Our first taste of Tokyo was well after dark as we weren’t quite resigned to a night in after 13 hours of rest on our flight.
We set out meandering from our neighborhood, Tokyo-Midtown, through Roppongi to the famed Shibuya Crossing – one of the busiest crosswalks in the world. I’m always inexplicably drawn to places with rampant crowds where energy levels are hard to match outside of a concert venue. Shibuya Crossing was our destination to take a first plunge into Tokyo.
Everything we saw along that walk had that special brand of awesome reserved only for first time visits (well, except for a few places that retain that beautiful glow). My camera was out and almost in constant use for things as mundane as street signs and vending machines to the truly awe inspiring sight of thousands of bodies seamlessly moving amongst each other.
Back up…to be fair, vending machines are on a whole other level here…but that’s for another post.
Point is the thrill of travel and being somewhere new was doubled with the foreignness that comes with not being able to understand a language, or read what each sign says (wow, “bathroom”? Better take another pic). The name of the game was point and shoot. At anything. At everything.
Then we got hungry.
And nervousness set in.
There is a kind of intimacy with the restaurants and tiny noodle shops here that is immediately noticed. Sliding doors that announce your presence, open style kitchens so the chefs can greet you, 3-4 tables and a bar max. You can’t get lost in these restaurants, you can’t blend in, and you’re certainly not just a number.
A new level of self consciousness was upon us as we realized that sooner or later – gasp – anyone who was in the restaurant would witness just how “gaijin” we were. That is unless we wanted to forgo eating the entire time we were here.
Deep breath.
Walk in.
Point. And eat.
