So Kiss Me and Smile For Me

Final night in Tokyo. Back in Kabukicho nestled right in the heart of Shinjuku. Ah Kabukicho - one day I will tell you how I was offered a sex massage in a room with three different shower heads (stop me if you've heard this one before) at 6AM on the rainy morning of the Tokyo marathon. Soaking wet hats off to those who brave the morning air to divest me of my money in a house of ill repute. I had to save all my energy for the marathon so in the end, I declined.

My old hometown of Sapporo was so much fun. We hot-springed, ate all manner of meat on sticks (Kushidori!), Karaoke-d (and Markus said never!), grilled lamb in the Sapporo beer factory on a dome shaped grill shaped like Gehngis Khan's hat. Memories of this place where I lived for three years grew more full all the time we were there. Standing in front of the burgundy and concrete front of Pearl Heights, I felt giddy. Friends that are too far away were not. All of the fun and significant places came back bit by bit. I forgot how friendly the folks of Sapporo are. They look you right in the eye and give you a smile. In Toronto, that is an outright violation of personal space!

The train ride from Sapporo back to Tokyo was hell on bullet train tracks. We booked too late and rode most of the way in a cramped, over heated compartment with sick children and sweet little old men who chew their rice balls with mouths way wide open. Add slurping of hot tea and coffee, 35 C, and you have a fun picture. The last leg of the trip - 1.5 hours of the Shinkansen - was in the smoking compartment on the train. All other seats had been reserved. Two Hundred People. In One Train Car. All Smoking. Yet Markus and I still walk among the living. Ah, it wasn't as bad as all of that. Although the memory of that smoking car will say in my hair for a long time.

On our first night in Tokyo, here in Shinjuku, we tripped over a Sukiyaki place. There were one hundred and then a thousand more restaurants right outside our hotel door. We stopped in here on our first night in town because it was one of the only signs on the street that my mind flashed back to. Sukiyaki. Don't know what it actually means, but it spells delicious (forgive me for that one!) So tonight we tripped over it again on purpose. It was a really perfect way to tie up what has been a perfect trip. It was such a chance encounter and that made it all the more part of the adventure.

As for three entire weeks with Markus, only he can tell you what a fantastic tour-guide and a huge pain in the ass I have been.

:)

I and we have far more stories from this trip than can ever be told here, but have a look back now and then since I still would like to tell some of them.

Wish us a safe trip home. See you soon.

mikael-

Tokyo Park

We've had a relatively "quiet" day here in Tokyo - here's a few pix from one of the parks we were strolling through. This will likely be the post from Tokyo as we're on the plane home tomorrow at 5pm. We arrive in Toronto the same day, but 4 hours earlier. Should be fun jet lag.

Back in Tokyo

We're back in Tokyo for a day, and then heading back to Toronto. We're due back sometime Tuesday afternoon.

I've uploaded some pix of the bullet trains of Japan (mainly for my Dad.)

The transit system here is incredible. Today we were on a few different high speed trains - one of them was a connection with 8 minutes to spare. In typical Japanese style, the trains arrived exactly as expected. I've never seen anything this efficient before. Incredible!

-Mark

Hunting the Past Presently

Not a chance that I am posting pictures from Sapporo. It was the scene and the city of my life about eight years ago. I have been revisiting the behaviours of those days (and dragging Mark into the sinkhole of days gone by).

It has been sugoi subarashii!

Yakkitori, Jingisukan, Tabe-to-Nomi-Houdai. A night of Potato Circus with Noriko and Yasuko ending in two hours of 80's laden karaoke. All you can eat and drink and two hours of a microphone for 4000 yen each ($40 each) leads you down a path you probably didn't expect the evening to explore.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy the right of return.

Yesterday we went to an Onsen (Hot spring). Volcanic activity bubbles to the suface here in Hokkaido - and not just in the social lives of the Japanese and their foreign friends.

In a Japanese Onsen you split into boy's and girl's baths. Enter the change room. where you shed it all and leave your clothes and your modesty in a plastic basket.

Enter the common bath where along the wall are about a dozen spouts. Sit down on a wooden stool just big enough for your generous North American botton and scrub until your skin is pink and you are Mista Spakeruu.

Choose your own adventure. a) Go out the door to your right. b) Slip into the steaming bath in front of you.

b) Good jeebus are you insane?

a) This door leads the Rotenburo - the open air hot sping bath. You soak there for an hour and feel like a nicely manipulated bit of play-do'h.

Ma-ku, Noriko, and The Boy in Red rested well that night.

Many more tales unfit for television await.

-mikael