April 26: Tokyo

April 26: Tokyo

DB says a word,
and I say a word - spring
is deepening

Eego ga wakarimasu ku?

Do you speak English?

Pics: Dog Wanted posted? Cuckoo clock, Farmers Market booth, and, yes, they do play Duplicate Bridge in Japan

The last complete day of the trip, and we don’t have much planned. We roam around from area to area, doing bits and pieces of art, shopping, galleries. We visit Mishima’s gallery in the Ginza district to discuss prices, and arrange to come back late in the afternoon to finalize options and to pick up our gift from the Osaka visit.

We take Yasuko from the gallery to lunch, we eat okonomiyaki, a griddle cake made with cabbage, egg, squid, shrimp and other unidentifiable items, plus we get fried noodles (a form of chow fun), a beer, and green salads; total $40.

In the late afternoon, as we tire from the walking and lunch has worn off, we stop for a truly western treat: gelato! It’s nice enough today to justify the stop, and help us ease into the Bay Area. You get multiple flavors, so along with Mexican, I order sakura, which translates to cherry blossom. What do I know; it turns out to be coconut! Hmmmmmm….not sure that’s right. Two smalls, $11

Return to hotel to rest up and drop off our packages and leave in time to catch the 6pm giant cuckoo clock show right outside our hotel. Pretty wild, maybe only worth one viewing.

Dinner at the place recommended by the organic rice booth at the farmers market in Roppongi. The restaurant makes us pre-order because nobody speaks English. Here are our instructions for finding the place: take exit 6 from Roppongi station, find the Haiyusa Theater, go a bit further to the Shimeda building, and the restaurant is in the basement. Amazingly, we find the place on first try, DB spots it (the name IS in English, it turns out), and down we head.

Well, of course when we arrive there is an English menu and at least one of the waitresses speaks enough phrases to guide us. We have appetizers (standard, we didn’t pre-order these) of a small cup of thick potato soup that seems more like a custard, then something we can’t identify (maybe clam?) with possibly bamboo shoots (also very good), followed by our pre-orders: sushi, pork belly, fried chicken in salt and tempura. All good to very good, and pork and chicken also easing us into our return though the pork was more like carnitas surrounded by mashed potatoes and gravy (much better than described here). Two plum wine cocktails, a glass of wine, and beer, $155.