My first meal

So I made it to Tokyo....obviously. Where to begin? Well I arrived Wednesday afternoon and after waiting in custom lines for a while finally made it out and got myself onto the keisei train headed for the Asakusa station in Tokyo.

Once I emerged from the subway I found myself in a surprisingly quiet ally crowded with bicyclists. The directions I downloaded off the internet to my hostel was like following a written treasure map. I had to go through some decorative arch ways which lead me through a market full of pastries, strange toys, and manikins dressed in kimono. Once I reached the end of that I found myself at the Senso-ji temple (see below). Then my directions had me follow the temple clockwise and cross a small foot bridge over a pond full of coie of course (also see below). Then after following the ammusment park on my right I finally found my hostel.








After settling into my room I went on a mission to find an Unagi restaurant my guide book recomended. For those who don't know, Unagi is my favorite Japanese dish so I was excited to see there was a restaurant close to my hostel that apparently had some of the best in Tokyo. Apparently when I got out on the street it was obvious I wasn't sure where exactly I was going and that's when a friendly Israeli by the name of Tom asked if I needed help. With our two heads combined and the little Japanese he spoke we finally found it at the end of an ally (there are a lot of ally's in Tokyo). Once we opened the door I was very happy I had arrived with someone who spoke a little Japanese. The place was the size of a normal sized kitchen in a house (and that's including their kitchen). It was clear they weren't used to foreigners so we got some confused looks but they made room for us at the counter and we took our seats. On the other side of the counter was an old Japanese man fanning the coals below some Unagi he was currently grilling. I was so excited by this image! This was exactly what I wanted. Then they told us (mainly with hand gestures) that the menu was behind us on the wall. Obviously I don't read Japanese and neither did Tom so we just sort of laughed follow by the rest of the people at the resaurant at our bewildered looks. Fortunately my guide book recomended what to order and with the help of some friendly counter neighbors who spoke a little english we communicated we wanted a medium sized portion of unagi over rice. Once our meal came we ordered some beer and I couldn't have been happier.


This was the perfect outing for the first day on my travels. I made a new friend, had what I thought to be an authentic Japanese culinary experience, and somehow went to bed at decent "going to bed" hour (with a 15 hour difference in time that's something to be very happy about).