NoahandMasonandXiaoandCheinTokyo Resurrection (Ginza and Yurakucho)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Hi everybody,

Part 4!  The final installment of our quartet, in which Our Heroes took the subway on down to Ginza, "The Fifth Avenue of Tokyo".  Burberry and Tiffany's, Hermes and Armani and Cartier, you'll find them in Ginza.  Glitz and glamour, in every direction (including up)

UniQlo's flagship store, twelve (!!!) stories tall

Of course, amidst the high fashion and French cafes, there's all sorts of cool unexpected stuff as well!  The surprising fan favorite was a shop specializing in traditional paper crafts: Mason picked up a ton of origami paper, Xiao bought a set of brushes for his younger sister (who, like mine, got the whole share of artistic talent), and Che found a very cool paper sphere desk ornament--prompting the other two to spend the rest of the evening looking at trinkets in every shop, "because I want something cool to put on my desk too!"

We thought we were pretty much done with spending money for the day, until Mason found the stationary supplies store.  High School Noah would be so proud, I remember I stocked up on pens and pencils every single time I came out to Japan.  Japan has the best office supplies

He started out by just writing his name and suchlike, but then realized "wait, this is how I should test it out"

Sadly, Our Hero is not perfect.  He is human, and fallible.  And after telling the three guys that I was going to take them to Sony's flagship showroom, letting them see a glimpse of the products that are going to hit US shores a few months from now.  Alas, the entire shop is closed for renovations all week long!



I thought about taking the honorable way out, but sadly they wouldn't let me.  Instead, we moved on to the final stage of our exciting, awesome day:  Yakitori with the salarymen.  This quintessential after-work bar didn't seem like the place to pull out my camera and take a bunch of pictures, as much as I would have liked to.  You'll have to close your eyes and imagine the hustle and bustle of a restaurant that is absolutely empty at 7pm but gets packed to the rafters with Japanese people in light shirts and dark suits as soon as they get off of work at around 8.  The beer and sake flow freely, and every few minutes your next order of skewered meat shows up at your table

I stole one shot, a nice idea of the detritus left in our wake.  Empty glasses, bare remnants of meat (and they didn't last long either), and a bunch of empty skewers

Conversation topics included but were not limited to the following:

• Online dating (and the societal implications that can be drawn from them)
• Whether or not the US should just allow Ukraine to fall in order to wake up Europe (Xiao's idea, the rest of us are all just worried about what could go wrong)
• Which animal you would be most willing to let go of if we had to get rid of chickens, pigs, or cows (Xiao: Chickens because they've been domesticated the most recently; Che: Cows, because they are the least depended on in poorer countries; Mason: Chickens, because that flavor is the most easily replaceable; Noah: Pigs, because eggs are useful and cows are way too delicious to give up)

Now that's how you end a day of sightseeing


In case it wasn't abundantly clear, I had an absolutely fantastic day; of course, I'd like to thank Mason, Xiao, and Chun Che for letting me show them around one of my favorite cities in the world.  Not everyone can make it through my entire day-in-Tokyo itinerary, these guys were absolutely a blast.  They were the brave guinea pigs to be my first guests, but if you're reading this blog you're welcome to be next!

Noah out