Another long day

On Tuesday 3/3 we went to a restaurant called Gonpachi in Roppongi. If you watched the movie Kill Bill (I personally dislike the title of the film for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on) you might vaguely recognize it. Part of the movie was filmed here. The restaurant looks traditional and to add to the feel you had to remove your shoes before sitting at a table. The food was very good and reasonable (for lunch). After our meal we briefly stopped at Ginza to show our visitors what it looked like and to check out the upscale grocery stores in the basement of one of the buildings. Checking out a grocery store? Probably doesn’t sound very interesting, but trust me you would enjoy it (I will blog about it another day). Then I left Shanna & Anne to their shopping in Ginza and took Mike & Court to Akihabara. Akihabara which I will also blog about on another day is the electric town of Tokyo. It is known for having tons of electronics, lots of anime (Japanese animation/comic books), and 5 story buildings full of video games. I can’t recall which one of the boys best described it, but his quote was “it is a nerds paradise”.

After some video games and shopping we headed home to meet up with the women. We then went back to Roppongi to have one of the best meals of our young lives. The restaurant’s name was Seryna and they serve teppanyaki (the most basic description would be a Japanese Grill – but that doesn’t really do it justice). The big players in the meal were scallops, king crap, sole, and the star of the show, Kobe beef. For those of you not familiar with Kobe beef here is why it tastes so good (and costs so much). It is raised in Japan in small groups with its family, to keep it relaxed. It is feed sake and beer, to keep it relaxed. It is massaged, yep you read correctly. Can you guess why? That’s right, to keep it relaxed. Why do you want a relaxed cow? Well, a relaxed cow builds up more fat, much more fat. The marbling (percentage of fat to lean) of a cut of Kobe looks very different than any other cut of a typical cow. The resulting favor is… well…very delicious. It melts in your mouth (literally).

After dinner we went to a club called Gaspanic. Thankfully for us the club was filled with neither gas nor panic much to our visitors relief. Though pretty empty when we first arrived it became much livelier as the night progressed. The music, despite being in Japan, was all songs you would expect to hear in a club in the States. At about 3am Court abruptly decided that we should call it a night and head home. We all agreed and thanks to a legion of cabs waiting for us just outside the club, we arrived home at 3:30am