthew to wrap it up.