So if there’s anyone who has actually been following Buenos Aires Style, you may have noticed that this past month, I’ve had no new articles – this is not because I totally dropped off the face of the planet – I just dropped off of this SIDE of the planet – and ended up exactly on the other side – in Tokyo, Japan. So the next few articles will be some special editions of “Buenos Aires Style – in Tokyo”. Hope you enjoy!

We arrived on June 17 at the Narita Airport, had our fingerprints taken and upon arrival to the baggage claim, realized that my luggage that was supposed to go from Buenos Aires to Chicago to Tokyo took a detour to Dallas from Chicago and would not be arriving for two more days. We left the airport unphased by the turn of

events (hey, this stuff happens) and set off to the train station so that we could make our way to Asakusa where we were to stay. As we got into the train station, we were quite surprised to find no instructions on how to use the automated ticketing system. Luckily there was a bilingual, very helpful native that aided us in our first buy and showed us how to navigate the system.

After an hour ride into the city, we finally arrived at Asakusa, where we first set foot on Tokyo soil. It was around 5:00 in the afternoon – and the first thing that we noticed more than anything was the silence. Yes, there were cars on the street, there were people walking by, talking, riding bicycles, it was a moving city – but it was almost as if we were watching a video and had the sound turned way, way down. Perhaps we were so accustomed to the noise pollution of Buenos Aires that to walk through a city of very little pollution was a shock to our ears.

The second thing we noticed was the marked difference in air quality – we were totally aware that the old buses that plow down the streets of BA would send up plumes of smoke and of course that’s not good for the air quality, but wow! What a difference we could be living in BA if people and businesses actually paid attention to the amount of pollution they cause with vehicles run on older systems of fuel.

In the days that followed, we walked all over the city – spending about $20 a day on transportation alone, and going into all of the “neighborhoods” that Tokyo had to offer. We explored Asakusa, Ueno and Ginza on our second day – even going to the Museum of Modern Art and walking through the Imperial Palace Gardens. The highlight of the afternoon was taking a tour of Tiffany’s after visiting the Tokyo Forum, designed by Argentine architect Rafael Viñoli. We had lunch that day in the gardens of the Tokyo Forum – a Thai curry sold out of the back of a truck parked alongside the Forum itself.

After day one alone my feet were aching. I wore through a pair of socks that Javier had lent me and wanted so badly to change my clothes and shoes – to shower and comb my hair – so we cleaned up as much as

possible, decided to take a short siesta and go out for dinner that night.

To our eyes, fashion in Japan could only be described as “surprising”. It wasn’t weird at all but definitely unexpected. The first thing I noticed was that the quality of clothing was exceptionally high in comparison to what I was used to in Buenos Aires. The people that we saw on the subway going to and from work were dressed often in black suits or business attire – with very high quality materials used in the fabrics with modern designs. It was quite rare to see women wearing pants (as they mostly wore skirts or dresses – often in combination with knee high socks) and often you would see women walking in high heels all over the place. I felt very unfashionable walking around in my Puma trainers but what was I to do??

We WALKED the whole city!!!

Of course for energy, we needed to take in some good carbohydrates and the easiest and cheapest way to do that was to eat one of Japan’s most popular dishes – Ramen noodles! (You thought I was going to say “sushi” didn’t you?) We tried a lot of dishes apart from ramen though – there were curries and exquisite meats – of course – sushi… but not only fish- we tried chicken sashimi, chicken liver sashimi and even steak sashimi with a raw egg to top it off – thanks to our friend Yoshi – we had one of the best culinary experiences of our lives!

Next time… Getting lost in the Tokyo subway system…

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