cat café and late night izikaya

my first whole day in Tokyo went great

breakfast: everybody was rushing so much that I felt like I can’t stand around and read labels, so I picked up whatever seemed familiar at first glance: a random triangle egg sandwich and a weird looking donut (imagine a snake that bites its own tail, forming a circle — but then add to it that this hypothetical snake has eaten several spheres that make it bulge at regular intervals). I ate it in front of the store on the street so I won’t have to carry the trash with me, because public trash cans are practically non-existent in this city, but convenience stores have them. the food was okay, but I need time to ease into the local selection of goods.

the weather is beautiful, it was already 20 degrees with a light breeze and perfect humidity with the sun shining at a perfect angle already at 10 am.

I am getting used to keeping left while walking, it’s hard to shake these habits.

on the way to my chosen office for the day, I realized that I’m going to need tissues so I ran into another convenience store and it took me about 3 minutes of looking (I almost gave up and bought menstrual pads) until I asked the store clerk to help me out. nothing looks like what I’m used to, everything is new! I used Google Translate to quickly figure out what word I should say, translating from Hungarian to Japanese gave me the word ハンカチ (hankachi), which was not right because I was presented with several cloth tissues, both formal and hipster. once the confusion passed we figured out what I wanted and I got a really cute packet and I was on my way.

people are flowing into the streets from every door and building that I can see, there seems to be an endless supply of hurried men and women (no kids at this hour). I knew that there would be a lot of people here but I imagined thick crowds, this is much better actually. bring it on, Tokyo!

the architecture is super interesting, everything is somehow always layered — the sidewalk, the people, a little greenery, bikes, fences, roads, cars, motorbikes, buildings, skyscrapers, the sky, and the horizon (this last one is imagined, I haven’t seen anything but city for two days now).

a car probably crossed over a yellow light turning red because as the pedestrian light turned green, we were almost mowed down by it, there is a sort of agreement that everybody obeys the rules and nobody double checked if a car was coming — but also, nobody was swearing or even looking twice at this, once the car passed, everybody continued like we didn’t almost just die.

I saw a crow devouring something on top of a building, I’ll try to keep some snacks in my bag at all times from now on, just in case I see another one. I need all the allies I can get in this city.

my remote office will be a cat café today, I’ve been wanting to do this for so long!
I heard from a friend that the cats here are drugged up so they are docile and I’m sad to report that this might be true, some of the cats were way too sleepy but some were really active so they might have been cheeking their meds.
they sell day passes here and there are little mattresses as well with blankets so guests can have a little snooze (and pretend to live like cats I guess).
I am glad that I have my headphones with me because they are looping the same corporate guitar music non-stop and it would drive me up the wall. active noise cancellation is truly a miracle.

I noticed that only westerners look me in the eye, I gotta practice not to look back because it feels weird.

I had a little Korean for lunch (food, not a person) because all the cool places closed by the time I got hungry. it was just okay once again.

after lunch I dropped by a random gallery where I could feel the heat of composting in a big pile of leaves, although they made me wear plastic gloves and use a long plastic bag on top of that to not get my hands dirty, which was a bit weird and wasteful but hey. the leaves were really warm, a sign of good composting taking place.
inside there were a few interesting things, pictures of a performance artist becoming Bread Man.

also, a huge wall of ramen packets that have been diligently massaged over the course of a day by a young woman, which she would return at the end of the day and receive a brand new packet the next morning.

I went back to the cat café to continue working and I tried all the possible beverages that the vending machine had to offer. I tried green Fanta (it tasted green), a bunch of teas, but the real exciting stuff was the corn soup, and my favorite: onion soup, which reminded me of the soup packets I used to drink quite often as a teenager, this is the birthplace of monosodium glutamate heaven and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

on the way home I had to compare the two main contenders for convenience store chicken, Famichiki from Family Mart and Nanachiki from 7-Eleven. I don’t know how they do it but I haven’t had chicken so juicy, so tender, yet so crispy at the same time, and I don’t think I will ever know or taste anything like it elsewhere. the sodium overdose was worth it, my knees got weak from the explosion of flavor, I’ll have to restrain myself from buying one of these every day!

I ran home to finish up work with two late night meetings and by the time I started looking for places to eat, all the regular restaurants were closed (I’m sensing a pattern here, jetlag + Spanish eating times combined make for tough times). I was wandering aimlessly, accompanied by my growling stomach, contemplating going home defeated when I noticed a shop that seemed to be open at one in the morning but there was something off. when I looked in from the street, what I saw was a handful of seats and at the bar, at the last stool was an old man sleeping hunched over next to an ashtray. after some consideration I went in to wake him up. he was a bit startled by me and suddenly jumped up, and I felt like he’s going to kick me out of his izakaya but when I greeted him with my basic Japanese he seemed to soften up a little. then when I told him that I would like some food and a drink, his demeanor changed and put his unlit cigarette back in the box and went behind the bar to hand me the menu.
a quick side note about me: the first time I ate fish was around the time when I was six years old and I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. I can’t get used to the taste of the sea. this is not the most advantageous thing in Japan but what can I do?
so after writing this, you can guess what happened next when I looked at the menu: all the “master recommends” section was fish (oden actually, which is a type of fish cake which is steamed). he showed me that it’s made from seaweed and dried sardines and kept repeating “fish, all fish, fish”
I think I like to take risks and try everything at least once but at 1 am, I wanted a safe choice and I was so happy when I saw that he has pork rice, which is a classic everyday dish here.
he swiftly fired up two burners on the stove top and started frying onions in one and nine thin slices of pork on the other. you could sense the years of mastery in the kitchen in his movements, how he picked up the paper-thin slices with his metal cooking chopsticks and how he was handling those pans. within minutes he presented me with a really simple dish that was so delicious that I suddenly remembered how to say “this is delicious” in Japanese, that’s how good it was!
after eating, I translated the anecdote about me not liking fish, and also explaining that Hungary, where I am from, is landlocked and we don’t have a sea, he laughed really hard and explained that Japan is all fish, fish, fish. I think I managed to upgrade my status from tourist to visitor, and it felt great.

the walk home was uneventful, although the buildings looked even cooler at night, not sure how that’s possible.

I found out that an old classmate from my primary school is also visiting Tokyo so we set up a meeting for the next day, how unexpected?!