Arrival . Wait for Jamie . Akasaka ramen shop . Roppongi

It was a 2 hour plane ride from Incheon airport, Seoul, to Narita. I wasn't in the best of moods after having spent a week in Seoul... it was congested, there was a huge language barrier, and the people seemed very xenophobic. But I always look forward to Japan. I haven't been to many foreign countries, but there's no where else that makes me feel that way.

After collecting our luggage, we get set up: phone cards, Keisei skyliner (the train to Tokyo) tickets, and a quick call to the hotel to inform them that Khanh and Quoc will be arriving sooner. We split up at that point; they leave on the train while I stay at the airport and wait for Jamie. I buy some snacks... rice balls, Kirin's Gogo no Koocha (milk tea) and plop down in front of a large TV screen. After watching some tourist infomercials, I open up the book I brought, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Heady reading. A Hitachi commercial started rerunning on the screen every so often to the tune of "One little, two little, three little indians", and now I can't get that jingle out of my head.

Several hours later, the flight is almost here. I'm dozing off, so I go to a small coffee shop kiosk in the airport. After I open my mouth to try clumsily to order a latte, the girl behind the counter realizes I'm a foreigner, and giggles attractively. I've had eight years to forget the little Japanese I've learned, and although my comprehension is still OK, my linguistic output has suffered. She then proceeds to hand me a 3-oz latte. The dang thing cost 300¥, about $3 with the exchange rate (less airport fees) at the time. I forget to put sugar in it, but for some reason I'm too shy to return to face the giggling counter girl.

Jamie should be coming any second now, so I pick up my luggage and situate myself in front of the welcome doors. A lot of people next to me are holding signs for volleyball players. It appears as though Japan is hosting Olympic qualifying matches this week. Several minutes later Jamie appears, dragging her luggage behind her, with her usual big smile. She's excited about her first visit to Asia. We buy some train tickets, and head to the bathroom prior to boarding. There's a button to close a sliding door once you're inside. Japanese bathroom technology is the most advanced in the world.

We board the Keisei skyliner for the hour ride to Ueno station. It's already dark out, so it's hard to see the countryside. The train gradually fills as we near Tokyo, but my impression is that it's less crowded than several years past. Perhaps because of Japan's low birth rate (currently about 1.3 kids per couple), or because I was just in a more congested city. In any case, Jamie and I chatter about work back home, jet lag, etc... she falls asleep as we near our destination.

From Ueno, we take the subway to Akasaka station. I'm momentarily confused as we leave the station, but decide on a direction and go with it... it's the right one, and shortly we arrive at [MaRRoaD] Inn. Some very pleasant clerks find our reservation and hand us the keys. They have big smiles for us, perhaps they are pleased to have a foreign guest like Jamie, who is short and very smiley herself. I inquire about their key policy... apparently you're supposed to turn in your key whenever you leave the hotel, and they give it to you when you come in. Two years ago when I stayed here, I noticed the clerks looking expectantly when we came and went... at the time we just kept our keys with us, like any other hotel. Except that the keys were attached to an unusually humongous 8-inch plastic rod keychain. I had begun to suspect that we were supposed to turn it in, but the clerks were too polite to correct our faux pas. If this sort of thing happened in America the clerks would be thinking, 'dumb foreigners!'... but this is Japan.

Khanh and Quoc have gone out. Jamie and I shower, freshen up, and head out to get dinner. Akasaka is a nice part of Tokyo, with many little food shops and small streets. It has an upscale feel to it. We find a shop, called "Tokyo Ramen", and enter. There are only about 4 tables. I wonder how the shop survives financially. I order for us... two bowls of Tokyo Ramen and a side order of gyoza (fried dumplings). Jamie is excited to be in a quaint noodle house in Japan. She's pretty good with food, not too picky, and willing to try different things... which is great, because I hear about people in relationships with very finicky eaters. What a pain in the butt a life like that must be like, when you already have plenty of compatibility issues to worry about... religion, politics, intelligence, race, nationality, etc.

While we eat, I fiddle with my new camera, a Pentax *istD DSLR. I try to take a couple pictures, but I still suck at photography. Jamie is always encouraging, which is good... but I'm usually too self-critical to be encouraged. I think I drive her a little nuts with my pessimism and indecision.

After dinner, we returned to [MaRRoaD] Inn and caught up with Khanh and Quoc. They had eaten dinner already, and were taking a break prior to heading out to Roppongi to party all night. Since I had my fiancé with me I was probably not going to join them. In many ways that was a relief because I'm a bookstore / coffeeshop type of person, and we had already spent the prior week together in Korea doing "guy" things. Jamie and I decided to head to Roppongi to see the city for ourselves, while Khanh and Quoc rested up for their night of clubbing.

Before we headed off, I went to the hotel lobby and called a friend who was at home in Tokyo for the week; his name is Hideki and he's a friend of my brother's. They met while working together as postdocs in Manhattan's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; he still lives and works there. I see him every once in a while when I visit NYC. I took him and my brother to a Philly Pops concert when they came and visited me earlier this year, which he seemed to enjoy immensely. The Pops are great fun, and I'm glad I was able to introduce a particularly fine slice of Americana to him. Anyway, when I called, his mom answered the phone. It turned out that he was fast asleep. Oh well, I guess we'll meet up tomorrow instead.

The 15-minute evening walk from Akasaka to Roppongi is quite pleasant, and familiar. But then I notice a rather tall building with the name "Mori" on it as we near Roppongi. Wait a minute, that wasn't there two years ago! In fact, the whole of Roppongi seemed to have expanded a bit. There are fewer people passing out flyers, fewer Japanese women in the puffy coats, but more frank prostitutes about. The prostitutes didn't appear ethnically Japanese, but rather some other sort of asian... but maybe those were the only ones I noticed. The Japanese ones may be more discreet, especially to a foreign eye. On the whole, Roppongi was a bit more westernized, glitzy, and sleazy. I didn't like seeing it change that way. But again, that's only a foreigner's impression, hardly more than a peasant's view of a King's court. Tokyo is so big and complex, I doubt that I will never know deep this rabbit hole goes. I wish I could experience it all. Hopefully when I die, I'll be in the midst of a delirious reverie, exploring a giant asian metropolis.

We pass by a pet store. The glass walls of the store are lined with little dogs in kennels. The Japanese appear to like their dogs toy-sized. Personally, I like wrinkly-faced mid-sized dogs, like french and english bulldogs and pugs. There was a pug in the window of the petstore. Jamie's entire family loves dogs, but only big dogs. They once had an enormous Newfoundland that used to smell and slobber all over the place before it died of cancer. Maybe it was my imagination, but it I received the impression that small dogs were becoming more popular in Tokyo. But unfortunately, their status seemed hardly more than a girl's fashion accessory.

Walking with a girl was helpful in that the suited men and sleazy women paid us no attention, so we were at peace to look around. I took a picture of a fortune teller on the street, the Tokyo tower, and a sign which said "ROPPONGI: High Touch Town" carved onto the elevated highway at the Roppongi crossing. I wonder what that means. We decided to head back and make it an early night because I wanted to show Jamie the fish market in the morning. I am not a morning person, so that was going to be difficult for me.

Back at [MaRRoaD] Inn, we try on the sleeping yukatas that are laid out on the bed. It's these little cultural things that are the most fun for us. We feel like kids in Halloween costume, showing off while trick-or-treating, but we soon fall asleep in them. I recall not liking it much while sleeping because the robe constricted my legs like I imagine a dress would. I guess I like to spread out while sleeping.