Alex Cornell

Japan Day One

First I should mention that upon arrival, the first thing that was spoken to me was: “Sir, have you ever heard of Interpol?” I was then promptly escorted to an interrogation room in Narita Airport. When I asked if I could go tell my friend what was happening, they responded, “Please cooperate”. I guess the issue was that my passport was ‘stolen’, despite the fact that I was holding it in my hand. I was asked to try and remember the time it was stolen. I told them there was no such time. I was asked many times over to TRY and remember when it was stolen. It wasn’t. One hour later I was dispatched to Tokyo to find the American Embassy which was “in Tokyo, near Tokyo”. 

Anyway, the issue has been worked out now — I have to go back to the embassy at some point to get a new passport, one that is not stolen. That was this morning, at 8am. Before that, we were at the Tsujiki Fish Market where things have changed since I last came! You can no longer visit the wholesale area early AM. You have to wait until 9am when things have pretty much cooled down. This makes a lot of sense to me, as the workers seem to hate having to dodge confused tourists. Wasn’t quite as exciting though. Our consolation prize at 5am was sushi breakfast. I hadn’t done this last time (chickened out) and it was cool to try. I am a fan of cereal for breakfast, not wasabi. This I know, but it was still really tasty. Our chef presented every dish with a sound that can only be translated as: JING JAAANG!! 

I am trying to avoid retaking every picture I took last time I was here. This is very difficult because I basically photographed everything in Japan last time. Between Mike and I, we are “packing heat” when it comes to camera gear. Between my MKII and his D300, we have the photog thing pretty well covered. 

Johnny Depp’s influence over the Japanese male’s stylistic inklings cannot be understated.

We also checked out the Hama Riku garden, did the Sumida river boat tour, and blasted around Asakusa. After which we went in search of the Tokyo Sky Tree which took us to a part of Tokyo I had never seen. Since it’s massive, we pretty much just set a course straight at it, through a number of suburban neighborhoods. The construction is a sight to behold. There are cranes on top that lift beams almost the entire length of the structure. 

Speaking of cranes, there is only one type of crane in Japan and Mike and I wondered about the possibility of a crane monopoly. They are red. They look like robots. 

Before our Sky Tree adventure, we had lunch at a traditional Japanese bento box establishment. We rocked out to…some kind of music during lunch and ate many things we had never seen before. My favorite was the egg square that tasted like salt water. 

Pictures will continue to be posted in the slideshow format you see. This is not ideal, but it’s what I got here with Tumblr, so we’ll deal with it.