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Wednesday  January 22,  2003 ....

Well I woke up after a nice nights sleep in a good bed.  Considering  my previous day’s sleep was done in bus seats and cramped on a plane with 400 other people I enjoyed it.

My plan for my  first full day in Tokyo was to meet my friend Ai and her boyfriend Nathan  at 11 Am for lunch.  I  think  Ai is my  longest continuous penpal,  we’ve been writing for about 1 year or so.   She  is  a  very nice girl about 25 years old from Fukuoka but  living  in Tokyo working in the travel industry.  

The Four Seasons Chinzan - So  hotel is located in a residential neighborhood of Tokyo.  So I decided to explore the area and walk  the 20 minutes down the road to the Mejiro JR train station where I would meet them rather than take the taxi to the station.  It  was a nice walk and interesting to  see how  smaller businesses operated  along side of  schools  and houses. It was different than the usual commercial  districts I would see on my trip.  Urban suburbs kept up
neat and orderly versus  the downtown commercial districts one usually see's I suppose.   I  had to get used to seeing  traffic  drive  on  the  other side of the road than I am used to   I never  did  quite  figure  out  which  side  of  the  road  the  oncoming  traffic  would  be  coming  from. I  tried  to  mentally make  a note  to  keep  to  the  left  side  of the  sidewalk also  but I  discovered  on  my  trip  that it  is  a  free  for  all on the  sidewalks and the bicycles will do what they had to weave in  and  out of traffic.  Yet for the most part the bicycle riders (and there are many of them of all ages) are orderly and not reckless.   It  was  interesting to see Pizza hut on 1 side of the street and Domino’s almost directly on the other side of the street, each with their  squadrons of  delivery scooters  parked  inside ready  to  deliver.  

I  passed an area located near a Women’s college and it  was  nice to see an influx of young mostly attractive girls walking to  college.  I  found a bakery  and of course I  stopped in to  get some  pastries  for  breakfast.  Hmmm  a  nice  roll with  cheddar cheese  chunks  baked  into it  and  a Chocolate  croissant  to boot.  Nothing like getting  Powdered  sugar  and  flaky  croissant flakes  all  over  your sweater as you are walking.  But  who  cares, it hit the  spot!  later on I  found  a pastry  Shop  on the other side of
the  street and I  bought an individual raspberry cake that  we  would  share  after  lunch.  I stopped  by  a  koban  (Police Box) and  I asked  the Policeman in my  broken Japanese If I  was  close to Mejiro  station and he assured me  that I  was --  500  meters  down  the  street --  oh oh  time  to  do a  quick  metric conversion
ha ha ha.

I  made it to  the  station  and I plowed through the Japan times in  my  bag,  as I  waited to meet Ai and Nathan.  Japanese  newspapers  at  least  the  English editions  that  I  got  from the  hotel mostly are  a  little  bit  wider than  standard  American editions  but they  are a lot thinner and generally  lacking  in  content  compared  to  their  American  counterparts.  10  minutes  and
you  have read  the  paper  cover  to  cover.   Ah  there  is  Ai  and  Nathan  we  got  organized and I  told  them that I  did  not  have  any  plans  other  than  to see  them.  I used  my  rail  pass
for  the  first  time  and  we  took  the train  a  few stops  to  the  Shinjuku area and  got  off.  Shinjuku  is  one  of  the  commercial areas  of  Tokyo  with the biggest  skyscrapers.

After telling them  that I  had  seafood  allergies we  decided  to   go  for  Indian curry.  It  was  very  James Bondish  though -- actually  kind  of  fun.  we  entered  a  game  arcade  full of  machines  to try to win  Winnie the  Pooh  stuffed  toys.  It  was  just  like  any  game  arcade  in  the states except  we got  about 1/3  of  the  way  in  and  we  went  to  an  elevator on the  side  wall. That took us  upstairs to  the  Indian restaurant -- welcome to  a  totally  different tranquil world  than  downstairs  full  of  arcade  noise.  I  would  have  never  thought  that  the  restaurant  would  have  been  there.

We  had  a nice  lunch  and  we talked  about  many different  topics.  Nathan (from Wisconsin) met  Ai  while  he was attending  college (term in Tokyo).  he  majored  in  languages   finished
his  degree and  returned to Ai where  he  is  now  teaching English somewhere in  the  Tokyo area.  he  certainly  is  a lucky guy!  It  was nice  to pick  his  brain  about how  his  daily life  is.  What  did he  miss  the  most from America  -- Why  good  cheese  of  course.  he  gave  me  a  little  insight  about  his teaching career too.  Then  Nathan  had  to  depart  and go  to  work  but  Ai  had  the  rest  of the  day  to  spend  with  me.

We  went  off  to the  Tokyo  metropolitan  government  towers  picked 1 of  the 2 towers and we went to the 50 Th.  floor  observation  level.  It  was  free.  I liked it as I have been to many of the tallest towers  in America also,  to  do  the  same thing  and  see  the  sights.  It  was  slightly  hazy  out
though so the  view  was  limited  but I  wasn’t complaining  Ai  pointed  out  where  she  lives approximately  and we talked  a little about sizes of our respective apartments and  rents.  Ai
spent  about  1/2   a  year  in  San Diego  and  she  loves  Santa  Monica too.  needless  to  say she  is  an  outgoing  friendly  girl and  her  English was excellent.