Subways are Fun

*As promised - a picture of the owner of the Beatles bar below Shinagawa station - notice he's poking his fingers through his lenseless glasses and making a funny laser sound.

Although my last week in Japan was sans Sheri and avec a sushi boatload of work, it still produced some incredible experiences.

On Sunday, when I'd usually be going back to work in Doha, my friend and I ventured out in the Tokyo morning, sweatrags in hand, to Tokyo Baptist Church (http://www.tokyobaptist.org/announcements/index.htm). It was a refreshing change of pace from Doha, where the churches still meet in relative secrecy. Most of the congregation travels from far across Tokyo to attend one of 3 services, a mixed bag of locals and expats. The pastor speaks English but the projections overhead include Japanese subtitles. The sermon was a moving discussion on the power of greed to corrupt the church, covering Jesus' letter to Laodicea in Revelations. Quite a piercing topic, which included statistics showing Japan to be one of the wealthiest nations in the world - where people are often too focused on their jobs to pursue meaningful relationships. I think a lot of Americans in the audience were able to relate, and my friend and I had plenty to talk about as we walked out of church and headed to the neighborhood Subway (sandwiches not trains) for lunch.

Subway sub shops in Tokyo are very like those in the US and in Doha, with a few exceptions. In Doha you can top off your footlong Turkey on Wheat with some sweet corn and ketchup; in Japan your options expanded to include soy & wasabi sauce and french fries (steak finger variety). I tried both that morning and was pleasantly surprised. After all those years of being fed chips with my sandwiches, I never realized how declicious lunch could be when french fries are invited to the party. If you choose to add the soy sauce and wasabi I recommend the 6 inch variety, after the 8th inch it lost it's novelty value and I needed a second serving of Sprite to muscle through the rest of the sandwich. Had I left some of the sandwhich behind I risked further chuckles from the group of Japanese girls next to us, who acted like they had never seen anyone order a footlong sandwich with fries and cookies (remember in Japan normal portions are quite modest, so we must have looked like total Americans).

After our American sized lunch we headed to the other neighborhood Subway (train not sandwiches) and traveled to a small shopping district with authentic and pricey handicrafts - everything from stationary and wooden children's toys to fine kimonos and pottery. I'm terribly indecisive when it comes to buying souvenirs, which has helped prevent me from accumulating a house full of trinkets, but also means I spend a lot of time just wandering through shops picking up items, walking halfway to the register, only to have my second thoughts remind me of some practical purchase I could make back home. Luckily Sheri and I had done our souvenir shopping in Asakusa, so I didn't feel bad about leaving empty handed - especially since my friend bought a handmade wooden cheese grater as a wedding gift... provided a contact high for the shopping addict in me.

We spent a long time inspecting handicrafts, so had to rush back to Shibuya in time to catch a matinee showing of Transformers. Apparently buying movie tickets 2 minutes before showtime has universal repercussions - namely sitting by yourself between two armrest hogs... but what an incredibly entertaining film! I was impressed how accurately Hollywood managed to capture the epic battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron that occurred amongst the landscape of my parent's living room that Saturday back in 1987 (still waiting for the release of the Battle Beasts full length feature - another Hasbro collection you can find on eBay). I was a bit put off by how the movie portrayed Qatar; for the record, Doha's highest point is 350feet above sea level (ie NO mountains), we have running water and mobile phones, and the locals prefer Prada sunglassea and Landcruisers to AK-47s and donkey carts... although that would have made for a far less entertaining scene set for Vortex's dramatic first assault.

There were atleast 10 moments in the movie where my friend and I burst out in laughter amidst akward silence in the rest of the theater - apparently the subtitles did a poor job of conveying our humorous American references for the Japanese audience. The locals did find one of the jokes quite hilarious - "It's a robot. You know, like a super advanced robot. It's probably Japanese"... seriously, after seeing some of their cell phones I wouldn't be surprised.

The day before I left Japan the local 7 eleven ran out of my new favorite afternoon snack, vanilla ice cream with a chocolate center wrapped completely in crispy cone material. So I decided to try another ice cream bar, that looked identical in the package art. One of the admins confirmed my suspicions later that afternoon, while the concept was similar (ice cream with filling inside a cone covering), the contents were considerably different. If someone ever offers you soy bean paste ice cream, pass. I typically prefer to separate my dinner and dessert.

On my trip home (18 hrs door to door for those keeping track), I reflected on the last 4 months of my life... what an incredible adventure. I'm thankful for all of these experiences, which have shown me that the world may look like the same ice cream bar on the packaging, but when you bite in it often hides a unique surprise you didn't expect to find.

Stay classy Shinagawa.