Mitch Hedberg had a bit about escalators: *I like an escalator, man, ’cause an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. There would never be an “Escalator Temporarily Out of Order” sign, only “Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the Convenience.”* Thanks, [Wikiquote](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedberg). This escalator was actually broken; they had some of the stairs removed from it so that they could get at the mechanism underneath.

So we had a fancy dinner with some members of Piroko’s family, to celebrate our marriage. It was intimidating to give a speech in the language, in a traditional room, to a bunch of formally-dressed strangers. But I think it went quite well. This is *buri*. I recently watched an interview in which clammbon bassist Mito explained that this fish has various names in different regions of Japan.

I don’t really understand why we don’t have bakeries like this in the USA. Don’t people want fresh-baked bread? And the food shopping underneath department stores; the closest thing we have to that is the prepared meals section of Whole Foods, which doesn’t exactly stack up.

These are just what they seem to be: custom-made pet coffins. We passed by this display on the long walk to the glasses shop. It’s such a sad sight, conjuring images both of those who have need for this product, and of the person who decided to make a living of creating such a product.

So we went out for a fancy French lunch, Piroko and her grandma and I. It was the whole deal, with a variety of choices available for each of the several different courses. The lady serving us was not Japanese, no, she was probably French, considering the authenticity of the place. But our only guaranteed linguistic common denominator was Japanese, so that’s how I ordered. Imagine an American dude and a French lady going back and forth in Japanese: “I’ll have this quiche.” “Are you sure you want that? Its main ingredient is pig’s blood.” “Oh, of course. That’s just fine!” *(Did she just say blood? Oh, she totally did say blood. Oh, man!!)* I was putting enough effort into being polite and speaking properly that I just didn’t have the mental resources necessary to decide that I shouldn’t eat *blood*. I finished it, but I did not enjoy it. The rest of the meal was fine.

Part five in an ongoing series, “Kabukichou from above”. [2002](/index.pl?760), [2003](/index.pl?905), [2005](/?1107), [2006](/?1150). I went to Tokyo in January to pick up Piroko and bring her back to the USA once and for all. I do believe that this marks the first day that I took a photo for this journal, posted to my [Vox blog](http://jetfuel.vox.com/library/post/cd-game-shopping-quest-2007.html), *and* recorded the day’s accomplishments in my [bouquet](http://www.baresquare.com/user/jetfuel). This day was my traditional one geeky day on the town that the lady allows me whenever I visit Tokyo. What used to be my routine, wandering Shinjuku and browsing the used game and CD stores, is now a rare ritual. Thanks to the internet, though, I feel more connected to the geeky Akihabara and Shinjuku culture than ever.

This is the first thing you see on the way in to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport when walking in from the parking area. I’m sure this marketing campaign seemed great on paper, at meetings, and on computer screens. If you take the time to read the tiny copy at the bottom, you find out that the airport is trying to boast how West Coasty they are, or something. I’m sure there are other such ads scattered around the airport, all tying together into some kind of theme. In real life, though, it’s just a picture of a guy with foam on his nose and the word “latte”. Aye, this is the kind of thing my photo-journal was made for.

I just love big info-dense charts like this.