Japan Day 1 (part two)
Posted By Mike Gfeller on August 17, 2014
I have seen some of the craziest heels here…Natalie and Wendy Miller would love it! But I digress. After arriving at the Hotel Metropolitan we had some time to kill before meeting My friend John and his wife for dinner. We walked around the block. There were loud buzzing sounds coming from the trees. Wolfgang thought they sounded like mechanized birds and I told him I thought they were locusts, which they indeed were. We went back into the hotel and perused the various stores in the hotel. The front desk people in the hotels seem to speak the best English, the others are hit and miss. We went to a 2nd floor bar area where I had two beers (Asahi, not my favorite but it is growing on me) and Wolfgang had a hot cocoa. $20 for that. The Yen is roughly 100 to 1 conversion, so $2000 Yen = roughly $20.
we went upstairs and got a little bit of rest. John writes for an English newspaper in Japan and so he works crazy hours. He met his wife at the Ikebukuro train station and met us at the hotel lobby. He presented us each with a gift. Upon opening it, we each had received 3 patterned washcloths. They are for wiping the sweat from one’s face/forehead. I thought at the time such a gift wasn’t needed. I would be wrong.
I had brought John and Swee-Chi (his wife’s nickname), per his request, 2 boxes of Triscuits, 2 boxes of wheat thins, and two large bags of Cheetos. Wanting to avoid lugging them around, I left Wolf with John to review dinner options while I went to get the treasured snacks. There were no bags in the room so I confiscated a pillowcase, put it all in there and brought it back down to John.
Meanwhile Wolf and John had been deciding between ramen and okonomi-yaki, which is called Japanese pizza. Wolf decided on the pizza. We headed to the train station. I was blown away. You take escalators down and you are in the middle of an ant farm. I had mentioned in a Facebook post that there was lots of scurrying. It looked like controlled madness. There were different colored subway stations leading this way and that way, Japanese Rail (JR) a different direction, and shops everywhere, from restaurants to electronics to sweets. We walked into an elevator, John pushed a button, and we got out of the elevator smack dab into this huge department store. It went left and right and was apparently multiple floors. Turns out it had the same name as the subway line because it was the same developer. Ah, now this is closer to American thinking!
There were restaurants of all types. The smells were amazing and falling on a relatively virgin palate so this was really something for me to behold. We sat down to wait for a table. There were chairs outside the restaurant and you sit in order (the equivalent of taking your name). When someone gets seated, everyone shifts chairs. It’s really culinary musical chairs, but it is efficient and in typical Lean style, there was a picture of how the seating worked and when people walked up to it they looked at the picture and sat down accordingly.
They took our order before we were seated so they could begin preparation. Just like an American pizza, you started out with this base (a little batter, noodles and cabbage) and added to it what you want, such as pork, shrimp, egg, etc. I ordered pork and shrimp. When we were seated, the opposite side of the table was against the wall and it was bench seating. You lift up the bench and store your packages there and then sit down. Clever and efficient. I am noticing some recurring themes. The middle of the table had a grill (think Japanese steakhouse).
They brought the pizzas and set them on the grill. They then pour a sauce (kinda like teriyaki) all over them. Then you put mayo on them, then flakes of dried fish and seaweed and finally you get to eat the damn thing. It’s a lot of work for some noodles, but it was delicious and like nothing I’ve ever had. Very filling. Wolf can be a picky eater but he ate every bite. John and his wife picked up the tab and we walked back to the hotel. All the stores close at 9P, which I found surprising. John and his wife came up to the room and Wolfgang was instantly asleep. Since we were headed to Hiroshima the next day, John made plans to meet us at 7A at the station to escort us to Tokyo station to exchange our JR passes for the trip and then they departed. Day one over and a success.
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