Wild on Toykyo: The Branch Hits Japan!

Konnichiwa, American friends! Guest bloggers Ashley Oliver, Svea Hall, and Julia Brown are here and ready to rock this blog. Vacation here in Japan is fantastic ... we are "getting it" in Tokyo BIG TIME.

We miss ya ... but not badly because this place is pretty darn high energy, pretty exciting, and we hardly have time to think there are so many fun things to do. Here are some highlights ...

Luckily we had Julie to escort us from the Narita airport to her apartment in Tokyo. Otherwise, I am quite certain we never would have made it!! The language barrier is FOR REAL here. We were jet-lagged as heck but we managed to grab a bite to eat at aforementioned Rainbow Roll sushi our first night in town. Delic!

The next day, we got up bright and early (5:30 AM) and hit the Tjukiji fish market. This is where all that fresh sushi comes from and oh my gracious it is out of control. It's a freaking miracle that we didn't get run over by one of these crazy machines that roll the massive tuna around the market. And I mean MASSIVE. These tuna are often the size of a golden retriever and sometimes much larger. It's crazy. In addition to the tuna, you can count on the fact that that every swimming, crawling, or otherwise moving creature from the sea is also available in this market (and presumably edible which is the scary part). Julia is quoted as saying "I have seen more types of food that I can't identify in the last 30 minutes than if I sat down right here and spent 5 hours trying to think of every possible food I have ever eaten in my life". We topped off our trip to Tjukiji with the obligatory sushi breakfast. Svea wins the award for being the most adventuresome when it comes to eating unidentified foods. She's a champ! Julia on the other hand, nearly lost her sushi. Overall, it was definitely an apropriate "baptism" to the Japanese culinary scene. More on that to come ....

The subway here is AMAZING ... even though the map looks like someone dropped a plop of Sobu noodles on the page and gave them a little extra mix with their chopsticks. But these Japanese have great foresight and have actually created a system that makes life pretty easy. As long as you remember to stick to the social rules of organization and consideration IE staying on the left side when you walk ANYWHERE and not really saying a word, eating or drinking, or taking up too much space in general. As we have found, these social conformaties aren't really in our genetic make-up as Americans so it's definitely a different frame of mind.

Anywho, our first solo trip on the subway after sending Julie off to work was to Omotesando and the Meiji shrine. The shrine was pretty cool and zen ... and we saw a crew of Japanese folks receiving a blessing which was neat. But the fact of the matter is that the historical and religious landmarks here in Japan are really truly the least interesting part. The people watching, fashion, shopping, and cultural observances are really the best. So with that in mind, we hit up an infamous shopping spot where Japanese teens go in droves to get their crazy clothes, accessories, cell phone charms and etc. Takeshita-dori proved to be some of the BEST people watching so far ... as well as a favorite experience of having young girls who work in the shops scream a shrill welcome over and over and OVER and OVER again while you puruse. Personally, I felt like running out of the alley but aparently this screaming is supposed to be welcoming. After purchasing a couple of $3 necklaces, we were done with that place. So we moved on to the more posh Omotesando shopping options. Nestled in the midst of all of the Versace, Gucci, Hermes, and Jimmy Choo is a place called The Oriental Bazaar ... souvenir central! Look out Atlanta, Julia, Svea and Ashley are now kimono-clad and looking hot like wasabi!

After all of that, it was only 12:30pm and we jumped back on the subway to meet up with Julie and go grab our bullet train tickets for the next day's excursion to Kyoto. We had a delicious lunch of cold soba noodles in hot broth and then moved along to Giniza to see some Kabuki thatre and check out that neighborhood. We missed the Kabuki but got a good feel for another one of Tokyo's posh shopping districts. By the way, Tokyo-ans (or whatever you call them) are generally impossibly fashionable. All that Julie writes below is true ... there are definitely some very unexplainable trends. But for the most part, folks are effortlessly chic and lookinig truly fabulous. And we can easily understand why... there are fantastic high-end stores on every corner. And when you are a twenty-something, professional Japanese woman, still living with your parents, what else would you spend your money on besides designer handbags and shoes?

We had to cut the afternoon a little short because there was some resting up to do. Wednesday night was MADONNA!!! I mean, get excited ... the Branch hits the Toyko Dome! The Madonna concert was insanely awesome. Envision horses, men wearing bits, Madonna in a unitard, Madonna in a white leisure suit, Madonna hung on the cross, Madonna in a black leather riding outfit, the most talented backup dancers ever, the most insane pyrotechnics and lighting ever, and just general fabulousness. Interestingly, the Tokyoites were relatively tame at this concert whereas Julie, Julia, Svea, and Ashley were rocking out as much as jetlag would allow. Madonna has certainly drawn out our "confessions" ... and we LOVE it. Go Material girl!

After the concert, we headed home to nurse our jetlag, but not until running into Julia's friend Matt from high school outside of the Tokyo Dome. The world is so terribly small!

The next day, Julia, Svea and Ashley rose with the sun and headed off for an excursion to Kyoto, one of Japan's oldest cities. We took the bullet train which is fantastic ... there should absolutely be trains like this in the US. We checked into our ryokan, a traditional Japanese-style hotel (more on that later), and trecked off to check out a new Japanese city.

We spent about an hour looking for a decent place to get a noodle bowl. When we finally found it, there wasn't a lick of English anywhere on any menu or spoken from any mouth. This afforded us our first opportunity to order at one of those places that has plastic food models in the windows (they are everywhere). Yes, we had to escort our waitress out into the alley to point at the food we wanted and then she brought it with a green tea and chopsticks (standard). So as it turns out, we don't really like chicken and sobu noodles floating in fish broth. As a matter of fact, everything seems to be floating in fish broth here and it can be a little, well, disgusting. But we gulped it down and managed to feel nourished and we were on our way.

We stopped at the Kyoto Traditional Crafts Museum for a little culture and of course shopping. Ashey bought an adorable ceramic bowl. Get ready to love it at her place as soon as we get back. Fantastic.

Then we traveled on to the Ninjo Castle and Palace. Best part was the nightengale corridor, an outer corridor on the shrine that allows the shogun and his feudal lords to hear any intruders ... the floor is engineered to creek as enemies try to enter. And the whole thing was just old as hell. Very fab.

We are headed off to our last authentic sushi dinner so will have to write more later. Sayonara for now and love ya much! - Julia, Ashley, Svea and Julie :)