Not too much for today - Pete kept me up until 2 or something last night looking at old photos (wow there were some unfortunate haircuts back in the day!!), so I slept in until about eleven this morning, which was good timing as ANTM was on the LFTV at 12...

Peter went to work at 1sh, and I stayed home to research the Hawaii Xmas trip - we're still working on finding dates, flights, houses, etc. but we're making progress! Finally, at threeish, decided I'd had enough of that/Pete pointed out Hawaii business hours were over, so I took V. for a quick run (but she wasn't very into the whole idea!), and then at fiveish finally left the house...

Today's goal was the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu... Getting there was quite the adventure! The trains here are very confusing because there is the subway, and the JR trains, and seemingly random other companys with trains (but I might be completely wrong about that!) I left from the other station near the house, and got on a train to Shinjuku, after having carefully decoded that 300 yen (3$) would get me to Ebisu. I transferred at Shinjuku, and had my first clue that maybe I had the wrong ticket when the train gates slammed shut behind me as I powered through the ticket reader thingy... Given the oh, thousand or so people behind me (Shinjuku at rush hour is nuts!!!), I just kept going, since it had let me through, and I THOUGHT I had the correct ticket, plus no one came to yell at me. SO I got on the JR train/Yamanote Line to Ebisu... When I tried to exit the station, the gates shut on me, so I went to the guy in the little window beside the ticket gates, and he looked at my ticket, and then looked at a sheet of information he had, and then waved me through. I have no idea if I was actually correct, or he just figured there was no way he'd be able to explain to me what I'd done wrong, given my obvious lack of Japanese ability....

The exhibition, once I finally got there, was quite interesting - it was called 'Mothers', and was a series of photos of details of the photographer's mother's things. There were also a couple of movies which basically showed a lace slip in great detail, or a yukata in great detail or whatever...

The museum, according to a website I saw, has a permanent collection, but once there, I discovered it actaully doesn't have one open to the public, so I checked out the museum store which had TONS of photography books, and then finally made a plan with Pete to meet up for dinner.

I spent a little bit of time between finishing in the museum, and making said plan, so I wandered around Yebisu Garden Place a bit, which is actually a big shopping area/restaurants, etc. But it seems like it should have been a lot better than it was... Nice architecture and stuff, and a huge space, but the shops weren't that great - Ecco shoe store anyone? And although they were all open until midnight, there was nothing very interesting, and all the restaurants were overly expensive. Anyway, it was a nice public space though, and it was interesting, because after my year in Toronto, its very hard to convince myself that even though it wasn't that well lit, and there weren't that many people around, and it was dark, that it was still safe. If Pete can leave his car running so that V. can have air conditioning, and be completely confident that he won't have it stolen, I thin it's fairly safe that I won't get mugged outside the Armani store. Still, it's very odd to compare it with Toronto, which isn't a terribly dangerous place, but you still feel the need to be a lot more careful than you seem to need to be here. It's nice...

Anyway, after Pete and I figured ot our dinner plan, it was back on the train I go, this time very simply taking the JR train back up about three stops to Harajuku, and then meeting up at 'Pizza Express' in Harajuku... Pete claims it was Japanese, because the menu was in Japanese, and it was in Japan, and there were Japanese waiters, but really, it was a lovely italian restaurant - we had salad, brushcetta, dough balls with pesto dip, pizza with chicken, sweet onions, etc. on it, and chocolate cake, all really good :)

Then back home to do some more research for Hawaii, blog, etc. and Hitomi is back today, so going downstairs to hang out or whatever...
D