Japanese Vegetarian Bike Cops

I had a bit of an adventure today. I’ve been in Japan for less than three weeks, and I’ve already had a run in with the law. We parked our bicycles where we weren’t supposed to, and they were impounded. This is a little trickier than it sounds. There aren’t really very many places where locking a bicycle is allowed. However, bicycles are in heavy use in Tokyo, and they are parked everywhere! There are even other bicycles parked where ours were parked, but I guess we were made an example.

Anyway, the police left a note for us, but this was hard to decipher, as we don’t read kanji. We figured that our locks had been cut, so we returned to the bike store where we bought them, and while there we got an employee to read the note for us. From there it wasn’t a very big deal. Just a two mile walk to the impound, and 2,000 yen each to get them back (about $20 USD).

Next to the impound we found the Japanese counterpart to the Asian grocers found in America - a ‘western’ grocer, so to speak. This was pretty exciting, because they had a few things that are hard to find anywhere else - particularly tortilla chips. So now I can buy an $8 avocado and make the most expensive guacamole of my life.

From there we discovered yet another awesome restaurant/bar. It was quiet, dimly lit, well stocked (Hoegaarden on tap), and easily made me feel underdressed in jeans. The food was fantastic, as usual, and they had some great jazz playing on the radio. Now as I write this, we’re listening to more great jazz, and hanging out in our favorite haunt - a little café called The Brown Sheep.

This leads me to a few more of the many observations I have to make about Tokyo. First, there is jazz EVERYWHERE! I mean, not just every restaurant, every bar, every café, but even 7-11, book stores, wherever. If they have music, it’s jazz. This has reinvigorated my love of this music in a way that I haven’t felt for a long time. And, I don’t mean smooth ‘jazz’, or fusion, or some other pseudo jazz. I mean, Bird, Coltrane, Joe Pass, … Wynton Kelly at this very moment.

On the subject of going out, I should discuss two other topics: getting around, and being vegetarian.

Getting around is pretty easy, in the sense that everything you need is easy walking distance from wherever you are, Tokyo is bicycle friendly, and there’s great public transportation. It’s difficult in that it’s hard to get and keep your bearings. All the roads are very windy, and most of them don’t have names. Plus, many of the signs for stores are written in kanji, so it’s hard to create any landmarks. Also, I find riding (my bike) on the left side of the road to be very unfamiliar to the point of being confusing. Making a right turn is still hard for me to wrap my head around. Also, when crossing the street, there’s a tendency to look the wrong way for oncoming traffic!

Being vegetarian in Tokyo isn’t as hard as I feared, but it’s not without a bit of challenge. I’d heard from many people, and read online, that it’s impossible to be vegetarian in Japan, because no Japanese food is vegetarian. This is half true. Very little Japanese food is vegetarian. However, there’s way more to Tokyo than just Japanese food. It’s a huge city, and they have everything - Thai, Chinese, Indian, etc. They have many familiar restaurant chains - Subway, Pizza Hut, Dominoes, McDonald’s, etc. There’s even Shakey’s Pizza! Of course, I don’t want to come all the way to Tokyo and just eat American fast food. So, much of what I’m eating is unfamiliar. In those cases, it’s difficult to communicate my vegetarian preference, as it’s a rather foreign concept to the Japanese.

Another foreign concept here, is the idea of being flexible with the menu. If it ain’t on the menu, you ain’t getting it. At a curry restaurant I saw one curry meal that came with rice and salad. There was another that just came with salad, which is what I wanted. Unfortunately, I couldn’t order the curry flavor I wanted without the rice, because it wasn’t on the menu that way! All that said, I’m so far managing just fine, and in fact, having some of the best food of my life. Also, I’m able to get most of the groceries that I need to cook great meals at home.

That’s all for now!
P.S. Comment your questions if you got ‘em!