Kate’s Quests

DJ and I went strolling through Tokyo again yesterday. We had a pretty good time. We wandered all around the city again and spent about six hours walking in the hot and humid weather. We were gone about eight hours so I think I can safely say we walked for at least six of them. We finally saw the Imperial Palace and gardens. Kusunoki Masashige was there. And according to Wikipedia, he was a 14th century samurai who fought for Emperor Go-Daigo in his attempt to wrestle rulership of Japan away from the Kamakura shogunate.

As we were wandering around an older Japanese man around 65 or 70 years old stopped us to chat. He wanted to practice his English and when he found out we were American he was really excited to talk to us. After the “where are you from” question, he immediately whipped out a map of the U.S. and found exactly where we were from on the map. He wanted to know why we pronounced Arkansas without the second S and if people from Texas felt pride because Bush was from there. He asked about birth rates and if DJ and I had any kids. We told him no and he seemed extremely concerned about that. He’s worried about the low birthrate in 1st world countries and is very disappointed with the Japanese and their falling birthrate. My favorite part of the conversation happened when he turned to DJ and said, “Are you proud that your wife is so pleasing…no…beautiful? Are you a good husband and tell her often that she is beautiful in the morning and once in the afternoon and again in the evening?! You should do this! You be..should..be a good husband!” And then he turned to me and said, “Your skin is so lovely and you have such a beautiful appearance. You should know that your face is very appeasing…no…appealing to the Japanese man’s eye.” And he turned back to DJ and said, “I envy you for such a beautiful wife.” Hahaha. And so, of course, as we got back home I announced, “it’s evening and you haven’t told me yet how beautiful I am. You should be a good husband and say this!” I’ll probably never hear it again after this!

We got some sushi for lunch and I totally fell in love with one of the pieces of fish we were served. It’s called Hirame (halibut) and we didn’t eat it with soy sauce because he squeezed lemon over it and put salt on top. YUM. Dinner was Indian at our favorite place in Ginza. We’ve been three times now.

We also wandered through a lovely park and got a beer. That was good..DJ was very happy with his Kilkenney. Later we stumbled upon the Sony building and outside is an aquarium. We took a bunch of pictures and some film. It was really quite amazing to see all the fish as we were walking around outside. They had some music blaring and of course you can hear the entire electronic city buzzing as you’re walking around down there. All the buildings are brightly lit up and they have a huge television screen playing commercials and all kinds of stuff. DJ took this video as we were walking across the intersection. It’s not that great, but I thought Mom might find it interesting since she’ll be here soon. She’ll actually get to see the city all crazy and loud.