The Golden Poo

The capsule hotel was definitely a one time thing for me.  It was fine...but was a little claustrophobic.  The clientele were older businessmen (btw it was men only anyways) and many seemed to have bad coughs or gunk in their throats they needed to clear a lot.  So a touch noisy in a grossish way.  Someone was eating cup noodles in their capsule I think, and in Japan, you slurp your noodles.  Real loud, real juicy, pretty unpleasant to my delicate American ears.  Also the lack of a computer made typing up my blog post tedious again.

Either way I`m back at the awesome Popeyes I was in two nights ago in Kanda.  Different staffmember, different cube, same awesomeness.  He was very polite and I misspoke on the hours, and he pointed out that there was a weekday late night deal where its 7pm-11am only 1680 yen, around 16 bucks, what a steal.  The new cube has a long bench instead of the angleable pads I had last time.  Very clean, very quiet.

After waking up latish around 8:30 I got cleaned up and headed out.  Today I only had 3 things I wanted to do that I knew wouldn`t take that long.  First stop was the Skytree and it took me about an hour or so to get there.  It was once the tallest tower in the world in 2008 I think?  Then the Dubai tower and one other tower beat it out by a small amount.  Either way its tall.  I mostly was going just to take pictures from the bottom and visit the Skytree Pokemon Center.  They charge 20 bucks to go up, and it was kind of cloudy anyway.  Plus my 2nd stop was the view I was looking forward to.  Anyways, I got to the Pokemon Center and it was a mix of parents, tourists, and lots and lots of little kids.  I took some pictures and looked around and that was about it.  There were lots of other stores in the Skytree building and I looked at a few of them.

My next stop was one that I`ve been looking forward to for a while.  Its the Asahi Sky Room and the Golden Poo.  So the golden poo is a sculpture on top of the Asahi Beer Hall.  Its actual name is the "Asahi Flame" and is supposed to represent the burning heart of the Asahi brand and rests on top of a building shaped like a beer glass.  It doesn`t quite look like a flame to most though.  And Golden Turd "Kin No Unko" is actually a pun in Japanese, as it sounds exactly the same as "good luck". There`s a wiki page so you know I`m not making this up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_no_unko

At any rate besides pictures of the poo I was here for the Sky Room.  On the 22nd floor of the actual business building is a restaurant and a bar called the Sky Room.  It has an excellent via, and the only cost of entry is a beer.  I was excited to check it out.  I got in the building with lots of beer business folk around me.  I went in the elevator along with two old ladies bound for the top floor.  Walked up to the room and went in.  I ordered a beer at the entrance, just a tall Asahi Lager, and went to a stool by the window.  Absolutely amazing.  This place had a great view, about as good as the one at the Metro Government Center which I could see in the distance.  Except this place had like 40 seats and most of them were empty.  I enjoyed a nice beer while looking around, spotting areas and taking in the view.  I decided I`d come back for another around sunset.

After leaving I headed to an area I had spotted from the Sky Room, Asakusa Shrine and Senso Ji temple.  Its one of the most popular temples in Tokyo as its in the middle of the city and is of a size that normally would be found in Kyoto.  It was very nice looking, but was pretty light on details as far as historical information.

I wasn`t there for long, but there were a bunch of shops lining up to it that I perused for souvenirs.  I was getting hungry and wanted food so I checked google.  An Okonomiyaki (the meat, egg, cabbage, scramble I had in Osaka) place nearby had really good reviews, and it was 2 in the afternoon so I headed over.  There was a small line out the door but not bad.  After getting in I took off my shoes and was placed by another American couple from NY at their table.  So at this place you cook your own Okonomiyaki.  You pick the type you want and they bring the ingredients in a bowl, you stir them up and pour them on the hot plate in front of you.  They were very nice to us first timers and guided us through it.

The couple were pretty interesting too.  They seemed about my age maybe a little older.  They had just started their trip and this was their first day.  They hadn`t even slept after their flight.  Catherine was a divorce lawyer, and said she generally likes it and feels like she`s helping folks.  Forrest or Forrester, I`m blanking now, is a cut scene animator/creator for Rockstar games, and has been for 10 years.  Rockstar has done huge hits like Red Dead Redemption, the Grand Theft Auto series, LA Noire, and more.  He came in just before Red Dead and that was his first project, and he worked on Red Dead 2 as well.  So next time I get through a game I`ll have to look for him in the credits, he says he`s in there.

The Okonomiyaki was very tasty, about on par with the last one I had.  This one had minced beef and pork vs sliced pork in the Osaka one.

After that it was around 4, I still had time to kill and was basically out of things to do.  Just wandered for a bit, checked out some stores, and then got a soda at KFC to use their wifi and seats.  This one was interesting though because it had an upstairs smoking room with automatic door.  I thought that was kinda cool.

Right around 6pm I headed back towards the poo.  On my way some old dude in a car flagged me over with a gesture and "kochi kochi", he was kinda pointing down and saying something I was not sure about".  There was like a paper cup and a newspaper on a ledge and I`m like these?  He`s like no, and points down.  And I`m like my pack? and point to it and hes like no.  And I finally look down, and my fly is all the way unzipped.  I nonchalantly look around and zip it up.  He gives this great old man laugh "OH ho ho ho ho!" and a word I assume is "embarrassing".  I thanked him very much and went on my way.

From the looks of it, clouds and some rain were coming in and were going to block a sunset.  Oh well.  I got back to the bar while it was still light out.  This time it was a lot more busy, but there were still empty seats by the window.  I sat next to another couple who also turned out to be Americans.  Didn`t exchange names but talked for a while.  They were from Miami and had been in Tokyo 4 days.  Like me they were also spending 21 days here, but were going the opposite route, East to West.  They took off, and I hung around to watch the city lights for a while.

Around 7 I headed out.  Popeye was about an hour away on foot if walked quickish (3mph), and it was starting to rain.  It did in fact rain on the way but nothing too hard.  I found the Popeye again.  I was kind of hungry again though so I did a circle.  I was unsure what to do because I wanted something cheapish, but not Gyudon again, and the places around looked like these quaint local only joints, and I didn`t want to break the flow, and honestly just wanted to eat and leave and not talk to anyone.  I was about to give up, but then realized that Popeye had a restaurant underneath it in the basement that I`d been meaning to find.

GoGo Curry is a Japanese curry chain that I always see has pretty good reviews on google.  It has a Gorilla as a mascot.  I got down to the basement and there were a few folks in front of me ordering at a machine.  Ha, I was ready for this now.  I found the button for their most popular item, Tonkatsu Curry, medium, medium spicy.  Inserted my money and got my ticket.  Then you just sit and wait for them to call your number and you grab it.  Hit the spot.  It was spicy in a good way, delicious, filling, relatively cheap, didn`t have to interact with anyone, and now I just had to walk up 2 flights of stairs.

So all in all a very pleasant day of mostly eating, drinking, digesting, and staring a pretty skyline.  Nothing too spectacular, but enough so that I have a wonderful post title and I felt like I got to relax a bit.