Day 4 Observations - Tokyo

- Had Soba noodles for lunch. We went into the shop and sat down, only to be directed to a large ticket machine which had pictures of the food on the menu. We put in our money and then took the ticket to the counter, where they then served us the food. One question: why is that step necessary??? Why can't we just order the food at the counter? I think they just have too much technology in Japan and now they're just using it wherever they can.

- We found the giant robots today -- in the Toy Park in Ginza! Mobile Suit Gundam 0087! I now have a sweet toy for my office at Simpson. If anyone comes in and tries to dump some work on me, I'll just let my Zeon Defense Robot take care of 'em.

- Had Shabu Shabu tonight ... very, very good. This means that we've had tempura, sushi, onigiri, soba, shabu shabu and yakitori while we're here. Pretty good, I'd say.

- Went to Ueno Park, and visited the zoo. We saw flamingos, pandas and hippopotami. Tapirs, too. (I had a National Geographic book all about the Tapir as a child. Talk about useless knowledge. Well, it finally came in handy!) I wonder if the animals know that they are in Japan. Are their lives different somehow?

- Visited the War Dead shrine -- Yasakuni Jinja -- and the accompanying crazy-ass right-wing nationalistic war museum. Did you know that Japan's Imperial aggression inspired Gandhi? And that China was responsible for the Nanking massacre? And that up is actually down? All that and more at this incredibly embarrassing museum! That said, the shrine is quite beautiful -- one of the prettiest we've seen -- and there is a great Tomb of the Unknown Soldier nearby to serve as a counterpoint to all the insanity inside.

- You know those kids who didn't have many friends, and so they spent a lot of time alone and developed a strange but not necessarily bad personality? Yeah ...

Later,
A&S