Shake My Soul (Part 12)

Getting out of bed in the morning is a bit tougher when you only got home at, say, 5 AM, but there I was, riding the train up to the middle of proverbial nowhere, heading east to a station called Oshiage. Mayuko told me to meet her there at 13:00, exit A3. Why does 13:00 feel like 7 AM? There isn’t even anyone on the train headed this way…where are we going?


I’m jealous of the bottle of wine in that ad. I could use a hammock right now.



This is the Tokyo Sky Tree. It is the latest and greatest in communications towers in Japan and it’s not even open yet, but it has already spawned a TV drama series and it has its own gift and souvenir shop. It’s huge. I went into tourist mode and started shooting.





Being the good little tourists we are, we visited the souvenir shop next.



Omg a countdown clock! I should come back to Japan for the grand opening in May.

Like every good tower in Japan, it has it’s own set of mascot characters. This one has this cutie girl with her penguin and puppy. Makes sense, doesn’t it?



I almost-almost bought a cellophane-wrapped box of cookies for ¥1,280 (~$15.00), but then I came back to my senses. Cookies. Telecommunications tower cookies.

For lunch, we hit up this surf-shack café that had literally three tables in it. I can’t see how they run a profitable business, but okay. What mattered was that I had really missed my dear Mayuko, and was so happy to see her.



She had made Valentine’s chocolate (as is custom for girls in Japan), and had brought me some. What a sweetheart.




Almost as many photos of the chocolate as Tokyo Sky Tree. Alright!


Japanese curry - one of my favourite dishes ever.

We then headed back down to a more populated area of the city, Ginza.





No visit with Mayuko is generally complete until we go to karaoke. It’s kind of a rule. So we found what I like to call a “sing-hodai” (all-you-can-sing, but we really only got an hour), but on the way there was a FIRE! ”At first, I thought someone was BBQing…”



Well, wouldn’t you know it,; we had to stand on the street with the hoardes of people gawking at the smoke billowing out of the building for a while, and then we moved along. Nothing really to see, since it seemed like it was coming from behind the building.


Mayuko always manages to get us these massive party rooms.




Mayuko always sings this one. I remember because the lyrics are “shake shake shake shake shake my soul”. Not sure how one would do that.

After working up an appetite sing-hodai-ing, I requested Nabezo, which is thankfully a chain. I really do love me some shabushabu.





After dinner, Ginza decided to leave me with a parting gift to share with my friends:

What a sicko. Yet another example of Engrish gone awry.

I managed to muster up the energy to make it yet again to Lex…this time with full blonde extensions. What a crazy night. I love that place.

Tomorrow I will venture down to Harajuku (naturally, I can’t not go) and meet up with Mayuko for dinner. Can you tell? Trip is winding down. But Tokyo is always an interesting time…