Day 9 – Getting My Gaijin Card + Attempt to Go to to the Supermarket Alone

Today I went with Koko to get my gaijin (foreigner) card. Well, it's really called the Alien Registration Card. It's required of anyone staying in Japan for 90 days or longer. I don't need it just yet, since I only have a tourist visa status right now, but one English school mentioned on its website that job applicants need it to apply for a work visa.

Koko had already applied for his when he got here, so he was just exchanging his temporary one for the permanent one.

We took a quick train ride to Minato City Hall, which was very pretty and modern. See?

Minato City Hall

Some pretty trees and sculptures
to the right of the building

City hall was surprisingly empty. We had to take a number from the help desk for foreigners (where the staff could speak English), but Koko's was called almost as soon as we sat down from the number machine.

As I waited for him, I took the required passport-sized photos in the little photo booth near the row of counters/help desks. Unlike what's portrayed in Amelie, the photo booth wasn't disgusting or sketchy. It was actually very well lit and clean (how Japanese!). And the touchscreen menu was available in English, Chinese, and some other languages, I'm sure.

Afterward, I walked around to check out the neighborhood. This is in the park across Minato City Hall.

A small pagoda-like structure

Someone translate for me, please?

Sanmon, the main gate of the Zojo-ji Temple,
built in 1605 in the Chinese Tang Dynasty style

Entering the main gates...dun dun dun!

And there's the Great Main Temple itself

One of the images of a Buddha on these grounds

I always feel a little weird visiting the places of worship of other religions--like I don't belong because I'm not there to pray and I always feel the urge to take pictures (which some places frown upon). But I didn't feel as weird here, maybe because it's a Buddhist temple, albeit a different sect than mine.

 
The temple with Tokyo Tower behind it

Tokyo Tower is a communications tower modeled after the Eiffel Tower. It has not one but two observatory decks. I need to visit one of these days. From the decks, apparently, you can see Mt. Fuji.

Tree planted by the senior Bush during his
visit as then-VP to Japan in 1982

Tree planted by Ulysses S. Grant in 18xx

Maybe the senior Bush wanted to plant the tree after he saw the size of Grant's tree.

I'm not sure what this is...

...but it seems kind of peaceful, like those Zen sand
gardens corporate people keep at their desks

I call this sculpture
"Mushroom with a Hole in It"

One of many such buildings...maybe priests' lodgings?

Some other shrine
(Where's a tour guide when you need one?)

It seemed so far away...

There aren't as many steps as at oh, the Philadelphia Art Museum (which "Rocky" made famous), but their unevenness made me walk about as fast as the obaasans and ojiisans near me.

Despite what you might think, it's not a BBQ grill

Inside the temple

That's a lot of incense smoke; I'm glad I'm not
an asthmatic practitioner at this temple

And this is the temple near my apartment

Around 5:30 PM, I tried to go to the supermarket by myself today and got lost. Well, not really. There are two Peacock supermarkets near us, one smaller than the other, but they're one short block from one another.

I used google maps on my phone to try to locate the bigger one, and it told me to go to Peacock in Azabu-juban. Hm, I thought. I don't think that neighborhood is Azabu-juban, but who am I--the directionally challenged--to question google mapping genius? It also said 7 minute walk from the train station near me (Shirokane-takanawa), so I thought, This has to be the one we go to. (This is where you look them up on a map and laugh at my directionally-challengedness.)


I followed the map's guidance through small streets and what looked like back alleys but were really small streets, made detours as there was obviously no road where the map had thought there was a road. I was definitely not going to the location I thought I was going to, but what could I do? I didn't know how to get to the other one.

I was hungry and still had a ways to go, so I stopped by a yakitori stand and got myself a tebasaki (grilled chicken wing). It was about $1 and tiny (just the wingette, without the tip, was about the width of two of my fingers, including two bones!), but I thought it would suffice since I was going to buy food anyway. In retrospect, I should have gotten chicken meatballs or something without bones since everything was the same price. But I got to practice my one new Japanese word: tebasaki.

Forty minutes after I left home, I arrived at the supermarket. I used the google translator app to help me ask a store clerk where the coconut milk was. ("Sumimasen, kokonatsumiruku doko desu ka?")

Another 40 or so minutes later, around 6:45 PM, I got home. We didn't eat until almost 8:30 PM and I was starving. Damn you, Google Maps!