Today we spent the day with our friend Marian, who has been a schoolteacher in Tokyo for over 20 years. Her dad is our next door neighbour. We met her in Japan on one of our earliest trips here, and she's been a friend ever since. Last year, when she was visiting Rochester during the summer, Brendan & I got her into Pokemon Go. We had a lot of fun playing Pokemon Go with her during her visit this past summer too, and we were able to arrange to meet during our visit to Japan on a Pokemon Go community event day. On community days, they release a particular Pokemon during a 3 hour time period, which kind of marches around the world from time zone to time zone, and there's the possibility of catching "shiny" versions and also evolving them with special moves during the event. Today's Community Day featured Chikorita, which you can see in the photo at the top. The number of Pokemon that actually pop up in an area depends on the number of people playing in that area, so the prospect of playing in highly populated Tokyo was pretty exciting!
To prepare for a day of walking & catching (& catching up on what's been happing since we last saw each other) Charlie & I had a breakfast of conbini pastries, purchased last evening, in our hotel room. Marian came over to our hotel around 10:00 am, giving us time to chat, go to Shinjuku Station so Charlie & I could buy our train tickets to Narita Airport Monday morning, and then catch a train to Harajuku, where Marian had found a ramen restaurant that serves vegan ramen!
Ramen is almost always served in a pork broth with slices of pork & veggies (or other toppings), so the prospect of vegan ramen (since I can't eat meat, the usual ramen broth would make me sick) was very exciting. This is another holiday weekend in Japan, so the train to Harajuku was pretty busy. Getting to the restaurant a little early was a very good idea!
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| The main shopping street in Harajuku |
It was very small & only had counter seating, but we were able to get seats. You actually order the ramen from a machine by the entrance by putting money in the machine, pushing a button, then getting a ticket & your change. You hand the ticket to the person behind the counter, & in a few minutes your ramen arrives. There are pitchers of ice water on the counter & you can order beer from the machine, too.
The ramen was delicious & the restaurant filled-up quickly, so we ate and then headed for Yoyogi Park, which is right next to the Meiji Jingu, a Shinto Shrine dedicated to the Meiji Emperor and his wife. The Chikorita began popping up at noon, and we were in the park & ready to catch them. Since Charlie doesn't play Pokemon Go, we decided to go to the Meiji Jingu so he could look around while we played. The place was very busy with visitors, and we got the chance to see our first traditional wedding in Japan!
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| Bride & groom & friends |
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| The wedding procession, with priests in front, followed by miko (priestesses) and then the bride & groom |
Charlie bought an ema ("ay-mah") to write a prayer on and hang on a rack to be prayed over by the priests so that it might be answered.
After walking for 1 1/2 hours of the 3 hour event, we decided to take the train back to Shinjuku (closer to our hotel) and find a place for resting & refreshment, while still catching Chikorita. I found a poster for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at Harajuku Station.
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| The poster shows the mascots for both the Olympics and the Paralympics |
We hoped to get a seat at Starbucks, but it was mobbed, as were the streets. Everyone was playing Pokemon Go!! There were sooooo many Chikorita popping up!!
We tried to do a raid at a gym, but there were so many people there it overwhelmed the cellular signal. By 3:00 we were ready to buy cold drinks at the conbini and relax in our hotel room for a while. Then, right after the community day time was over, strange Pokemon flooded the area. It was very strange- a never before seen Pokemon! When we caught them, they turned into the Pokemon called Ditto, which usually shows up as regular Pokemon & then transforms after you catch them. We still have no idea what this was about, but I caught a load of Dittos for that half hour. Bonus?
After resting, we decided we'd like to have dinner at an izakaya, which is a particular kind of restaurant where you can sit and order a bunch of small courses of all kinds of foods and drinks. The main problem for me with izakaya is that they're usually full of cigarette smoke, which is a major asthma trigger. We asked at the front desk of our hotel about local izakaya that might have private rooms, which would minimise smoke exposure. They said there was a good one right next door, so we gave it a try. It was only 5:30 pm, so they had a room free for us without a reservation- woo hoo! They started us out with some dishes steamed in a nabe pot right at the table, to enjoy while we ordered.
We didn't have to order a lot of food to fill up quickly. It was delicious!
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| Aburage (fried tofu) stuffed with miso |
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| The last piece of delicious tamago yaki |
Then there was a very short walk back to the hotel and saying goodbye to Marian. That's the hardest part!!! But we had a wonderful day together. Tomorrow we take the train about 1 hour south of Tokyo to see Momo, Hiroshi, & the kids again, in their new house!
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