Tokyo, Japan: The meet doesn't begin until tomorrow, but we were clever enough to give ourselves one day to figure out the lay of the land and try to adjust to the time change (Tokyo is 16 hours ahead of Los Angeles). We did stay awake until 9p last night and slept on/off for about seven hours. I think hunger is what actually caused me to wake up. We went to one of the hotel buffet's and found it very typical of large Asian hotels: the usual Western breakfast items, and congee, and various pickled things. The interesting section of the buffet was a display of European pastries with Pierre Hermes jams. I had a two egg omelet from the omelet bar and also tried a tomato risotto - made with oatmeal instead of rice. Who knew?
From the lounge window last night, we could see the stadium. Our goal for the day is to figure out how to get from the stadium from the hotel. We have downloaded the subway app to our phones, but we have no idea how to use it! When we show it to the hotel staff, they just say to hold it up to the reader and it will work. I'm skeptical as there is no barcode, nor any other thing to let the reader-machine know it isn't just a photo of the logo. The staff assure me. I should believe them, as I remember how amazed I was that everyone was watching Ichiro Suzuki play baseball from Seattle on their phones in Osaka bars in 2007. We did not yet have that technology in the US. Since my face was scanned so much yesterday, maybe the subway will just let me on, knowing I am a fine upstanding American citizen with 89 days left on her visa? I will report on this tomorrow, because today we did not ride the subway - but explored the Ginza district on foot. We will maybe attempt the subway ticket situation tomorrow.
We weren't even out the door of the hotel before finding the first LA Dodger player on an advertisement. Shohei Otani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are super popular in Japan, and endorse a wide and wild array of products locally. But, really, would you want a sports drink called Yunker?
Not sure why Mr. Driver wanted to visit a shopping district where the low-end stores are Tiffany and Longchamp, but I think he remembered visiting Ginza back in the day? I was fine with strolling through the upscale stores - window shopping. The best part about Asian department stores is the basement - where there are food shops and fresh groceries. We first visited Matsuya, where they have small kiosks from many of the finest chocolatiers and bakeries in Paris!
We are not sure what customers are supposed to do with all the trays of sushi, sashimi, and assorted plastic trays filled with an entire meal with rice. There are no tables/chairs in the food court. I guess they take it home or back to their office? How many of these trays can one shop sell in a day? The variety and quality of fresh beef sliced paper-thin in the butcher department is staggering. I noticed (generally speaking) the only men browsing the food aisles were tourists. I have heard Japanese people are crazy for KitKat bars, but the KitKat bars in Japan are available filled with macha and wasabi and all sorts of flavors. Today we found KitKat with a sake-flavored filling. It's our first day - so I need to pace myself for souvenir (grandchildren) shopping!
Many of the tourists in Ginza today were here for the track meet, and several of the shops had displays about the meet, highlighting Japanese athletes. The current world champion and Olympic gold medalist in the women's javelin is Haruka Kitaguchi. We have seen her image several times and we have only been in town one day.
Ginza6 department store had this odd little thing:
And have you heard of the all-electric Nissan Hyper Force? Me neither.
Would you believe after looking at all that sushi, we had lunch in the Ginza6 Department store at Eataly? (I Googled and found there are 45 Eataly stores in the world. Eight are in the United States. Six are in Tokyo!)
Oddly, when seated, the hostess requested we each order at least one item from the menu. Like there was a minimum?
Prices were more reasonable than in the US - my glass of Italian wine was only $6.
It did begin to rain in the afternoon, so we took a taxi back to our hotel. We were tired - already over 10000 steps for me - but DT went to the hotel fitness center to work out. I stitched in the room. Dave came back to the room to report Mondo was in the gym! I was so excited and asked what did you talk about? Dave said he didn't bother Mondo.
Rat farts.
Much later we decided to have a "snack" before heading off to bed, thinking one more night of a 9p bedtime will get us over our jetlag. We learned there are about 40 restaurants in this hotel. It was absolutely shocking. Even Las Vegas hotels don't that many venues, do they? It was a bit embarrassing asking the desk clerk on our floor if there was a sushi restaurant in the hotel, but she did not laugh and said there are more than ten. O.M.G. We found one with karaage chicken and tempura vegetables. Perfect.
Such a great assortment veggies. Even a bit of (probably) Romaine lettuce, eggplant, carrots, taro, onion, green beans, asparagus and a cluster of onions, mushrooms and maybe broccoli?
Another night of staying up until 9p. Over achievers! We have our directions figured out. Know where we are going. The meet starts tomorrow at 8p with a few race-walk events - don't get me started on this stoopid event. There are a few qualifying races and throws at the track in the morning. All the morning events will be televised, so we will watch in our room. You can watch from your room too - see the link below.
The evening session begins at 6p, and the first rounds of the men's pole vault begin. We will be there for that. The first evening of the meet also will host the men's discus final, the women's 10000m final and (another ridiculous event) the mixed 4x400m relay. By mixed: the relay teams have two men and two women racers.
Until my next update, I remain, your ready correspondent.
Links:
World Athletics Championships | Tokyo 2025
How to watch from the US
Tokyo Weather