Japan Page 2

Outside the Senso-ji temple, a firehouse allows Rich to fulfill one of his childhood fantasies: becoming a Tokyo fireman.

For lunch on our first full day, we enjoyed a filling meal at a traditional restaurant specializing in okonomiyaki, pancakes prepared by the customers on a hotplate that serves as the table. Upon entering, the shoes come off as you walk upon the straw floor. We then sat at our table, on the floor of course, and enjoyed a great meal--all for a pretty reasonable price by Tokyo standards.

After lunch it was off to the fashionable district of Ginza, with its frenetic pace, awash with neon and fashionable stores. It is also the home to the Kabuki-za, Tokyo's principal Kabuki theatre since 1889. We were fortunate to see a Kabuki performance and, despite it being spoken in Japanese, we enjoyed it immensely.

A shot of the stage from the cheap seats (complete with a silhouette of a fellow patron's head). The stage is colorful, as are the costumes and the make-up. We saw the story of two sumo wrestlers, one of which was asking the other to throw an important match.

The neon lined streets of Ginza. Neon is everywhere in Tokyo, not just particular locations (as with New York's Times Square). Its ubiquitous presence adds greatly to the frenetic atmosphere of this 24 hour city.

More neon, much running along the sides of buildings to heights of 5 or 6 stories.

At the end of a long first day, we economized by eating in our room with prepared food bought at a local store. Here Rich feasts upon Sobu, Japanese noodles dipped in a soy type sauce which is seasoned with seaweed flakes and wasabi sauce.

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