#he picks up sign language in Fontaine and still writes but at some point he just stops talking and never speaks again

[voidscreamns]

./

[wanderlust225]

Running, then lots of beer

This morning I woke up early for a nice, uninterrupted run. After being admonished the other day for running in a garden, I scoped out a place with other runners and decided to get my high around the Imperial Palace. It was a straight shot there, though I did have to stop at all the stop lights as Japanese are extremely law abiding citizens (even worse than Californians!). And although it got quite hot when I was in the sun, I am a sucker for running around water - and the palace moat was no exception. It was lovely. After my last breakfast at Villa Fontaine I packed up, checked out and headed to Zojo-ji. I thought this was just "another Buddhist temple" but it was really lovely which ancient buildings from the 1300s, a huge tree planted by President Grant and a touching garden with statuettes to honor lost children. It was also brutally hot, clocking in at 103 F / 40 C so I spent some time thoroughly enjoying the AC inside the temples. There are SO many things I want to write about, but if I did, I would never pick my head up from my screen as I would be constantly writing. A few highlights: - My sign language has gotten pretty good; thumbs up + pointing to the whole food counter + shrugged shoulders = "what is the best?" And pointing to the leaf wrapper + pointing to my mouth = "do I eat the leaf wrapper too?" (The answer is no, you stupid American.) - I try to take tons of pictures but don't want people to get bored of every single thing I see, because every single thing I see is different! If not completely, than at least how they use or present it and if not then, it's completely in Japanese which is funny in itself! ○ Women Only cars during rush hour (but only in the mornings?) on the subway ○ Women dress fairly conservatively, and almost always wearing heels or at the very least platforms or closed-toed shoes ○ Men dressed fairly conservatively too, it looks like a uniform; dark pants and white / blue button-down shirt (often times short-sleeves!) ○ I heard a lot about how much Japanese businessmen drink before I got here - although I haven't seen drunkenness in the street as I had heard about, I have seen some very red faces. The wine here has been pretty terrible, but the beer (especially the craft stuff) is delicious! ○ So. Many. Lines. - mostly for yummy places to eat, but stores too sometimes! ○ After 5 days in Tokyo, I'm no longer shocked by seemingly outlandish clothing not at cat pictures everywhere - and often cats on clothing! I had dinner at a yakitori in Roppongi, continuing on my you-can-love-Japanese-food-without-seafood mission. This was the last major city area I had yet to visit and this yakitori was specifically recommended by a cool English woman I met in Singapore. When I arrived at Joumon just after 5:30 when they opened (I had "missed" lunch by being silly and assuming places would be open at 3pm) it was empty but the host still looked at me questionably about why I hadn't made a reservation…for one. He finally showed me a seat at the bar and I was handed a never-ending menu. The specialty is grilled meats and I ordered a bunch of skewers (staying away from the Asian favorites like neck, gristle and giblets). I also ordered the homemade sesame tofu and ALL was excellent. After I finished these the Japanese yam okonomiyaki (which I later learned were like yam potato pancakes) were staring me down… so I tried it too! There was a white sauce on top, but I decided to ignore the mayonnaise and thoroughly enjoyed the dish. ;) It was delicious but after awhile the grill smoke got to me so on to the next place! After dinner I was hoping the Roppongi Hills area was still open past dusk and I was in luck. As I walked down the high street and into the big complex that also housed one of the media networks, I heard a girl's pop group. It ended up being a group called Team8 and they had a special live show! No recordings allowed, but the girls were definitely lip syncing and the audience participation was incredibly synchronized. Pretty great. I wandered a bit more to find a cool spider statue I had heard about. In the meantime found a whole village of weird blue cartoons that everyone was obsessed with so, naturally, I took a selfie with one. (Side note: One thing I love about Asia is that taking selfies is not taboo - great for the solo traveler!) Afterwards I was craving a beer (weird right? I think it has to do with how hot it is here!) so I found Ant n' Bee close by which was a delicious craft beer house. While I was there an Aussie man, who was traveling with his daughter, asked me if I was local. What a compliment!! I was very proud of myself that I was able to help them with transport on the subway after only 5 days in Tokyo. We talked for awhile and he explained why it's only going to get cheaper for Americans to travel to Australia (he thinks the currency goes from 80 to 65 in he next 3 years) - here's hoping. They encouraged me to stop by Brew Dog too, a Scottish brewery, and I had a stone fruit IPA which was incredibly light. Both places played punk music which brought me back to my early teens and a smile on my face. Next, back to my "pod hotel" for the new hostel experience.