chasing jackets

Tokyo, rainy, 19 degrees at 10 am.

We scramble in time for the hotel's breakfast. I eat Japanese food and somehow think of last year in Matsue, and the failed attempt to share my hotel breakfast with budget-hostel-living you.

After breakfast, we aim for Asakusa despite the rain. The arcades have shelters! How nice for when it rains. But sadly, the dear 雷门 is under renovation. We plod onward to Sensoji, and still see scaffolding. I tell my mother about the practice of heaving smoke from the incense pot toward self. She stands solemnly at the Guanyin shrine. I tell her it's nice to be able to see Asakusa in different light of the day. She says I am lucky to have done so.

Asakusa is good for mothers. It is near the subway and has lots of things to look at and food to pick at. It also has a good, old temple with recognizable words like 观音. Mother buys many gifts and also manage to buy something for herself (rare).

We head for Ueno. The rain gets heavier. I run into Yodabashi Camera to get a camera strap for a friend and also to grab film. Film costs an arm and an leg these days, given the strong yen, but what is a Singaporean film lover to do when in Japan? Argh.

Then we are at Ichiran ramen, because this is a tourist to-do that cannot be under-estimated. The greatness of the noodles in a unique setting (well, unique because it hasn't been replicated in Singapore) come together for a great, albeit short-lived, experience. Mother is very pleased. I order a hard-boiled egg (as hard as eggs in Japan go, I guess) for you. It comes with salt and I wonder if this is where you learnt to eat eggs with salt. I miss you, and I tell you so.

Ueno Park in the rain. Cool breeze and light rain as we walked through it with our umbrellas above us. Mother marvels at the sense of space and how this is really a park. I smile.

Next, a stop at Muji, where I find wifi at the Wired Cafe adjacent thereto. So of course I had to maneuver a stop. Despite the patchy wifi and the dessert that took 45 minutes to come, we are happy. I like being able to chat with you, being able to make you happy. I like green tea dessert with mochi and red bean too. The mother discovered the joys of affrogato. This one was served with luscious butter cake.

Honeymoon Banzai, I say. We are so.

A mild headache plagues me the whole day. We take a rest stop back at the hotel (may I note how I love the huge bathrooms) and dump our purchases from one of the basement supermarkets. Baumkuchen! Yoku moku! I want to buy the whole damn place, lah!

Odaiba. 27 minutes from Shinjuku to Shimbashi station on the JR Yamanote line, a walk, and then a 5-minute ride on the Yurikanome line to the Tokyo Bay area. The 2000 yen Suica card is hereby depleted. Top up is required before we exit train station.

Odaiba is also a crowd pleaser. Decks is somewhat okay shopping and (an unverified version of) old Hong Kong remade in various floors of the shopping complex. There are long queues that randomly appear outside and within Decks. Can't tell what for. And I hear a Taiwanese tourist postulate a guess that they are queuing for a nightclub (夜店, he said). Me thinks it's for the cruise.

The good. Night scenery of a bay area, an imposing bridge and boats lit with colourful lights. I like happy people. I like 梅酒。I like how you asked if my headache is gone. I like random wifi pushing Whatsapp messages to me (but I can't read all of them anyway because by the time I get to them, I don't happen to have wifi anymore).

On the way back, I spot a sign advertising a direct train back to Shinjuku. Hmm, the things Lonely Planet don't tell you. A long bridge across to get to the station (Tokyo Teleport Station, and the mother gleefully asked for a photo), 480 yen, 23 minutes to Shinjuku. But it appears to be a line taken by locals, cos they don't have swanky display counters or English announcements.

Then, packing. I hate packing for home, but today I do it with a steadfast love and a little smile.

Photos:

(1) store selling cat-related stuff. meow!
(2) plum wine, dinner at Decks overlooking Tokyo Bay
(3) ferris wheel, Odaiba
(4) bridge, Tokyo Teleport Station surrounds

We reach Tokyo and since the domestic flight was delayed, we didn't make it for the airport limousine that went directly to our hotel. There were other buses that stopped at Shinjuku station (which would only mean a 5-minute walk to the hotel) but I had to think about fact that it was 2.30 pm and we hadn't lunch and I can't tell if the mother prefers to not lug baggage, albeit for 5 minutes. Snap decisions and I don't mix, sometimes. So I bought the 4.45 pm bus tickets.

Lunch was Chinese food and watching air planes being loaded and flying off. I also got distracted by freitag but the brain could not compute the S$480 price tag. I was swayed, but held back by a rational Singaporean voice.

The bus took forever to reach our hotel. A 60, 70-minute ride ballooned to 90 minutes. I fell asleep. We later talk about having napped together. It is a happy mood. The day I return does seem near enough already.

Nothing much happens. We head to Takashimaya. I spot Krispy Kreme and whine about how Singapore doesn't have it. We eat on the 14th floor of Takashimaya Times Square. I am happy with my food. It makes me feel like life is good. I bring my mother to shop. I end up being the one buying something (for someone else, someone special). We walk somemore and I am aiming to find a jacket for the mother as it is too cold for her, especially when the wind blows. 15 degrees. In the same shop that I bought her a jacket, I buy a olive/brown light jacket for myself. It is something I have been wanting but I was waiting for a more suitable price tag. Japan is a good place to solve jacket issues. Heh.

And then the shops are closing and I am back at the hotel and doing the same routine of showering and then coming down to the lobby to use the wireless internet to chat with you. Hey, being apart is hard.

I am coming home soon. And I will tell you in person how much I love you.

9/27, 2130-2230

Photos:
(1) One last shot of Tottori from the bus station.
(2) the flower that you sent me that I am leaving for the hotel.

Kyusho Park.

The sister wants to go to Ams, a furniture store. I am reminded of our time at Ikea, and I think about how you'd enjoy a walk through Ams as well. I wonder about the kind of house I will create.  



We walk back, and I manage to spot Dr Martens shoes (which the sister wanted but hadn't been able to find). 



Other events: 


I see your emails about being stoic and hoping that made being apart easier; I feel somewhat better but not quite; cafe Portugal: cake and coffee for dinner; Jusco for more household items the sister needed; I buy mochi snacks and a calendar populated by very kawaii cats; sister sends us back to hotel resh; so hotel has a website, which google doesn't turn up- resh.jp; mother almost cries, asks sister to hang around our hotel, not noticing that she has purposefully not parked or locked her bike; I say she has to head back since she has to work tomorrow; and I wonder if the mother hates me for that; I wave goodbye frantically (for comic effect, maybe); I say "See you next year!"; the sister rides away. 

The final day the mother has time with the sister. I like being able to (kind of) float in the background when the sister figures out she should be entertaining the mother. Heh.  



Breakfast at Macs. Stationery shop stop. Lots of cooing from the two sisters. 



100 yen bus. I plump for us to go to Kannonin because there will be tea served while we admire a garden. Also, Guanyin is surely something my mother can identify with. It was also thought that noon might be too hot for Kyusho Park so Kannonin might be better done first. 600 yen includes the tea service. 



The day is lovely. No more sad clouds or drizzle. 



We sit at the garden, sip green tea and (for me at least) clear the mind. We ask each other whether we should go off, and though the answer's in the affirmative, no one made to move.  My sister asks how long are we allowed to stay. I say I can't imagine anyone chasing us out. 



I love Japan's gardens. 



We walk toward Ochidani Shrine. We enter the history museum and bravely paid the entrance fee (400 yen each). As expected, there is nothing much in English. Only the titles of exhibits are in English but that's very helpful already. It is a way of passing time, I say. 


After the museum, we eat lunch and briefly visit Ochidani park. 



Photos:

(1), (2) Kannon-in garden 
(3), (4) cafe at the history museum, sister reads menu 

Sunlight streams in; I close my eyes again and see your face.

The gloomy weather persists. I read The Road to Sata, and text you. I don't, though you do, wonder if the hotel people find me odd for hanging out so much at the lobby.

1300 I leave the hotel to pick up a pot of flowers for the sister, to add to the stuff we had picked up at the 100 yen store earlier. We troop through the windy day to reach the sister's apartment. She later says she has been wanting to buy a plant for the apartment.

Lunch includes a meeting with her newly appointed significant other. (I think it went okay, and I tried my best to do conversation. The mother hardly said anything or spoke in Mandarin.) We eat Thai seafood curry with japanese rice.

I chance upon wifi along the road outside the sister's apartment. I couldn't help but say hi to you, even if it's done inanely. (I do manage some coherence later, but there will be the cost of international SMSes. I miss you, I say, but not as badly.)

We take a bus to kita Jusco. Jusco, but bigger. An actual shopping mall in Tottori! The bus trip takes 20 minutes. 1620. I get reminded of the caramel chocolate donut I ate 2 days ago (very delicious). And I see a special tamago double McDonald's burger. (As an aside, I'm told that Ronald McDonald is called Donaldo in Japan. Apparently, "Ronald" is hard to manage.)

We shop! I buy one more thing for you and am happy I chose a large cloth bag as your gift bag. Sister buys many items for less-than-expected money. I manage to snag a blue blazer from Uniqlo that had hitherto existed only in my imagination.

1800: We eat dinner. I heart Pepper Lunch. We try a pearl tea from the food court. It tastes funny (Japanese red tea gone sweet, tapioca pearls that are too hard) but we take what we can get. 280 yen.

Photos:

(1) a toy I got from a machine for 300 yen cos I am such a kid
(2) better than normal Converse shoes at kita Jusco!
(3) boots I had to leave behind cos they didn't have any in my size left