Japan, Day 6

Thursday, November 16, 2006

We set out kind of early on our last day in Tokyo because I wanted to do shopping in the fake food district, called Kappabashi (kitchen-town). Most of it consists of restaurant/cooking supplies, but the reason I went was for the fake food. I ended up buying a ton of sushi magnets (so cute!) and some food key chains.

They also have actual dishes that are entirely made of plastic, but they look very real. It's amazing how the quality of the fake food at a restaurant would sway my decisions as to where I wanted to eat, so I guess the fake food is pretty important. This chef guy is kind of a landmark for the area.

After I spent about half of my money at one of the stores, we set out to try and find the sumo museum. The sumo museum is located at a stadium where sumo wrestling is held, so it wasn't too hard to find, but the museum itself was kind of hidden. We searched around for a while, and finally found a door that advertised something for 900 yen. We assumed that was the price of the ticket, so we bought two, and headed over to the museum with our "free" sumo wrestler posters in hand. As soon as we found the museum, though, there was a sign that said that the entrance was free, and English guidebooks were available. Oops. Anyone want a sumo calendar?

The museum was really small and unfortunately, the guide was more of a booklet of information on sumo wrestling, not the exhibits. I think that it would have been a lot more interesting if we could have had a guide to tell us what all of the artifacts were.

Along one wall, there was a wrestler's kimono on display, which was so big I almost started laughing when I looked at it. Along the other wall is a sort of hall of fame with pictures of the top wrestlers.

We started to get hungry, and there was a really long line for the sumo restaurant (soup called chanko-nabe). Dad said that it might be fun to try a Japanese McDonald's, so we did that instead. Honestly, it's exactly the same, down to the portions. They even have a two-sided menu with Japanese on one side and English on the other. The bathrooms were a lot cleaner, but that was about the only difference.

When Dad first started coming to Japan, he said he played on some type of clay court near where his friend Rob was teaching. I forget what type of tennis it is, but it's played with a one-sided racket on a clay court. Sadly, everyone who was playing on it was using regular tennis rackets, so we moved on to go meet Katsumi for dinner at Kushinobo. Chris Cornell, a family friend, is working in Japan right now, so he met up with us too.

Kushinobo has an English website: http://www.kushinobo.co.jp/1950/1950_e_main/1950_e_index.htm

I think it's sort of a chain, actually, because they have locations throughout Japan. The one that we went to is on the top floor of a mall. It's a pretty fun restaurant. Everything on the menu is on a skewer, and it's deep fried. We sat at the counter, where they gave us unlimited bowls of fresh raw vegetables. When we finished each skewer, we were supposed to put the skewer into the mouth of a clay fish. Then, at the end of the meal, the waitress would count the skewers to determine how much to charge us.

We had so many things that I can barely remember it all. One of my favorites was a crab skewer that was wrapped in tin foil and then deep fried. We also had vegetables, chicken and fish. Another one of my favorites was the deep fried oyster (who wouldn't like that?).

For once in Japan, I wasn't able to keep up with everyone else, eating-wise. This place made me so full. Everyone seemed to be pretty exhausted, and even though it was our last day in Tokyo, we turned in early.