New Sanno & Ueno Park

Our first visit to Tokyo was a success!  Hats off to Hans, who has had his driver's license for just over a week and calmly drove us through some crazy Tokyo traffic.  I would have been reaching for my Valium and breathing into a paper bag, especially since we didn't know exactly where we were going.  That, more than traffic, is what sends me into a tailspin.

We have GPS on our iPhones and hey, it's really cool, have you tried it?  It's better than the GPS I had in my Odyssey.  The unfortunate thing about Siri is that she doesn't speak Japanese.  We will come to an intersection and she'll tell us that we need to turn in 400'. 

"In 400 feet, keep left onto...".  And she goes silent because it's in Kanji and she doesn't speak Kanji.  If we're lucky, we get a red light and can look at the symbols and compare them against the symbols on the road sign.  If not, we just make the turn and hope that Siri knows what the hell she's doing.

We got a little turned around going up to Tokyo between the written directions that we had and trying to decide whether to trust Siri or not.  We got a nice little backroads tour of Tokyo.  It reminded me a little of the time we ended up on a cowpath in the middle of Austria through the trickery of our Garmin.  Only Tokyo is far from a cowpath.

Any which way, we finally made it to the urban oasis that is The New Sanno and got checked into our room.  It's quite a posh hotel, unlike its sister, Edelweiss.  Edelweiss definitely goes for a more rustic, Alpine feel, which makes sense since it sits at the foot of the tallest mountain in Germany.  The New Sanno is more urban--think chandeliers, enormous fresh flower arrangements, chintz and wingback chairs.

We had a nice big room, a king suite with (duh) king-sized bed and a pull-out couch.  We relaxed for awhile, recovering from the stress of driving (Hans) and trying not to scream (Rachel).  After awhile, it was decreed that we would be adventurous and try some Japanese cuisine at a restaurant called Kikuya, located inside the hotel.

And lo, it was lovely.  Have a look:

The menu was strictly Japanese.  The kids had to choose between tempura and tepinyaki.  Tempura means that everything on your plate is battered and fried in this very light, airy batter.  Tepinyaki is grilled out on the big grill in front of you, kind of like Benihana, though with less throwing of food, slicing, dicing and flames.

They were game and all tried tepinyaki...Annika had salmon (wha???) and Will and Josiah had chicken.  They all tried a few bites and that's all we asked.  All three tried chopsticks.  Hans had some excellent beef tepinyaki and I had jumbo shrimp tempura.  The setting was beautiful and we had the place to ourselves, so we didn't have to be completely restrained and unfun.

Afterwards, we went out for a walk in the city around the hotel and then hit the hay.

Thursday, we got on the train and rode out to Ueno Park (you-ain-oh).  We have been to Ueno before, to the Tokyo Museum.  There are also some amazing shrines, more museums, trails and green space and a zoo.  It was only Y1200 for the five of us to tour the zoo and lo, it was amazing.  The weather was cool and sunny, the zoo wasn't overly crowded, the animals were all on speed and up playing instead of being lazy-ass American zoo animals that sleep all day.  Everyone was in a good mood.  The zoo had chicken tenders at their restaurants.  The cosmic tumblers all clicked into place and we enjoyed a beautiful day at the zoo together.  Here are some pics:

You probably all saw Hans' picture of Josiah, Annika and me surrounded by Japanese school children.  There were scads of them there, all in their little hats.  I think different colored hats must mean different grade years.  Pink hats seemed like preschoolers, red and yellow and blue all seemed different ages.  We walked past a group cleaning up after their lunches and the teacher ran up and said "HELLO!" and started peppering the kids with questions.  Before we knew it, we were surrounded by 20 little faces, all eager to practice their English.  I know in the picture it looks as if I'm holding up my hands to ward them off, but I'm actually showing them nine fingers, to illustrate how old Josiah is...it was such an incredibly fun moment that I will never forget.  Josiah and Annika were a little taken aback, but I loved it.  So cool.

I love chickens.

Anyway, after a few hours, we were zoo-ed out and started walking back to the train station.  On the way, we encountered this shrine:

I wasn't paying attention to my history lesson, but I do recall that the shrine was built in the early 1600s and that the lanterns close to the shrine are all made of copper and were lit during ceremonies.  The cards tied and hanging in bundles appear to be prayers, wishes and goals.  There were a few in English:  "Become a millionaire by next year".  What a beautiful, serene place.  The kids were too tired from the zoo to be climbing around on the sacred stuff or making fart jokes, note to self:  always visit sacred places with exhausted children.

I'll leave you with one final, beautiful picture:

My first black eye in years, compliments of William.  NO, he didn't punch me.  I was holding him in the petting farm at the zoo and he brought his rock hard skull crashing into my occipital bone.  I'm pretty sure I saw stars...and now I look like some dotty old lady who put eye shadow on one eye but not the other!

Sayonara, friends...enjoy your weekends!