Mark Fletcher's Blog

I arrived in Tokyo Saturday afternoon (It’s Monday afternoon as I type this). I’m more or less over the jetlag, which actually wasn’t that bad, and I’ve been playing tourist. I’ve never been to Asia before, and Tokyo is an amazing city. The Yamanote train line circles the city, so it’s easy to get around. Yesterday, I did the full circle on the train, walked around Shinjuku and then walked around Shibuya, where my hotel is. Today, I went to central Tokyo and walked around the Ginza area. I then took the train a couple of stops to Akihabara, where all the electronics shops are.
One neat thing I saw was over at the NHK Hall on Sunday. In a park, some 20 bands had set up and were playing. They ranged from acoustic duos to full on rock bands. The bands lined a road, on both sides, packed right next to each other, facing bands on the other side of the road. You think that’d just lead to a cacophony of noise, but somehow it worked.
I’m recovering from a cold, and this is a great town to do so. It seems like every other restaraunt is a noodle house. A noodle bowl is the perfect comfort food for getting over a cold.
My Treo doesn’t work here, but at least I’m able to use it as a camera. I didn’t bring my connector cable, so I’ll have to wait until I return to the states to upload the photos.
The weather is actually quite nice. It has drizzled once or twice, and is a bit hazy as I look out the window from my hotel room, but today I was wishing that I had brought a pair of shorts. The sun seems a bit more intense here for some reason.
Finally, I’ve noticed that there seem to be a rather large number of black crows here (the bird, not the band).
There is talk of having a blogger dinner here sometime this week before I leave on Friday, but I don’t know what my schedule is yet. If we’re able to figure something out, I’ll post a notice here.