May 25th, Tokyo: Our Last Full Day in Japan

Heavy rain this morning deterred us from heading to the fish market. But our early wake-up call did not go in vain; we took the opportunity to catch up on e-mails, call home, and book hotels at our next few destinations.

We also attempted to find a live broadcast of the Pistons-Cavs game, which was scheduled to occur at 9 AM Tokyo time on Friday morning. This would be the same as 8 PM Thursday night for those of you back in the USA, and 1 AM Friday morning for any British readers we might have.

After much (1+ hours of searching online) effort, it was discovered that ESPN Japan was carrying “NBA Hoop,” which we assumed to be the game. Unfortunately, upon spending 1000 yen on a card allowing our room to view the channel (10 bucks), the broadcast of the game was revealed to be game 1 – on a significant tape delay of multiple days.

Disheartened, we headed out for a local hibachi joint for lunch. The special of Japanese beef and sprouts, along with miso soup, tea, coffee, and Japanese pickles (oshinko) cost us 2200 yen (about 19 dollars). The habachi was some of the best food I’ve had during this trip, and the chef was both accommodating and terrific. See below:


After lunch, it was still pouring. Chris decided to take it easy, leaving Alex and I to explore during the early and late afternoon. We settled on the Shinjuku area, which was both easy to get to and featured large indoor shopping areas if the rain persisted.

Shinjuku also featured, as we discovered, large street electronic stores. See below:

We also ducked into the department stores for a bit; the Shinjuku district was filled with large department stores:


On the way home I purchased a pint of cherry tomatoes from a produce store, which I enjoyed on the way back to the hotel.

Back at our room in the evening, we attempted to head out for a local Asian fusion place featuring a combined Thai-Japanese theme. Unfortunately, it was quite expensive, and despite being written up by Lonely Planet, it was not very good. Still hungry, we ventured back into Shinjuku (15 minutes away by subway) for yakatori – grilled chicken on a skewer. It was fatty, but good. We washed it down with a Sapporo and ordered yakatori with the advice of some locals, and then headed back for the night.

On the subway home, Murph pulled a little humor for the subway. We had seen a few SARS masks in public places, but this took the cake:


In any case, we made it back, and called it an early night in advance of our trip to Beijing tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

My best to everyone - Mike

P.S. Pistons! 2-0! Bron-Bron got fouled, I'll agree, but Larry Hughes had a 7-footer to win the game... wow.

P.P.S. Big thanks to Molly, who is going to be posting for me, as I will be unable to access the blogger website from China and will be e-mailing her my posts. Thank you!