Fancy Meeting You Here!

Well, they're here. April and Aaron are here, sleeping off a bit o' the old lag--jet lag, that is. Aaron just got up to go to the bathroom and said on his way back, "I can't believe I''m in Asia." I had to break it to him that the Japanese don't believe they're Asian. His response: "Whatever."

Aaron is the self-appointed Demon Of Buffets, and David writes (my having informed him via phone mail that my beloved duo have arrived):

Now it is my admittedly third hand understanding that there are very
few actual buffets in Japan, and even fewer of the all-you-care-to-eat
variety (as opposed to demons of which there are, as always, an
overabundance. So you'll have to let me know how your guest, The
Demon Of Buffets, handles his visit. I'm afraid that The Demon Of
Buffets, plagued by his arch nemesis, the Demon Of Small Portions and
the side kick, The Demon of Unidentified Slimy Bits That Taste Like
Fish, will be wrangling the whole time he's there

Yes, folks, I hate to break it to you. But there is, to my knowlege and experience, an appalling lack of buffet restaurants in Japan. There is nary a salad bar nor a Furr's All-You-Can-Gorge-Yourself-On restaurant. There is not the massive quantities of food that exist in the US. There is--somewhere in Tokyo--a Price Club. But for me, carless, only a distant American dream.

So, yes, April and Aaron arrived, took the Keisei Skyliner to the Keisei Ueno Station. I had asked them to meet me at Ueno Station, at the Hirokoji exit, and I forgot to specify that I was talking about the JR Ueno Station Hirokoji exit. Luckily, April had the sense to call. When I met them, they were standing at Ueno Station, right in front of a sign with a big arrow that said Hirokoji. Right everything, ne? Wrong station...I don't know how anyone meets anyone in this town. Lesson One: Always be ridiculously specific with directions. I found them, of course, and we caught the metro to Asakusa, where we took a cab. And, lesson one, part II was: Always carry your home address with you so that you have something to show the cab driver when you get into the cab. My plan, not having my address on me, was to have him drop us off at Higashi-Mukojima station. Then I remembered, duh, that my gaijin card has my address on it, in kanji. I showed the driver. And, can I just say? The cab drivers in this town are beautiful daddies I'll bet, because we were dropped off ten feet from my front door.

So, they're here.