day seven in tokyo and home

last full day in tokyo: i had breakfast at the coffee shop down the street w/ jonathan, where i was able to successfully order hot cocoa and a croissant in japanese (made easier by the fact 'cocoa' and 'croissant' in japanese are 'cocoa' and 'croissantu' respectively). home to get cleaned up and ironed and pressed and dressed and ready to go out w/ j's host family from 15 years ago; we took the train out to erisu (sp?), had half an hour to wander around a super super posh clothing store (i saw a pair of shoes i quite liked that cost $900, and a t-shirt that was $250), and then met up w/ his host mother and host sister and host sister's little girl aged 2 for a delish lunch at a non-weird-fusion italian restaurant. (posh little portions, tres elegant, white linen). a bit fragmented, because we were all on good behavior; eugene was the only one who spoke japanese and english really well; the little girl was antsy and fussy and couldn't sit still, so her mum was constantly up and down taking her outside; but still, very nice to have the chance to sit down and talk to regular people and not just be a tourist (in which regard i feel i have been extraordinarily lucky this trip, actually). ooh and i totally scored w/ the little girl because i knew the words to the greeting song and the donkey song from Music Together (thank you, Theo Scott Ebling) which is apparently an international phenomenon, not just a hippie california thing.

after lunch we headed back to central tokyo to meet up w/ eugene's friend/girlfriend eriko for coffee and a little tour of some of the modern architectural marvels of downtown tokyo, and then they dropped me off at a bathhouse while they went to shop for medicines-only-available-in-asia for various family members. eriko came into the bathhouse with me just to get me started, which was very sweet of her, because i'm sure that otherwise i would have committed even more horrendous bathhouse faux pas than i did. it has the look and feel of a very small public swimming pool minus the smell of chlorine; first you go into a locker room, where you undress and stow your stuff; then you go into the bathing room, where you sit on an upturned plastic bowl and scrub yourself under the shower (apparently you have to make a big show of how extensively you are scrubbing yourself, and how much soap you are using, for the benefit of all the other ladies who are keeping an eye on that sort of thing.) then you get to get into the actual bath, which is like a giant jacuzzi, totally lovely and steamy and peels your skin off. afterwards you shower off again, dry w/ the tiny flannel that you had to buy from the front desk because you didn't know that the regulars all bring their own towels, get dressed (i treated myself to a 20 yen hair-dry under one of those bubblehead hair drying machine that i associate with hair dressing salons from the 1950's.) and then you're done. my main faux pas (at least that i know about) came when i was towelling off - there are little mats that you stand on to dry off in front of your locker, and i did not managed to contain my drips to the mat, but accidentally got a few drips of water on the floor, and a lady came in, pointed at my drips, let off a tirade of pissed-off japanese, glared at me, and went round the other side of the lockers so that she would not have to step over the foreigner's unsightly puddle. oh dear oh dear. anyway.

after that the others picked me up again and we headed off to a famous sushi place (famous in part for the wait, which is an average of two hours yikes). but a two hour wait does at least have the effect that being seated gives you the most tremendous rush of victorious smugness, and the food was quite yummy. home again home again after that - jonathan and eugene went out for late night carousing, i crapped out and went to bed, and that was that.

jonathan left the next morning; i spent the morning wandering around the harajuku area in the pouring rain, checking out the flea market and the crazy teeny bopper shops and the handful of anime enthusiasts who turn up in their freakiest manga finery (think foot high red leather platform boots, black leather trench coats trimmed with rhinestones, crazy wigs, corsets, spikes, floor length punk mullets). i also went to the meiji shrine nearby, where you can go and pay respects to the emperor and his family, which according to the signs all patriotic japanese citizens like to do regularly), and then went home to pack my stuff, say goodbye and thank you to eugene, and get myself to the airport (1oo% completely successful train experience. correct ticket purchase, correct bullet train boarded, correct seat located, and i even got off at the right terminal). and thus ends my first ever trip to japan. flight home medium horrible - i was sitting next to a pair of hindu grannies who fussed with their video remote controls in loud voices and pulled out tinfoil packet after tinfoil packet of pungent homemade chapatis to eat during the flight, but i managed to sleep, which is really the definition of a good transoceanic flight, i think.