All good things must come to an end, and so it goes with Tokyo. Today was the best by far. We went through the shrine near Asakusa and I got the chance to photograph many edible delicacies from the vendors in the booths leading to the shrine. Among them, pardon spelling, dongo (dumplings on a skewer), simbay (rice crackers), and gyujita (tongue, either beef or buffalo, I’m not sure which, but I am sure of the spelling of that).
A few blocks up the streets beyond the shrine took us to Kappabashi, the food district (really just one street) where I bought a mortar and pestle of the type used for sesame seeds in tonkatsu restaurants. I was most excited about the ryori mihon, plastic food replicas used in restaurant display windows, but there were really only three small stores and I bought nothing. Good stuff cost up to 10,000 Yen and I wasn’t interested in buying crap. Lots of pots, rice cookers, utensils, tea ceremony essentials, ceramics and the like – stuff too big to lug around all day.
We came back across the river to the famous “shit building,” named for the gigantic object atop it that resembles a turd to those who hate it. It is at the Asahi brewery, where the main building is supposed to resemble a squared-off beer mug with the upper flourishes meant to represent foam. Inside that was a lobby filled with sculpture, including one by Henri Moore. The receptionist told JG that the turd atop the other building was actually an “eternal flame,” which represented the spirit of Asahi employees.
We went to MosBurger, the most successful burger chain in Japan and I had a “burdock burger” – julienne fried burdock between two rice cakes for a bun. It wasn’t bad.
Back on the subway, to Shibuya and the Times Square atmosphere and hip-hop fashion, a cab to Harajuku, then dinner once again at Fujimama’s, the same way the trip began. JG knows the owner, so when she showed up he told her about the shortcomings in our service - because we felt the place was good enough that she’d want to correct them. She appreciated it and brought us free dessert. I had gotten my main dish before JG or TLC got their appetizers and JG’s beef came medium rare even though he had requested well done. They told us they could split the checks, but failed to do so. Other than that, all was fine and nobody pissed in the sink.
(I have now learned that not just one, but two of our engineers did so the last time – not out of malice, just because they thought the sink looked like a urinal, I guess. It didn’t even remotely resemble a urinal as far as I could tell, but they did have one of those scary toilets with confusing digital controls and LEDs, so maybe that scared them away from it)
We bid farewell to JG at Shinjuku station and have already purchased our tickets for the Narita Express for the trip to the airport tomorrow. If there is time in the morning (there should be) or wireless at the airport, I should be able to update at least one more time.
7:02:34 AM 
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