Rich Seymour's stochastic statements.

Definitely getting to the too busy to blog part of the trip. We made it to Tokyo from Yokohama yesterday just about as the sun was heading down. We got out of the train at Shinjuku, about half a km from our hotel. We walked over through the masses of people. I was so jazzed to see so many people out on the sidewalks it reminded me of Manhattan in rush hour. Only with 99.8% of the people being Japanese.

We went out for this traditional chanko dinner with Ken-ichi’s family. It’s a sumo wrestler, boxer type of food. Big pot with various ingredients cabbage, carrots, beef, intestine, tofu, unfertilized eggs from inside a duck, duck giblets… etc. Really good kind of down home food. And we started out the meal with raw horse meat. Really tasty and not tough at all. The phrase tough as horse meat apparently refers to cooked horse meat. We washed it all down with huge beers. Maybe 32oz or so. Ken-ichi’s family were awesome. Even with the language barrier, we spent the whole time laughing. Good first night.

Then we wandered around the more red-light district on our way back to the hotel. Many offers for massages and girls, girls, girls. None of us have sunken to that level yet, such puritans… I guess my issue is I can only get involved with such things ironically.

The lights and energy of this city is amazing. As I may have written before, I recently tracked down the history of my Uncle Kenneth Seymour’s final flight over Japan in a B-29 in July (or June?) of 1947. The superfortress was on a run to blow up the petroleum plant in the Kawasaki area of Tokyo. It was lost and never found again. Sixty years later who could’ve imagined a city of this size could have risen from the ashes of that terrible war. It makes me endlessly sad to think of my Dad losing his older brother, and at the same time so hopeful in the strength of the human spirit over great tragedy and sacrifice that led to the current peace and partnership between Japan and the US.

After the shady area we went into this cool little block of three story bars with insanely steep stairs. Each floor of each bar could fit maybe 5-6 people max, probably less. We sat in the cozy confines of The Albatross, wrapping up our night with a touch of whiskey.

Now we are on a tour of the city on a bus. I thought it would suck, but the bus just takes you to cool places and drops you off. With certain things prepaid. Describing this tour will take another post.