Day 11: Thursday, Sept 02, 2004: The extra day Astute readers may have noticed that yesterday's travelogue was accidentally numbered "Day 9". Sorry about that. It was supposed to be "Day 10". Today was spent working, for the most part. Dullsville, sorry. The highlights, if I dare use the word: * I found the street vendor lady with the wonderful bento lunches. It was a few minutes after noon. By the time I got there, she had only 5 boxes left! I happily gave her my 500 yen in exchange for a bento and a cup of soup. What a great breakfast! * To congratulate myself for finding a difficult (and simultaneously stupid) bug, I sent to dinner. The "Curry Bar" place that I'd been meaning to try (a few blocks straight (?) north of the hotel) looked like a too intimidatingly no-picture-menu kind of place, so I wimped out and kept walking. A couple blocks north of the Curry Bar was a Ramen noodle shop. The folks running it didn't speak any English, and I'd never been in such a place before. The woman who greeted me said something and pointed at the machine in front of the door. It looked like a cigarette vending machine, except without boxes of cigarettes on the front. I apologized and said that I didn't understand. Someone else came out and pantomimed eating noodles. Yes, that's what I want. He pointed to a big picture poster behind me. It shows two or three different kinds of broth and other combinations of stuff. I haven't a clue. But they all look good, so I try one in the middle price range: 800 yen. The soup is great. The noodles are a big step up from the instant ramen noodle stuff in stores. The broth was both miso and pork, I think, with pork slices, ramen noodles (of course), bean sprouts, and green onions. It's delicious. For the later half of the bowl, I sprinkle on some mystery herbs and (I think) salty dried fish bits. Even better, even if it brought the broth to the brink of my saltiness limit. Another customer comes in. The first thing he does is put cash into the machine, then push a button. The machine spits out a piece of paper, which he hands to the folks behind the counter. Ah, it all becomes clear. Except for the "What button does Scott push?" part. But the staff helps me with that. Happiness all around, including in my tummy. * I take a walk around, deciding to try going south and further west than I have in past wanderings. Between apartment buildings, I catch a glimpse of a nifty-looking bridge, so I wander in that direction. Eventually, I find Eitai-dori again, the street that my hotel is on. Happiness all around for not getting lost. So, I've added some photos to http://www.snookles.com/scott/images/japan-04-08/, in "set4". * Another sign warning you to keep out of the doors. Sorry about the blur. It was that exact instant that I'd realized that I was sitting on an express train and that the tile in the background was the Minami-sunamachi station that the train wasn't stopping for. * Four shots of the neighborhood around the Hitachi data center, the last being of the data center building itself. * Slippers! Yes, they really are blue. That day I was wearing a pair that didn't have green tape holding the sole together at the toe. The green tape is *extra* special. The kanji on top helps mark my "big" size from the "little" size. * Late-evening rush hour. This car isn't really all that packed: after all, some guy has enough room to read a book. * Take out sashimi on top of a bowl of rice. This looked good but was disappointing. The fish wasn't as good as I'd expected, and the pink stuff on the top left, surrounding the orange fish eggs, was *sweet*. Eewww! Not a good combination to my palate, sorry. * My second bento from the lady on the corner a couple blocks east of the hotel. Oi, that's good stuff. Clockwise from top left: pickled rice noodle salad, marinated sliced pork with green onions and bean sprouts, minced fish thingie, slightly sweet scrambled egg block, sour little plum things (whose name I forgot, sorry), tiny little shrivelled salty very crunchy pickles, 2 round sweet potatos (the only part of the bento I'm not wild about), octopus tentacles, and fried rice with minced greens (I don't think it's spinach) and some kind of crushed nut. * Two-level elevated bicycle parking in front of a high-rise apartment building. * Three shots of a suspension bridge. Many suspension bridges in the city appear to be the suspension-from-a-single-center-support design, rather than the suspension-from-cables-strung-between-two- supports design (like the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hennepin Ave bridge in downtown Minneapolis). This bridge has two rows of cables attached to the center which run to either side of the bridge deck. Other bridges have only one row of cables that attach to the middle of the bridge deck. Either way, it's quite a striking design. * One more view of the river at night, about 90 degrees clockwise from the last shot of the suspension bridge.