Japan - Disney, Tokyo & JaPOW

After finally meeting up with Darren, we headed off for another night time adventure, we just didn’t realize the adventure we were going on. The good news is that Denise was getting updates from Wendy, Darren’s wife, that while he can get a little crazy, we should be okay. Just don’t let him take us to the Golden Gai district. But like PTAF famously said “I think you know, where this about to go…” 😱😳

Anyway, we started off dinner with some Tokyo soul food, as Darren called it. The Japanese call it Monjayaki. All I know, it’s one of those meals where someone has to tell you it’s good and drag you in, or you probably aren’t going to go eat it. They cook it at your table, think Teppanyaki in the states. The catch was the pancake like consistency and the way it looked. I have to hand it to Darren though, it was quite tasty. They just kind of mix up a soup like mixture on the flattop with the ingredients you choose and mix it all up. It was a very fun experience.

From there, we hit up Shibuya Crossing, a famous crossing in Tokyo where hundreds and hundreds of people cross an intersection in all directions at the same time while cars are stopped. It’s a bit crazy. How we didn’t lose Denise who knows… well I do, she was super glued to my side! But we made it across, intact, and spend some time walking around the district. I could quite easily seeing a few of my younger co-workers at NCR going in there and treating it like their personal Ponko Chicken!

From Shibuya, we headed to an even more exciting part of Tokyo (we are finding out there are several of these areas - you saw the pics from Tokyo Tower - there’s a lot of area in Tokyo!). This area was Shinjuku. To get there, we hopped back on the train, with about a quarter of Tokyo - I think this was Denise’s favorite part. She absolutely loves sharing her personal space - unless it’s me after 5 o’clock! Ok again, JUST KIDDING!

Once in Shinjuku, Darren walked us down Omoide-Yokochō street - where he thought about taking us to eat. Now, this area was fascinating, think The Shambles in York England - Just closer together, much, much, much closer together. There was just hole in the wall after hole in the wall of restaurants. Most of them were Yakitori style so the smells wafting down the alley were ever so sumptuous. But the thought of cramming into those small 5, 6, maybe 7 seat closets to eat, well, not sure about that. In the end, they were all packed!!! So not sure we would have gotten in, but what a cool area.

Of course, as stated earlier, Darren offered up the Golden Gai tour, and you know me, when in Rome, right. LOL, fortunately, Darren took great care of us Wendy. He made us keep our hands to ourselves and we weren’t allowed to cozy up to any nice looking Nigerians. This place was similar to the Omoide street, except for yakitori, I think they were only serving beer and liquor - too pretty much a bunch of people that looked like all of my fraternity brothers - well and a few NCR hires from the early 2020’s! In the end, we got alive, no harm some foul (odors). Well, in any other city there would have been, but here, even this place was cleaner than a lot of US “nice” areas. What you can do when you take a little pride in yourself and your area.

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!Leia mais