You Can't Keep a Good Gaijin Down

I'm happy to report that my last full day in Tokyo was a very good one. With all bodily functions under relative (and I do mean "relative") control, I was able to enjoy a bright sunny day visiting Odaiba, which is on Tokyo Bay and a fantastic lunch at a very nice hotel, courtesy of Naoko's uncle and aunt. Since P. was pretty much out of commission the entire day, Naoko was kind enough to serve as my sightseeing guide again. Nope, I did not complain.

Call me a masochist (or just stupid), but the significant distress of the last two days did not stop me from eating the following items during a very long lunch today: some kind of dumpling appetizer that I didn't recognize, miso soup with shitake mushrooms, a tasty Japanese salad, Japanese steak, cooked medium (the middle was still pink), fried rice and egg, and last but not least, six cooked oysters on the half shell (which were amazing). Followed by a lovely guava sherbet and tea. I admit, I was a little concerned that I was taking all of this on so soon after the Sushi Debacle, but I'm a stubborn bastard, and I wasn't going to miss a nice meal on my next to last day in Tokyo. Honestly, apart from my little fiasco in Kyoto, which was caused by my own lack of common sense, the food in Japan has been fantastic. There are some countries you visit where the main fare is totally bland (England and Ireland), or you have to hold your nose and swallow hard (Germany). This sure isn't one of them. I can't think of any country I have visited where the food was better. How ironic.

After lunch, we headed over to Odaiba, which is a newly-created neighborhood located on an island on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, away from downtown Tokyo. We took the monorail, which had incredible views of the city and Tokyo Bay. As we were going over the Rainbow Bridge, I was reminded of going over the Williamsburg Bridge on the J/M/Z, except of course the monorail was 1000 times cleaner, nicer, and didn't smell. Still, there was something about crossing east, away from the city, with the sun in kind of the same place, that gave me this intense feeling of deja vu. Totally weird. Odaiba itself reminded me a little of Battery Park City if it were located across the river in Brooklyn. But again, Odaiba is much nicer, more developed, and much more commercial. (Can you sense a theme here?) There was this very nice, very clean boardwalk along the water, which included a manmade beach, restaurants, cafes, and piers for sightseeing boats.

And I almost forgot, Odaiba also has its own Statue of Liberty, a gift from France in 1999. Talk about deja vu -- I couldn't believe it. It looks just like ours, but it's obviously much smaller. You will love the pictures once I can post them.

The entire time I was in Odaiba, I was thinking to myself "Why the hell can't New York get its shit together and build something like this on the Brooklyn waterfront (minus the extra Statue of Liberty of course)?" It was so nice and it would be totally cool to have something like that to go to. But in the U.S., you have to deal with bureaucratic bullshit and lawsuits before you can get anything done. Every stupid asshole with an opinion has to have a say before someone can even put public bathrooms on New York streets. Which is another pet peeve I'm bringing home as a souvenir. In Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima, there are public bathrooms EVERYWHERE. You don't have to sneak into a Starbuck's. You don't have to hold it for 7 hours. You don't have to make a pitstop at your office on a Saturday or Sunday. Every time I had to go, there was a bathroom within striking distance. And most of the bathrooms were clean enough that they even made me consider waiving my policy against doing No. 2 in public bathrooms. But I didn't take it that far -- I have my limits. Just knowing they were around when you needed them was nice though. Why can't New York do this? And stop using homeless people as an excuse, this isn't rocket science.

Anyway, with that rant out of the way, the highlight of today was the boatride Naoko and I took up Tokyo Bay as the sun was setting. It was incredibly scenic, and I got some great pictures of the Rainbow Bridge and a couple of other bridges we passed under. It was hard to take a bad picture from where we were. I kept thinking how evolved, clean, and efficient Tokyo is as compared to New York. Maybe the comparison isn't fair -- in fact, I'm sure it isn't because New York is a far more complicated place in my view, with many more variables to deal with -- but I couldn't help comparing the two cities because they are similar in many ways. And still, there are things New York should be able to do better notwithstanding its innumerable burdens.

To cap the day off, Naoko's uncle comped us massages at this Taiwanese massage place in Roppongi. I know, Naoko and her family went completely out of their way for me --it was way over the top. Even my Italian relatives don't treat me this nicely anymore when I go there. I fully intend to reciprocate when they visit New York, where their daughter is in school.

The massage was very good. This 5'2" woman -- she may have been from Taiwan, I have no idea -- beat the living crap out of me for an hour. It's the type of massage that hurts like hell when it's happening but feels fantastic later. That's what I kept telling myself every time she buried her elbow full force into the triangular area just above my shoulder blades, and up and down my back. She also gave me a scalp massage, which I envisioned as this soft, gentle, relaxing experience. Butterfly wings flitting across my face and sympathetic hands rubbing my scalp and temples. Instead, Little Miss Powerful treated my head like a meatball, pushing her fingers so deep into my scalp that I thought she was going to lobotomize me. When she did my neck, thoughts of potential paralysis flew through my mind. Can you sue a Taiwanese massage parlor all the way from New York? How would you get personal jurisdiction? What would Naoko's uncle think? No joke, all of this ran through my head as Little Miss Powerful was manhandling my neck in ways that didn't seem entirely safe.

Fortunately, she knew what she was doing, and I felt fantastic afterwards. I even told her she was very strong and did a great job, and she started laughing. At least part of me is ready for my flight tomorrow.

All in all, it's been a great week. Japan is an interesting, amazing place, and I feel very fortunate that I got to experience the life and people here, even for a very short time. When the pictures are ready to share, I will bore any and all readers with a few more ancedotes about this trip. For now, I'm leaving Japan satisfied that I squeezed a lot into the limited time I had. I'm fairly exhausted because of it, but it's a good kind of tired. Still, I don't think I'm in the proper condition to start working again this week. The thought that I have to be at work in a mere two days is quite unpleasant.

Hmmmm.... I think I need a vacation.

See you stateside.