Our Tokyo trip got off to a rainy start. But that didn’t temper our enthusiasm. We were up and out at 8:30 a.m., on a quest to track down some convenience store heat lamp spicy chicken nuggets for my breakfast. We were in search of the ubiquitous Lawsons, the one stop shop for everything from whisky to fruit sandwiches. Sadly, a Lawsons proved much harder to find than we expected. Instead, we came across a couple of Natural Lawsons (a weird, bizarro version of the original that didn’t carry any fried foods) and a host of less-impressive Family Mart.
In the end, we decided to table our quest and head underground to kill some time before the stores opened.
We resurfaced to check out another area. Alas, no fried chicken nuggets – but plenty of everything else:
We had lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Tokyo: Sawada. The sushi was, as always, spectacular. Alas, the restaurant doesn’t allow photography so you’ll have to take my word for it. Akemi spent much of the meal chatting with the surprisingly humorous Sawada-san who talked about his days as a student athlete, training, and philosophy and passion for sushi. We also discussed the new restaurant trend taking Tokyo by storm: standing eateries that see greater profits because of the quick turnover in client. Great if you’re in a rush I suppose – which most everyone seems to be.
While Akemi headed off to Naka-Meguro to get her eyelashes fine-tuned, I went to Akihabara in search of a cover for my new cell phone. I came up empty on that front, but did make these fantastic purchases:
Akemi was still full from lunch when dinner rolled around and, while I wasn’t all that hungry, I couldn’t miss out on a meal opportunity. So, we compromised and headed over to one of the mini malls for some casual Korean…
I figured we’d head over to Star Bar for a night cap but, on the way, we were contacted by Akemi’s mother who had arrived in Tokyo (from Osaka) for her daughters wedding. Whoa, there. Her OTHER daughter, Hiromi. And so, we tabled our Star Bar visit and headed over to Nihombashi…
We met up with Akemi’s mother and sister who were staying at the beautiful Mandarin Oriental Hotel…
By the time we got back to our hotel, I was exhausted. I was in bed by 11:00 and slept, more or less, through until 7:30 a.m.
Woke up this morning to some emails, including a couple from my “point person” on that super-secret project. Very exciting stuff. I just hate the fact that we have to wait until January for the big reveal…
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