The party next door ended around 11PM and it was fairly quiet last night. I got up feeling pretty good besides my sore throat. But I still didn’t feel like doing anything. Both my sister and mom agreed, I don’t really have to do anything since I am on vacation. So, I did what I did the last time I didn’t want to leave the room: laundry.

About the time I started, my sister told me to buy the train tickets for our return train trip from Osaka to Tokyo. That’s right before we get on the plane to head home. I had enough time to walk to the train station, stand in one of the slowest lines I’ve been in, twice, since I thought I’d screwed up the tickets once. The laundry still wasn’t done when I got back.

It was a beautiful day. I’m not sure why, but there have been a lot of hot, sunny days right after cold rainy days. That make for some humid days as well.

I decided to eat lunch at Burger King just because I saw it on the way back and I wanted to be able to say that the last time I ate at Burger King was in Tokyo. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t make me feel very good. Another problem is that I like eating lunch at odd times. If you want to was lunch outside of the hours of 11AM – 2PM, nothing “normal” is open but hamburger joints are.

I did get to watch some guys throwing away the contents of an office of some sort from the window of the Burger King.

After that it was back to the hotel to try to figure out how to keep my Japanese data plan SIM running. The one I got only works for a month at a time without getting a “recharge”. It took way longer than I thought it would to figure it out on their web site because telephone companies aren’t known to be clear and it was all in Japanese. I’m not sure how I killed the afternoon but I’m sure that took a lot of the time.

Then it was time for me to be indecisive. I’ve been here 26 days and I needed a haircut but Tokyo has the worst men’s hairstyles that I’ve seen in a long time. Regular haircuts here come with a post-haircut wash, a shave, and a shoulder massage, and costs about ¥4,000. But there’s also a chain called QB House that just does the cut for ¥1,000 in 10 minutes. I couldn’t decide whether to let them try cutting my hair or just to get a buzz cut that they couldn’t screw up. I finally figured I should trust them and just let the guy at QB House cut my hair. It wasn’t so bad.

The indecisiveness carried over into dinner and I walked all over the neighborhood before I finally went to buy a bento from a shop that wasn’t that good.

One thing I’ve been looking for is some traditional Japanese sweets and I really haven’t seen anywhere. Well, it turns out that walking around the neighborhood I found a place right across the street.

And that’s it for today. Turns out the railway museum isn’t closed on Mondays like most museums. It’s closed on Tuesday so I probably won’t be able to see it on this trip. Oh, well, it’s not high on my list of regrets. I think going to Burger King for lunch is higher on my list of regrets at this point.

I slept in today (gave myself an extra half-hour on my alarm) and I was still tired. I think I just need to spend a day just sitting around. I keep saying that, and I keep heading out. I’m also kind of running out of places to go.

I’m not sure if I ever took a picture of my daily “free” breakfast, but this is it. The only thing that’s normal-sized in they picture is the tumbler with the orange juice. And the tea bag, but you can’t really see it. This used to get me through most of the day, but now that it’s no longer so hot, I’m getting my daytime appetite back.

Today I headed to Meguro for one reason. But as long as I was there, I figured I’d look around a bit. I was hoping I’d see some things because as soon as I left the station there was a steep hill.

But the hill lead to Daienji, and hundreds of stone Buddhas. Daienji Temple is pretty close to the train station.

One wall has atonement statues of the 500 followers of the Buddha to “appease the souls that departed in the great fire of 1772.”

At the bottom of the hill is a canal.

And across the canal is Ōtori Shrine. I think it’s the season to take pictures of your baby at the shrine because there were a lot of people at Ōtori Shrine taking pictures and I’ve seen others taking pictures at other famous shrines throughout Tokyo. There’s one group with a professional photographer below the stairs, and another couple with a tripod above the stairs.

Later I saw even more people in traditional clothing at the Mos Burger across the street. I’m sure they were coming back from taking pictures, too.

I took this picture on the way back out the neighborhood. I got lost and didn’t realize I was at the same shrine until I was leaving.

This was my main destination for the day.

I only have two pictures of the outside of the building because, well, it’s frigging preserved parasites inside. It’s a popular museum and people were coming in and out all day. I almost bought a t-shirt or pen but come on, it’s a PARASITE MUSEUM and it’s kind of icky.

One thing I did get at the parasite museum (besides confirmation that I should NEVER GO SOUTH OF CALIFORNIA) is a copy of Meguro Walk which sent me down the street next to the museum.

I found a large temple complex of Ryusenji.

The main gate leads to a courtyard.

In the courtyard is a carving of the god Fudō that you pour water on.

The main temple is pretty impressive.

Behind the temple is another garden with a large stone statue 

I headed back towards the train station and it started raining! I thought it might be temporary, so I ducked into a Mos Burger and had the chicken leg I saw on TV yesterday. It kept sprinkling though. Instead of heading straight back, I went to Tokyo Station because my mom always suggests the underground shopping area for when it’s raining. Man, the underground was crowded.

As you walk in the underground away from the actual station, the crowd does let up a little. But the department stores right next to the station are mobbed.

I headed back to the hotel and took a nap.

I asked the from desk if there was anywhere with monjayaki nearby and it turns out there’s a place right across the street. Unfortunately, it was one of those weird party places you find in Shinjuku where they nickel and dime you and my two beers and my monjayaki cost me ¥1,600. The beers themselves were $7.20 each.

Not only that, but I had to cook it myself.

It was good, but I’m not sure I did it correctly. It seemed to take forever to cook.

Of course, I got the heck out of dodge after I ate the monjayaki and headed to Lotteria to get the #7 hamburger and #1 dessert from the TV show last night. That only cost me ¥470.

Now there’s a really loud party going on next door. I sure hope it knocks off early, but I bet it won’t.

I’m pretty sure I have a bit of a cold. My throat is a bit sore on the left side and my nose is overly dry but plugged up on the left side. But it was a beautiful day and I don’t have that much time left in Tokyo.

But honestly, there’s only a few things I can think I want to see. I’m sure I’ll think of plenty after I leave, but for now I can’t think of anything I want to see in Tokyo. There are a few things I might do if I had more energy, like get tickets to see Shōten, or stand in line to get sushi at Sushi Saito. As it is I’m getting tired and I’ve always had a hard time deciding what to eat.

For some reason I thought going to see Tokyo Dome City would be a good idea. I’m not sure why I thought that, since I’m avoiding malls for the most part.

Passing through the first building I saw the Big Egg itself and a ferris wheel and a roller coaster.

I never saw the roller coaster running, but as I passed through. In fact, I don’t think I saw anyone riding the log flume, either but as I left I finally saw a guy riding it by himself. Since I thought riding the roller coaster by myself would look equally as pathetic and since I wasn’t feeling that well anyway, I just kept walking.

Right behind Tokyo Dome city was the Boy Scouts of Japan, and guess what else? That’s right, the Kodōkan International Jūdo Center, where John Rain (a fictional character well known in the US) trained. In fact, THMFIC at the gym asked me if I was going to the Kodōkan. I saw lots of round eyes going in.

But off I went in another direction. One of the things I use to decide where to go is to follow stairs. Why? I don’t know. But if they’re headed in the “right direction” I’ll go climb them.

Well I’m not sure if they went the right direction, because I’m not really sure where I was headed.

Where I ended up was Todai, or Tokyo University, the #1 school in Japan. I decided to be as smug as the people there and looked up the ranking of my alma mater to compare to the ranking of Todai. The list I found listed MIT #1, and Todai #50. Not that it did me all that much good.

This is the red gate which must be famous because everyone was having their picture taken in front of it.

I went looking for something to eat and must have looked at three or four dozen Japanese restaurants before I just went to Mos Burger again. This evening I saw a TV program that showed the top 20 Japanese hamburgers from a survey and Mos Burger had spots #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #11, #12, #14 and #17. I had a chili dog (#14), a chicken burger (not ranked), and the onion ring/potato (#3 in the sides ranking).

Another way I find things to to go see is just to follow weird signs around. I’ve never heard of the “Tokyo Waterworks Historical Museum” and I couldn’t find it on Google Maps but that didn’t stop me. It’s close to how I found the Tokyo Firefighter’s museum.

I started to wonder when I didn’t see signs as I got closer.

Sure enough, there was a museum.

There were two floors of displays, including multimedia displays like this one. The cutouts moved back and forth and there was a cartoon in a screen behind it.

I also carried an electronic recording. You typed in the location and pressed play. The explanations and videos were quite long.

They also had some four hundred year old wooden pipes that were dug out of the ground when construction was done. The waterworks of Tokyo are from the 1600’s and there were also pictures of dams built in the 1940’s. Quite a cool museum for engineer geeks like me.

I went wandering around and I really like it when there are signboards with maps. Especially when they call a hokadaigakuin (a school for lawyers) a Low School.

After that I went to Akihabara to waste more of my hard earned money on computer crap and then headed back to the hotel. On the way to Ochanomizu station I ran into Yushima Seido, a Confucian temple. I believe this is the school started in 1630.

This is the gate to the temple.

The temple had something going on with a stage and seats inside.

After that it was back to the hotel. In front of the hotel was another ad truck advertising a band. In this neighborhood, the ad vans are always advertising K-pop bands.

I was too tired to go very far for dinner and got dinner at the Tesco again. I should probably try sleeping in tomorrow.

In case anyone thought I was being a whiner (and I wonder if anyone even reads this stuff) I just counted the bites on my calf and there were sixteen on my left calf and six on my right calf. No wonder I bolted from the pond yesterday.

Today I decided to go to Shinagawa. Looking at the tourist guide, it looked like a lot of walking through the city. Most of it was just that.

Things weren’t looking good when the first shrine I saw was hemmed in by buildings. I didn’t see it on the map, either.

But it was a nice shrine.

The side building looked different.

And there was a portable shrine inside.

My first real stop was Sengakuji Temple, where the graves of the 47 Ronin and their master are.

It must be a popular temple, as it had a small set of temple shops.

The gate was fairly impressive.

The temple was impressive as well.

The graves of the 47 ronin have markers and a map.

The other spots of interest were all the way across the neighborhood. I stopped into a nameless restaurant because I saw a bunch of businessmen entering.

I had to pass through Shinagawa station again. There was a hallway with large screen TVs advertising Starbucks. I think I counted 44 monitors. If they’d only just give ME the monitors instead.

I tried to take a quick picture of a cop on a stand. I guess there’s something going on in town (G7 meeting?) and there’s a police presence in the major train stations.

There are a lot of office buildings in Shinagawa I wandered through, but I didn’t take any pictures. I even went into a small corporate museum for the Mitsubishi group.

The next “recommended spot” is listed as houseboats and fishing boats in Shinagawa-ura.

Nearby there was a small shrine for the fishermen.

The next stops Tennoz Isle, which is a long walk through industrial areas.

Tennoz Isle had some office buildings and a large park. This is a full-sized baseball field.

Oddly enough, there wasn’t anywhere for spectators.

While the park was large and new, it was also a bit sterile. It was time to head towards the old Shinagawa-juku, the first post on the old Tokaido road.

On the way there was a shrine with a plaque in English. This is one of the 100 interesting sites in Shinagawa.

They also had a portable shrine, but it was tiny. You can see umbrellas to the left of it for scale.

There were also other random shrines with nothing to tell me anything much about them.

I wasn’t sure where the Tokaido road was, but I did find the Ebinara Shrine.

The shrine itself was impressive.

The carvings in the eaves were especially impressive.

I finally realized that the Tokaido road was just the shopping street that I went past.

 There were several temples and shrines on the road.

This was a particularly colorful, though small, shrine.

There was also this costume shop. It’s hard to see into the shop to see some of the giant costumes, but there’s a giant tiger head outside.

I also headed to Shinagawa Jinja which also had several shrines around it.

There were quite a few stairs leading up, and the stone mound to the left of the stairs in the previous picture is also lined with small shrines to the seven gods of good fortune. The entrance is on the first “landing”.

Here’s the entrance to the path up the mound.

This is the second stop (right behind the left lantern). The statues were only about a couple of feet tall.

The stairs are fairly steep.

But the view from the top was pretty nice.

Huh, I’m missing pictures of the main shrine. There are pictures on Google for Shinagawa Jinja. It’s impressive, and there’s a stage for traditional Shinto dances. (Sorry Megan, I’ve failed you here.)

There were sub shrines, though I and I have some pictures of one.

And a bunch of gates leading to a smaller set of shrines to the right of the main shrine.

The smaller shrine had a tiny shrine with a kneeling pad in front of it. It was kind of dark and spooky back there with lots more mosquitoes.

This is just a gate on the road leading back to the Tokaido road from Shinagawa temple.

The last picture I took in Shinagawa is of the hotel my mom always stays in when she goes to Tokyo. At least I think it’s this one.

I guess I knew before, but had to see for myself, that the Yamanote line that circles central Tokyo is much more crowded than the Chuo line that crosses central Tokyo. I figured that out while I was pushing my way through the train to change lines at Yoyogi Station. I was afraid the Chuo line would be as crowded (and it was only about 3:45PM) but it wasn’t at all.

I got back to my hotel and had a drink and took a nap. I think I figured out that I’m a little sick again.

I was tired, so I went to Saizeria again.

I finally had something that wasn’t that great. This was sort of like a TV dinner. But it was pretty cheap and very close by. I still want to go to Bikkuri Donkey and have the hamburger steak there.

I didn’t do all that much today. Yesterday I moved rooms and things were going pretty well. There were noises from upstairs but not nearly as much as the last room. But I couldn’t tell too much since I started getting a stomach ache in the middle of the night and wasn’t thinking of much else.

I spent most of the morning in the room. It gave me time to do some more online banking and some laundry. I kept seeing the people from “Thriller” going to the laundry room as well. It was supposed to rain this morning and then get hot, so I think people adjusted their plans accordingly. It turned out to be mostly just a nice day.

One of the biggest sounds is the train going by, which is actually kind of calming.

Sometime in the afternoon I decided to take a walk to Otomeyama Park, which is only about a mile-and-a-half away. Right behind the hotel, in a direction I don’t ever go, was another smaller park on the way, Hyakunin-cho Fureai Park.

There was also a small post office where I got out another ¥20,000. I’ve been doing that every day since I wanted to get out ¥50,000 or ¥100,000 but ¥20,000 is all my bank allows. All the post offices have ATMs that allow overseas withdrawals and this one was the least busy of all the ones I’ve been to.

Somewhere on the way I found a shrine that’s not on my maps.

I got a sandwich at a Seven-Eleven, thinking I could eat in a park. The only park I found was closed for construction of some sort. So I just pushed on to Otomeyama Park which the map said was, “By far the best healing spot in Shinjuku City, surrounded by the tranquil residential areas.” I only found a tiny pond with a few turtles.

I sat on a bench and ate my sandwich but ended up cramming the second half into my mouth as fast as I could when I noticed a dozen mosquitoes on my leg.

The nearby Higashiyama Fuji Inari Jinja shrine was also tiny.

This is also part of the same shrine, crammed in between houses.

I was incredibly uncomfortable from the mosquito bites. I knew that not scratching the mosquito bites was the best way to get them to go away quickly, but man were they itchy. There were about a dozen bites on my calves and a few on my arms. I walked back feeling, well, just off.

The walk back took me past the neighborhood fire station where they were drilling again. Usually in Portland I see the firemen playing street hockey or soccer.

When I got back and checked the map I’d left in the room, I realized I was only seeing a small part of the park. Not that I was in any mood to do anything but walk back, forcing myself not to scratch.

Dinner was at the udon shop downstairs. The special today was tsukemen, where you dip the udon into the sauce

I got a picture of the udon noodle-making machine. The noodles are coming out between the two plates. It’s kind of hard to see, but if you look to the top of the green and red buttons, then to the left, you’ll see the noodles in the slot. I’m not sure how the machine works.

So, there was my day. Taking it easy, taking a nap, doing some laundry, and then getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. My theory appears to have been correct and the bites have gone away. Hooray for small victories!

I asked about the noise last night and they finally tried figuring out who it was who was moving around all night. They couldn’t, so they moved me to a room to sleep in and told me they’d be moving me to the 16th floor. The big room I slept in was really quiet but this new room on the 16th floor has someone stomping around upstairs. If I’m lucky, they won’t be stomping around all night.

I decided to head to Ueno today, and go wandering around the parks. On the way there I saw woman with a bag from a Eugene leather shop.

Another view of the Sky Tree.

In Ueno, there’s a giant park with a bunch of museums. Two of the largest exhibitions appear to be the last stop of the King Tut exhibit and one on chocolate. But I was just there to wander around outside.

There were quite a few people, but the park is huge. Lots and lots of foreigners (by that I mean round-eye foreigners) all over.

There was a large gate from one of the Tokugawa shoguns. I should have taken a picture of the plaque.

At the north end of the park is Kaneiji Temple.

There were a lot of people following some sort of path, and I saw a lot of them but just at the start of the day.

The temple itself.

This is probably not a good enough picture, but the cemetery was the biggest one I’ve seen here.

Somehow I found my way back to the mausoleum for one of the Tokugawa shoguns.

There’s a gate nearby with a better description.

But there’s also a mysterious sign about the mausoleums.

This is about where my plans started to unravel. My camera started giving me weird errors and my foot started to hurt, like I had a compression fracture from walking around so much. I found a friendly cab driver taking a break and I asked him to read the screen. We talked about how he wanted to see the Rockies and about how the level of research in Japanese Universities was high enough to get a guy a Nobel Prize. Anyway, he told me that the sign on my camera just said the memory card was full.

How do you fill a 8GB memory card? Take lots of bad pictures of temples around Tokyo.

I guess it’s a “thing” that drivers stop around the north end of the park for a rest. Lots of guys were asleep in these cars. Fortunately for me, some of them are friendly cab drivers.

On the way back to the park there was a line of smaller temples.

This second temple was right next door to the first.

Honestly I don’t know where I was as I was limping back towards the park. This temple was bigger than the last two.

The temple.

I got back to Ueno Station and decided I’d head to Akihabara to get a memory card.

I was starting to get hungry so I wandered around the area of Ueno Station looking for food. I decided I’d head towards Akihabara on the train and look for lunch there. Right outside the gate there’s a Donq bakery and I’d just seen them on a TV show. This is a coffee/croissant set plus an onion bun and a pumpkin sandwich.

The pumpkin sandwich had apple slices and was the best part of lunch. The coffee was pretty tasty as well.

I found a Class 10 8GB Toshiba memory card for sale on a back street for ¥730 (about $9.35 USD). Then I decided to walk back to Ueno though everyone thought it was too far. Back down some back streets.

I ran into the stores of Ameyoko where I bought a bag to take on my short trips in Japan so I won’t have to lug my suitcase around. The bag I got was only ¥1,050 so I’m not sure it’s going to last very long.

So, back to Ueno park. There were several temples and shrines I wanted to see because they were mentioned in the tourist guide books.

This is the gate for Toshogu shrine.

It’s known for the stone lanterns.

There’s also a pagoda by the shrine.

And one of the three largest stone lanterns in Japan.

But when I got to the shrine, it was being renovated.

There are gates to several side shrines.

One of two side shrines.

And a portable shrine as well.

After that it was onto the lake and a temple on the lake. The larger lake is filled with lotus plants.

And has Bentendo shrine.

The smaller boat lake has rowboats and paddle boats for rent.

So it was back out of the park to Yushima Tenmangu Shrine.

I guess I took the back way in, and this building is behind the main temple.

The side building

And the shrine, which is pretty big for being in the middle of Tokyo.

I even had a Chinese dude ask me to take his picture.

I was looking at some more iPhone gadgets so I decided to head back to Akihabara and take the train back from there.

I should have bought another SD card instead.

I got back to my new room with a completely different view towards the east and a nice view of the Sky Tree.

I was having a craving for tonkatsu, so I got it in a bento from the Tesco downstairs.

Looks like they turn off the Sky Tree at night.

I’m also hearing people stomping around upstairs in this new room. Hopefully they’ll stop by 11.

After complaining about the thumping upstairs, they decided they’re going to move me tomorrow from the 19th floor to the 16th. For now, they’ve told me to sleep in another room on my floor. I had to take pictures of the room and post them because the only time I’ve been in a bigger room is when I’ve stayed at a Residence Inn.

I’m out of here after trying to sleep tonight, but wow.

The elephants were active again last night, but I bought earplugs and I got more sleep. Or maybe I did, I’m not sure. I think I got up a lot less than the last few nights. I dragged my ass out of bed again and got to dealing with my banking. I knew I couldn’t call today. Even though it’s Tuesday here, it’s only Monday (and Columbus Day) in the US. At least my sister had a way I could FAX over the internet without having a phone line or a FAX machine.

Since I found an even cheaper way of calling home, I called my mom again as well (not that I haven’t been doing that every day). I talked about where I could go for the day and asked about Jindaiji Temple south of Kichijoji, where she’s been mentioning because of the lake there. She said Jindaiji wasn’t famous because of the TV show Gegege’s Wife but because of the soba. That was reason enough to go see the area.

Of course I wasn’t paying attention and two stops after I got on, the train reversed course. I got off at the next stop (one away from where I started) and got on the next train going towards Mitaka but that train did the same thing. Fortunately, I was paying attention this time.

According to Google Maps, Jindaiji Temple is over an hour south of Mitaka station if you’re walking, and I got a late enough start that I took a bus. Buses are harder because there are more stops and the announcements aren’t as clear. I was watching my iPhone and hoping that Google maps wouldn’t die like it usually does when I’m away from a major train station.

Once I got off the bus I was in the middle of nowhere and it was time to start walking towards the temple.

I figured I was headed the right way, or at least headed towards the countryside, when I saw a nursery.

Then I ran into a line of soba shops. I picked it the Japanese way, by finding the one the most people were going to.

It wasn’t the fanciest looking one, but it certainly had the most people going in.

It also had a window where they make their soba, though no one was making soba when I got there.

I had tenzaru soba which was pretty good. I can’t say it was a lot better than what I had in Ikebukuro, but it was good.

The women next to me were having yōkan for dessert and I had to have some as well. It was soba yōkan!

Jindaiji temple wasn’t very far away.

Here’s the first shrine at the edge of the old street.

And a nice pond near the first shrine.

There was a small temple street in front of Jindaiji Temple.

The gate of Jindaiji Temple.

The temple was much more impressive than the temples in the city.

There was an impressive shrine behind the temple as well.

And a pond on the temple grounds.

There was some sort of tower in the cemetery behind the temple that I can’t explain.

On the way back there’s a botanical garden, but the sign says “Closed Monday.” It’s Tuesday, but I know that some parks are closed on the day after a national holiday.

So it was off on the path through the park.

The path had lots of wood spiders and I even saw a giant Asian hornet.

After the park it was down a bunch of suburban roads.

The map showed a shrine on the way, so of course I took a detour. Even small shrines are impressive after getting out of town.

The gates out into suburbia.

I headed back towards Kichijoji and the park. Halfway there I saw an interesting kid’s park with the front of an airplane.

I thought that was odd, so Iooked to see where I was and saw a sign for Jaxa, which I think is the Japanese equivalent of NASA.

Right next door is the Maritime Research facility which is a heck of a long ways from the water.

So, back I went back down the roads towards town.

And I found the edge of the park!

Cosmos, like my mom grows.

And I’m not sure if this is cosmos as well.

I also came across the Ghibli museum, where I was about to ask how hard it was to get tickets.

But there was no one to answer my questions.

Turns out that you have to go to the Lawson convenience store, not Lawson 100 which turns out is a ¥100 shop, to find a machine called a Loppi. If you want to get in during the morning, the tickets are sold out right now for just over a week. I bought a ticket for the day before I leave for Tokyo, eight days away. Even if I don’t go, it was only ¥1,000.

Around the museum was some sort of art project that looked fun for kids.

Back to the park and I found a fairy ring.

Part of the park is quite wooded and someone had an interesting art installation with battery powered bamboo chimes. I didn’t take pictures of them all, and the batteries were dead in some of them. I saw a guy replacing some of the batteries.

This is a video of one of the chimes.

I finally got to the part of the park nearest the station and it was a bit much.

Here’s Daisei-ji temple outside of the park. It was closed up but it was HUGE. You can see outbuildings to the left that are as big as the main temple.

Back into the park and there’s a shrine in the park. The park itself is built on old ruins.

The shrine felt a bit crammed into the park, but it was pretty.

The park is also quite nice, though less natural than the forested area.

Part of the park even had paddle boats and row boats for rent.

There were the usual rest areas that are common to popular parks. The restaurant to the left has typical park foods including soft ice cream and odd-tasting Japanese hot dogs. There’s usually a line-up of vending machines.

RIght on the other side of the restaurants was a shopping street leading to the station.

I got back around 4PM and fell asleep for a bit, just like yesterday, making up for the sleep that the elephants seem intent on disturbing. I didn’t feel like eating for a while but wanted to go to Saizeria downstairs. The beer isn’t the only reason.

I’ve been avoiding Saizeria downstairs because it’s too easy, but the pizza was surprisingly good. And, as my cousin said, “it’s cheap!” I think I’m going back soon.

I had an inauspicious start to the day, but it’s Monday after all. The upstairs elephants were stomping around all night and I didn’t sleep that well. Then it was time to pay a huge credit card bill that included:

• plane fare to Japan for me, my mom, and my sister
• my Tokyo hotel that turned out to be more expensive than I first thought
• plane fare to Busan for three
• other various and sundry travel fees

Basically I emptied out one account and wanted to move money around other accounts. None of my banks make that easy. Bank of America was being pretty painful PLUS they have some sort of new security thing that requires you to set a cell phone to send text messages to. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me do it because my ATM card doesn’t have a security code and the web form seems t think everything is a credit card.

I tried calling the bank. All the toll-free numbers they gave me didn’t work. No one knew how to make a collect call from Japan. I finally broke down and called the US direct but was on hold so long that I got nervous and hung up. I tried to get Google voice working but after trying several different browsers I gave up. I finally bought Skype credit only to find out that my huge bank, B of A, doesn’t answer the phones on holiday weekends.

Of course, Google Voice finally started working and now I can call the US for free. I spent a bunch of money calling my mom before I figured that one out.

So it was noon by the time I was able to leave and I was in a mood. As soon as I got outside, I noticed that the road in front of the hotel – the one that goes through Korea Town – was blocked off and there was a parade going on.

There was even a marching band.

I figured I might as well try to catch up to the band, which wasn’t easy with the crowded sidewalks.

This is right in front of Shin-Okubo station, where I needed to catch the train anyway if I didn’t want to transfer at Yoyogi Station.

I decided to go to another one of the restaurants my sister suggested, at Ebisu Station.

I know going to another restaurant recommended by my sister is dangerous and foolish but Blacow is a hamburger restaurant that has a butcher shop inside and was mentioned in a blog that sent me to Fatz’s earlier in the trip.

I get the feeling that Ebisu is a bit fancier neighborhood than I’ve been walking through. It was quiet and there were good looking restaurants that sat empty.

I was given direction by a guy with a “Lebron Who?” shirt who was from Cleveland but has been in Japan for a year working as a lawyer.

There was a line to get in to Blacow when I first got there, but I figured I had to try it now.

It says deck out OK, which means you get to design your own burger.

Sure enough, they had a butcher shop inside and a list of where the meat came from.

And here’s my ¥1,750 ($22.38USD) burger. Japanese hamburger can have a funny taste like they mix in some sort of pork and this was that way. This is a good burger, but I have to say Fatz’s beats it.

I went back towards Ebisu Station because… Ebisu Station is named after the old Ebisu Beer factory.

This is neither here nor there but for my sister. It said Toyoko Inn Development Company.

There were performers here and activities for the kids all over because it’s a national holiday, Health and Sports Day.

This isn’t what I was looking for.

This is closer, as it’s the Sapporo Beer building and if you follow what looks like an alleyway to the right…

The Museum of Yebisu beer!

I don’t thing this is operational.

For ¥500 you get a “tour” which consists of 10 minutes of history and 10 minutes of DRINKING TWO (tiny) beers!

And a tiny bag of Japanese beer nuts.

Or are they peas? Or beans?

Beer number 1, standard Yebisu beer.

Beer number 2, the seasonal fall beer.

They also told us to pour the beer certain way. First you pour it straight down the middle to get the carbonation out.

When the carbonation settles and the glass is half-full, pour in more slowly.

Here’s a picture of the special logo that is only on a small percentage of bottle and cans.

Well, I don’t know what this building is.

I thought it was the Tokyo Museum of Photography, but that was down a hallway to the right. I thought it would be fitting that I took a photograph of the Museum of Photography.

The whole complex is kind of fancy and has a Mitsukoshi department store.

I decided to walk a ways towards the hotel. Another odd thing in Ebisu was a Mos Cafe that looked full of LPs.

I followed a small side street towards Shibuya and saw some police vans doing who-knows-what?

And the brand new Langlitz Leathers Tokyo on the same side street, full of old leather jackets.  I have a couple of Langlitz jackets at home.

I couldn’t help myself and took a picture of Chosenji Temple near Harajuku.

And I don’t know if this is the oddest sign of the day.

Or if this is the oddest sign of the day.

Near Harajuku was a mystery train station that one street sign said was for the use of the Imperial family.

And I stuck to the back streets just for fun. This street appeared to have apartments and little else (the blown out sign says “Japan Physical Therapy Association”) but there were odd mini-art galleries in amongst the buildings.

I walked up to a bookstore and then walked back to the Yoyogi train station. I got back to the hotel and fell asleep in a chair and then it was time for dinner from Tesco. So the day ended up much better than it started. Let’s hope tomorrow is better.

So apparently an elephant is now in the room above me. A nocturnal elephant who stomps around while I’m trying to sleep. And since the cast of “Thriller” from the UK is also in the hotel, there was some late night shrieking going on in the halls as well.

My lack of sleep plus the rain in the morning meant it was a good morning to rest up and sit around the room. I finally got going around noon and the rain had cleared up and I thought I’d go hang around Shinjuku station again. I forgot what a zoo it is, especially on the weekends, especially on a three-day weekend.

So I haven’t seen godzilla, but I did see a giant mechanical crab.

My first stop was lunch. I figured I’d try the curry place, Nakamura-ya, that my sister asked me to find. It’s now in a temporary building and there’s a faceless elevator leading up to the sixth floor where it is. Unlike most restaurants, there was no indication of what they were serving. Well, leave it to my sister to lead me to a place where the lunch set is not a bargain but a ¥2,625 curry. Yes, that’s about $33.40 at today’s exchange rate.

But what the heck, I’ve never had a $33.40 curry before. It started out with an appetizer plate.

Two kinds of curry (I picked seafood and regular, there was also Japanese beef hayashi rice).

And a drink is included. I picked “Indian tea” or chai if you’re in Portland.

So, was it worth ¥2,625? I’m not sure. It was tasty and well done but I think the curry at the not-that-great Indian restaurant was better.

I also decided to see the Hanazono Jinja, and maybe get some manju as well. I forgot about the manju. The shrine is tucked in between buildings in Shinjuku.

The entrance to the shrine looked like the side entrance, and it was.

Here’s the inside of the main gate. I didn’t take a picture from the outside.

Here’s a the main shrine.

Every Sunday there’s a flea market on the temple grounds. There’s guys selling old stuff that I’ve given to Goodwill and some other stuff that might be interesting but really, the same class of stuff that I don’t really need.

There was also a second small temple on the grounds.

After that went to get some maps at the tourist bureau and was going to head back to Shinjuku to buy some books for studying Japanese, but the ¥2,625 curry or the chai didn’t agree with me and I had to head back to the hotel. I found a back street back just to be different.

And that was about it for the day. I had a cheap dinner from the Tesco and that’s it for today.

I just hope the elephant upstairs has a quiet night.

Another photo-heavy post. If you get the feeling you’re just looking at someone’s travel pictures (and you are) just scroll faster. At least it’s not a slide show. Also, as I see more of the pictures, I realize my camera skills are way below what they used to be (if they were as good as I remember). You can go take your own pictures if you want. These are just tourist pictures.

I’m surprised I took so many pictures today. The main point of the day was to meet my cousin’s kids for the first time since I saw them when they visited me. Kota went to Tokyo Institute of Technology and got his Masters Degree and he and I are more alike than we should be for being first cousins once removed (basically, my mom’s sister’s kid’s kid.) He’s been working long hours at Yahoo Japan and I haven’t seen him for fourteen years, I think. His sister I haven’t seen for ten years and she’s working at a mysterious clothing design company, I think (my mom and my aunt can never get it straight so my sister and I are both wondering what it is). They’re both from the same small town in Yamaguchi Prefecture where my aunt lives but they’re both in Tokyo now.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I decided it would be a good day to visit the last section of Shinjuku, at least the last section I had a separate map for, Ushigome. It’s in the far eastern corner of the city of Shinjuku.

I walked to Ushigome, which isn’t as far as I went for dinner last night. But it does take me the same direction as I’ve been before, past the road to the Aikido Hombu, and right past the place where Five-O got all up in my grill.

One of the first things I stumbled across (and I’ve been by here before) is a temple right next to a subway station. The corrugated roof is a subway entrance and the wooden gate is to the temple.

Here’s the gate to the Kyoouji Temple.

Not too far off is where I was hassled by the Man. Looks like they’re bored again today, looking for something to do.

The first thing I found out is that this map shows some of the more boring routes through Shinjuku. At least in the center of the map. But it started off promising with the former site of Kondo Isami’s Shiekan, where they taught martial arts with the sword, staff, and also unarmed.

But then it was a slog through a bunch of city streets. There’s an interesting microwave tower to break the monotony.

And, when I got lost, a weird bulbous concrete house.

As I got further east in Shinjuku, the streets got hillier and more industrial around an area of Dai Nippon Printing.

But the road finally got me away from the industrial area.

And finally to some shrines. Here’s Chanoki-inari Jinja.

Continuing up the steps leads to Ichigaya-kamegaoka-hachimangu Shrine.

Looks like they’re setting up for a festival.

There were several sub-shrines as well.

Here’s a small shrine on the stairs between the larger shrines.

On my way down, I noticed the lower shrine had another shrine behind it.

But I needed to pay attention because the stairs were quite steep.

Right around the corner was Doun-ji Temple.

And almost next door was what I think is Chotai-zenji Zen temple. If you keep going you just end up to the entrance to the Ministry of Defense.

I stopped for lunch at Mos Burger because I haven’t had enough burgers lately (hah).

They did have a new special burger from Hokkaido, I think.

I should have known better, but I kept following the map through the neighborhoods. Shrines that aren’t named on the map can be quite tiny, like this one next to the French-Japanese Institute of Tokyo.

Next stop was Miyagi Michio Memorial Hall, a Japanese composer.

I believe this is the Miyagi Michio concert hall next to his museum.

Harder to find was the former residence of author Ozaki Koyo. It was down a path and I’m not sure if it’s the house of the outbuilding to the left.

Nearby are Jonen-ji.

And Enpuku-ji?

Shozo-in?

Seriously, there’s a whole street of temples in an area called Yokotera-machi and I couldn’t keep them straight.

Here’s a placard to Shimamura Hogetsu’s place of death (remains of the artist’s club) and it’s just a placard.

Maybe this one is Shozo-in?

Anyo-ji?

Most of the area I went to see is old alleyways with restaurants but there are a couple of larger shrines nearby. This is the gate to Akagi-jinja.

Another able where you can see the shrine in the distance.

The shrine itself that I didn’t really want to approach at first.

It’s hard to see, but there was a wedding going on inside.

I got a picture of the bride and groom coming out.

And another of the bridal party getting ready to take a group photo.

The main road through the area is Kagurazaka-dori.

It’s on a hill in the neighborhood.

On the main road is Zenkoku-ji temple.

It’s pretty busy compared to the other temples.

Right now I’m standing amongst a group of people drawing watercolors of the gate.

Here’s the first of the pictures of the alleyways. This is a bar and that sign above the door is about head-high for me so it’s a tiny door.

This is right around the corner. The signs are restaurants.

A wider back alley.

This alleyway also has homes.

And of course, some of the alleyways have stairs.

Just past the shopping area, across a busy street is Tsukudo-hachiman Jinja. It’s supposed to have the oldest stone gate in Shinjuku, but I’m not sure which one it was. This one?

Or this one in the middle of the staircase?

Or this tiny one in front of a secondary shrine?

Kagurazaka-wakamiya-hachiman jinja is closer to the shopping area and very near Tokyo University of Science. I didn’t take any pictures of the school, or it’s odd museum which looked a little like the old computer museum at Powell’s Technical books just with lots more Japanese computers. And dozens of mechanical adding machines, too.

And another tiny unlabeled (on the map) shrine.

At this point I was getting lost trying to deicde how to go back to the hotel before dinner. For that reason, I have no idea what temple this is.

I made it to the train, and back to the hotel. We met in Harajuku and I was standing at the wrong exit. Both exits appear to be on the same side of the station. The one I was standing at lead to Takeshita street which was packed full of yoots.

My sister reminded me to take a picture of my cousins, so this is it. I spent most of the time talking.

But I did have a frozen beer! The foam is frozen to keep the beer cold.

And I forgot to take pictures of dinner except for this plate. Everthing was on the skewers, but we were in the middle of deskewering things.

And that’s about it for the day.

Today I met James Skinner, an old high school buddy who reminded me that we met at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) summer camp when we were in third grade. We’ve known each other forever and he’s done quite well for himself. His story is his story, so I’ll just say I think he’s got a whole big pile of money (he managed a hedge fund for a few years) and he’s met the Emperor of Japan. I haven’t seen him since high school so we had a lot to talk about. I could tell he’s still the guy I remember from high school but his huge run of success has sharpened his focus. He doesn’t have the conversational ADD that I have. Plus, listening to his stories (and where we were having lunch) were making me a little nervous.

I can’t remember what I did this morning besides updating yesterday’s blog entry with descriptions. I was meeting Jim at the Roppongi Grand Hyatt and I knew I’d better dress better than I usually do. I put on a real shirt (the one I usually bring to Japan “just in case” but have never needed until this trip) and headed for Roppongi.

I had the porcini salad for lunch. It was tasty. It was certainly better than the Calorie Mate and vending machine tea I usually have while I’m walking all over the place.

We spent two hours catching up and he’s got great stories of what he’s been doing since high school. He lives somewhere I can’t remember near Roppongi and in Singapore.

I tried walking around the Roppongi area but I started to get the feeling that these weren’t normal rich people. These were people with more money than I can imagine, which is pretty easy because I can’t imagine a whole lot of money. At least not money of mine. Anyway, I started getting nervous and just got the heck out of dodge. The only picture I took is of the Tokyo Tower. I was afraid that if I annoyed the wrong person that they’d just disappear me.

Jim was telling me that he generally only eats vegetable juice and protein shakes and we talked about the paleo diet for a while. That just made me hungry for cake so I tried the place across the street from the hotel. The cake was tasty but the coffee was kind of nasty. Not that I wouldn’t go back, but the clientele seemed kind of coarse. Coarse I can deal with.

I spent a bunch of the afternoon paying bills and still was feeling weird about some of the events of the week (the cop, Roppongi, etc). I also didn’t do much walking today so I decided to walk to Fatz’s Burger which is a little over an hour away.

It’s starting to get dark early but it was still humid and fairly warm. But a walk is a walk and I found out that my cameras actually took pictures in the dark. Like this one of “Hair Salon Jedi”.

Of course I got lost again and I went walking through the neighborhoods. At least some of the streets were straight and easy to follow.

Here’s a picture of a Tokyo street near Koenji, Kannaana Dori.

It was an interesting walk and I made it to Fatz’s and took the worst picture of the day of a tasty burger. Even the Costco IPA was pretty good. And I talked the owner’s ear off while he was trying to watch a rebroadcast of an NFL football game.

Tomorrow I’m having dinner with my cousin’s kids. That should be fun, too.