Tokyo

The way you keep the riff-raff out of the gym is to charge twenty dollars.  You can charge twenty dollars for the pool as well.  And those customers who purchase discount tickets to your upscale hotel are certainly riff-raff. Well, at least we slept better last night.

I woke briefly when mom turned the air conditioning down, and took a picture of Tokyo awakening from the window. When you can see, we have an awesome view.

7:45. We're off to Tsugiki(sp) fish market for the first thing. It's about 4 stops away from the hotel, and, it turns out, pretty easy to find. Follow the fish market signs, and then your nose, and soon you'll be in a bustling market, filled with small white delivery trucks which are in the process of being filled with small white styrofoam boxes. The boxes are escorted by an army of snub-nosed delivery vehicles--the nose of the vehicle is round, and the driver stands on the front while the cargo area is a flat bed about 5 feet long. The speed all around, and crossing the street is like playing frogger.

The fish market is much busier than the market in Pusan--in part, perhaps because we're here much earlier in the morning--but probably mostly because it's Tokyo, and fish clearly moves from here to all parts of Japan.

Next to the fish market there are other markets. Notably, a vegetable market is right across the street. The market has food from around the world, and the fragrant strawberries, fat aspargrass, large radishes, and fresh cherries stand out.

Around the corner from the fish market we look for breakfast. We finally settle on a small sushi place, and get a tray of toro, otoro, and maguro tuna. Sorry, I forgot to take the picture because I was in too much hurry to eat.

9:45 am. We return to the subway, then the hotel, to pack our things up. We also finish our remaining food--a small creme caramel, a banana, and a banana gelatin "meal". The hotel room was quite nice... and we spent less than 2 hours here other than when we were sleeping.

10:45 am. Check out time. Not really, the hotel gives us until noon, but we'll need to be in the airport by then.

11:00 am. Puzzle time. How do you get from Ashikabara to NRT on the subway? It's easier if you understand that the subway trains in Tokyo often continue past the last indicated stop.  The answer is that you change trains twice, the second time in Ayoto for the Airport Narita limited express.

12:00 noon. The train passes through the Tokyo suburbs; mom and I doze to the gentle rocking of the train.

1:00 pm. Arrive at airport. The fare adjustment is 980 yen each. As we enter the airport the police check our passports. The airport is easy to navigate, and since we've arrived an hour ahead of schedule, we look around for something to eat.

We sit in a small japanese restaurant and order tempura with udon and chicken with egg over rice... then we look at mom's boarding time, which begins in 30 minutes, so we cancel the order and head for security. Security is pretty quick for an airport of this size. Soon mom is on the plane.

The last meal before leaving Japan is tempura shrimp with udon noodles.

Not sleeping on planes leads to several more movies on the way home.

1. Crazy Heart. A story about how a country singer was redeemed by a woman, and how he loses her love.
2. The Book of Eli. A post-apocalyptic story about preserving a book.
3. Sherlock Holmes. A hyper-aware romp through 19th century england.

8:40 am. Arrive in seattle, and pass through customs & immigration faster than ever. Now the trick is to stay awake all day and get back onto a reasonable schedule.