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Ellen Isaacs | |
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Travel Journal: Tokyo
Day 6: Saturday, June 9, 2007
On our way home last night we stopped at a mini-mart and got some milk for my cereal. None of the containers had any English writing, but I got one that looked like milk. Well, it wasn't. When I ate my cereal it this morning, I had to spit it out. We thought maybe it was buttermilk but it was more sour, so who knows what it was. Ick. Instead I had some toast and jam that Walendo had bought earlier. Walendo decided to go to McDonalds for breakfast, since he hadn't yet checked it out. (He has a tradition of going to international McDonalds.)
We were both hungry for lunch, so we decided to check out the food court at one of the nearby department stores (Odakyu). This turned out to be a little frustrating. We went to the basement floor and walked by dozens of counters with all sorts of enticing foods, including many meat dishes, sushi and prepared fish dishes, some Chinese dim sum-looking food (making Walendo happy), French desserts (ditto for me) and many more. Perfect! Except that there was no place to sit. We wandered all around the floor looking for a seating area and didn't find one. We went up a level and found more food stalls but still no place to sit. One more floor up and we found some restaurants with traditional seating, but no place to eat goodies bought down below. We didn't even find any benches in the connected train station area. Where are people supposed to eat the food they buy? Both hungry and getting cranky, we decided to go to one of the restaurants even though there was a wait. They had seats in the waiting area, so it was good just to sit down. This was another Italian-like place and this time I got a shrimp alfredo dish and walendo got the pizza of the day, not knowing what it was. He got lucky, as it was a scallops and tomato pizza and he loves scallops. Both dishes were quite tasty — in fact, the pizza might have been better than what we can get in California (sad to say). Now rested and refreshed, we went back down to the food court and got some things to go. I got an éclair and Walendo got some dim sum. I could see that the intention wasn't for people to eat right away, as they warpped my single little éclair in a pretty little bakery box with a small piece of wrapped ice at the bottom to keep it cold in transit. Still, we both wanted to snack right away so we gave in and sat at a curbside that clearly wasn't meant for sitting, but we ate quickly and were on our way.
I had to go to Coldstone one last time, so we walked the few hundred yards. There was a line, and a staff member was walking down the line with menus and filling out orders. When she got to us, I told her we didn't need a menu and could just order. She asked if we were American and smiled, amused that we already knew how this all worked. Coldstone has three sizes, which they call "Like It," "Love It," and "Gotta Have It." When she asked Walendo what size and he said "medium," she looked confused so I translated to " Love it" and she smiled, I think laughing at herself for not recognizing the more normal term. When we finished, I complimented her on her English. She humbly disagreed but I think it pleased her. This time I got "Gotta Have It" so I could get what is normally a "medium" in the States and happily gobbled it down. I'd planned to finally take some night shots tonight, starting in Roppongi and maybe going to Shibuya or Shinjuku to capture all the neon signs. But on the walk home it started to rain, so that didn't look like a good possibility. After I'd lugged my tripod all the way here, I didn't even use it. (I felt a little guilty since I probably could have found a covered spot somewhere but I admit that I was too tired to try.)
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