Hajimemashite

The last time we Skyped, I mentioned that I’d be taking today off to take care of business in Tokyo. As it stood, I only had three items of interest:

1) Hit up some tenugui shops for some birthday gifts, and
2) Eat me some Pepper Lunch, and
3) Get home before the typhoon rains start.

Oh yeah, and go all the way down to the main branch of the Immigration Bureau Office to upgrade to a Multiple-Entry Visa. Everything I read about the Immigration Bureau Office suggested that I try to get there early and beat the crowd, though I assumed that most of the crowd-issues would be weekend related, so I wasn’t too concerned.

I boarded the Joban-Rapid a little before 9:30 and was in Tokyo proper before 10:30, but it took a good hour to get all the way down to Shinagawa. Well, technically, the Immigration website suggests taking the JR loop around to Shinagawa then boarding a bus whose sole purpose is to be crowded and occasionally shuttle people from the Shinagawa JR Station to the Immigration Office, which is on some disgusting little industrial island. Seriously, what business occurs on that island, specifically, that they couldn’t build the office anywhere more sensible?

Anyway, in an attempt to save money and time, I took the JR to Hamamatsucho then catch the monorail to Haneda for one stop to Tennozu Isle. From there it’s an inconveniently circuitous journey across one of two bridges equidistant from either the monorail station on one side and the large, diabolically shaped Immigration Bureau Office

¹ Literally, it is a giant, black stone walled building with a floor plan designed in the shape of an X.

¹. It was maybe a 20 minute walk from Tennozu, though to just think that I probably saved myself ¥600 by walking almost made it worth it, especially since converting from a Single-Entry visa to a Multiple-Entry visa costs ¥6,000 itself

² Bah, “¥6,000”? I can’t get my head around numbers like that. And I know that to convert it into “dollars” at a rate of ¥100:$1 is outdated, but the imperialist in me wants to move the decimal place over two spots. Not even to create an absolute economic comparison—I mean, it’s not like I have the option of importing soap and vegetables at a competitive dollar price—but to help establish for me a relative-economy price structure. “How much did the Multiple-Entry visa cost you, Kevin?” “Why it cost me 60.00-Japanese dollars.” Or maybe just “yen-dollars,” to be written like ¥$... I’ll work on that. Just so I can start to figure out what is relatively expensive or cheap without having to deal with thousands and millions-of-somethings. That confounds my small mind.

². So, the general rule, if you don’t take the bus, is to cross either bridge to the east (so, either the north or south bridge, the walk is pretty much the same), find the refuse-burning tower, and use that as a general guide. Personally, though the JR Station Attendant recommended going north first, I think the short trip south is a bit quicker.

Anyway, by the time I got my visa changed, it was already almost lunch, so I changed up my plans on the fly: rather than starting my day with a tour of the Imperial Palace grounds and ending up at the tenugui stores, I decided to flip the script and start at Chidori, which meant that I could probably get to the Pepper Lunch in the Nihonbashikayabacho area at around lunch time.

Finding Chidori was really easy: I was in and out of there (and $100 lighter) in no time. Well, finding it took no-time: I think I spent thirty minutes in the store itself. Anyway, walking to Nihonbashiyabacho was much quicker than, say, walking from Asakusa to Ueno to Akihabara, though just as rewarding. Which is to say it wasn’t.

Here’s a shot of my lunch set:


You’ll notice a few things: the first of which is that it’s not a Pepepr Lunch. It’s actually gyudon. You know what that means, don’t you? Yoshinoya. Now, don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t disappointing because the food was bad. No, quite the contrary! The food was amazing. We will have to go when you come out. It was just… not Pepper Lunch.

Anyway, after lunch

³ Which was in actuality a late 2:00pm lunch since I spent an hour looking for Pepper Lunch only to be told by the nice Lawson’s Store attendant when I asked where it was: “no Pepa Runch!” with the customary Japanese “X” arm-sign.

³ I mulled around the Imperial Garden Grounds because, as it turned out, the palace grounds themselves were closed to visitors. This was fine. That would probably be a tourist trap worth going with someone more interested in those sorts of things than I am. Plus, it gave me a chance to furiously text with Matthew about finding alternative Pepper Lunch sites around Tokyo if I wanted to give it a third shot.

As I am more willing to get lost in Tokyo than around Kashiwa (knowing that the solid metro-system would pick me up wherever I am in Tokyo, whereas if I get lost in Kashiwa, I may end up dead from exposure, or lost like a misfiled library book), I finally did get to one in Shinjuku before catching the Yamanote loop home just as the rain was starting to fall.


I was thinking on my way home that I was worried that my diatribes lack some metanarrative that would really pull this entry together and make it interesting, but I just can’t.

What I did figure out that was interesting was that you know how soda isn’t that huge here (they prefer their juices and teas)? Well, for starters, it’s hard to find regular Pepsi in any of the vending machines. Cokes you can find pretty much everywhere: Coke and Coke Zero (or Xero, Wayne). Not too uncommon, however, is the Pepsi Max and something called “Pepsi Dry” (I’ve even had one called Caribbean Gold). But this will get your goat: normal cans of Coke (or Pepsi, if you can find it) cost around ¥120 for 200mL (or ¥150 for a 350mL bottle in some places)

⁴ That’s ¥$1.20 and ¥$1.50, respectively.

⁴. However, if you up-size, a 500mL can costs… get this: ¥$1.00. You save 50 yen-cents!

Well, that’s it for today. More Tokyo photos (as always) can be found here: