Where’s Waldo

Started the day with an amazing restaurant that picks a country in the world and then only offers the breakfast of that country for two months then changes the entire theme of the restaurant! This month it was Malaysia and I had a traditional Malaysian breakfast which was delicious and nothing like ours.
Next, I walked to the train station and attempted to buy a 7-day pass and book some trips… buuuuuut of course I left my passport at the hotel and you need it to buy the ticket as a foreigner. So I had to go back for my passport, dummy. Bought my ticket and then had to figure out which subway to get on to meet my teacher friend for dinner. This would be hard enough on its own without a translator but Tokyo has 1/3 more people than NYC and people are all heading home for a holiday weekend. Monday is “Marine Day” where they open all the beaches from what I was told. It was wild! So much energy! So many people! All elbow to elbow moving. It was extremely challenging but I finally figured out which train to get on except I got on the one going the opposite direction ha. I didn’t understand that I had done that for a few stops and by then it was worth it to just stay on the train because this particular line does a giant loop.
Dinner was wild! I tried shark cartilage, cooked horse, intestines, and some other more normal stuff. Very very good!
Reserved some seats on the bullet train for the weekend North on Saturday and South on Sunday! Very excited. Saturday, I’m going to try to visit the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster site and Sunday I’m going to try to visit the Mt. Fuji volcano! So cool! I also stumbled on a live TV weather report. Apparently the stuffed animal mascots run onto the screen if it’s sunny or if it’s raining. Can you imagine that in the US? :)