MoshiMoshi Craig arrived to take in Japan for a week last week. On Tuesday afetr work I called the cell phone he had supposedly rented. I was greeted with "Moshi, Moshi" and quickly thought I had mis-dialed. It turns out Craig had been studying his Japanese before coming. I almost hung up on him. We decided to go out to have dinner even though he had been up for like 24 hours hours straight. First, we walked around Shinjuku station for about 20 minutes to let Craig get his bearing and see all there was to see near his hotel. Next, as we entered a restaurant feeling all cocky, Craig with his excellent Japanese phone answering skillz, and me with my excellent Japanese table-requesting skillz, we were promptly reminded of our gaijin-ness. The hostess told us the restauarant was full and could not seat us even though it didn't look that crowded. We moped away only to see to girls go in, talk to the hostess, and never come out. Maybe they had reservation, and maybe they already had friends with a table that were waiting for them, but maybe we were discriminated against. It's never happened to me before here, so I will side with the first explanation.

Wednesday The next day, Craig had a tour during the day, and I, as always, had work (haven't taken a sick or vacation day yet this year). That night Marie invited a co-worker and we went to dinner at another restaurant. Kenichi showed up a bit later and then finally Yutaka, too. I guess the order that people arrive is the how hard they work. Marie and I were there first :) I think the funniest part for me is hearing Japanese people trying to differentiate between the names of Craig or Gregg when one of us is being addressed. "This is Craig. Gregg? No, Ku-ray-gu. Huh?"

Thursday Since Friday night was to be a late night out in Roppongi, we wanted to have an easy night in at least once. Craig was seeing Mount Fuji and Hakone during the day so he'd be very tired. I have never seen Mount Fuji from close and Hakone took me a whole weekend, so I couldn't imagine him doing all that in one day and be done by 6pm. Marie offered to cook at our apartment Thursday night. She made all kinds of good stuff.

Friday Craig got tickets to the big Sumo tournament and went during the day on Friday. It's only a week or two long 4 times a year, so it was quite lucky to be going on while he was here. Craig and I and a Lithuanian girl from Craig's hotel that he had met went Roppongi for the night. We got there around 10:00 (much too early for Roppongi) so we had dinner at a really nice yaki-tori restaurant. After that, walked around. saw all the crazy people, got harrassed by guys trying to get you into their bar. Tried some bars/clubs and took taxi's back between 3 and 4am. The rain that had not stopped since Craig arrived, finally relented also.

Saturday After sleeping in into the afternoon, we met and took the train out to Kenichi's and Hiroko's apartment. Walked in only to see Kenichi and Yutaka and Taka practicing the famous wedding song dance here in Japan. They were practicing for Nomoto and Mizuki's wedding at the end of October. The soccer team had had a game earlier in the day near there, so there were a bunch of Shamurai (Samurai + Shakuji) there. From there we met everyone else and about 10 of us went to a restauarant for dinner at a typical Japanese restaurant to give Craig the real Japanese experience (i.e., sitting on tatami, eating raw fish, and drinking beer to facilitate communication). After that, we went out for karaoke nearby.

Karaoke
As the night unwound, the Japanese karaoke veered farther and farther from what Americans knows as "normal" karaoke. I cannot go into more details as there are rules to karaoke here. All I can say is, What happens in karaoke, stays in karaoke. The second part to that rule is "Don't talk about karaoke". Oh, and Rule #6 from that movie also applied.

Sunday We tried to wake up early (9am) and get out of Tokyo for a nice daytrip to a less commercialized area.

Kamakura
After taking the train 1 hour we arrived in Kamakura and walked down the road and in and out of various old temples (500-1000 years old). We had lunch a nice old style (yet new age?) restaurant and walked and shopped on the small streets. If you see the pictures...Yes, I know all 3 of us wore a black shirt and jeans.

Enoshima
Next we took a train to Enoshima (about 20 minutes away), traversed that entire island in the on and off rain. We stopped and got a great, small sample of sushi at a kaiten (rotating) sushi restaurant (like Pod in Philadlephia).

After that we headed back to Kamakura for dinner. We had 30 minutes to spare before the reservations we had. We each got a 10 minute head and shoulders massage then went to the restauarant. The restaurant was a high-end teppanyaki (like Benihana) that served a special type of beef. Marie and Craig tried the "special" Hayama Beef and I stuck with a normal cut of tenderloin.

Monday Craig returned home and Monday was a Holiday here in Japan (Respect for the Aged Day). It was a much needed day off for such an aged guy like me after such a busy week.