January 20
Beep. Beep. The now familiar beep of my travel alarm tore me out of my visit to dream land. It was morning again, a beautiful sunny morning that streamed in through my windows. I hopped out of bed, energized by the sight of rays of sunlight and went down to breakfast. I ate lightly, for Debra and I had resolved to work out after breakfast for we had some time before we would depart. After breakfast we did so, and then after showering and speed packing for the day's visits, boarded into the US Army van.
After a surprisingly short drive through the busy streets of Tokyo, lit by the beautiful morning sun, we arrived outside of the primary show room of Mikimoto Pearls, the premier pearl company in Japan and in the world. After snapping a photo of the beautiful golden flowers growing outside its doors, we came in and met our guide.
He took us to the elevator, which Debra noticed had an innovative way of showing what floor we were on. No numbers were displayed, only a set of inverted cylinders with the cylinder representing the floor we were on twice the length of the other cylinders. It was tasteful, elegant and informative – the mark of good design.
The elevator doors opened up on the fifth floor – marked "PRIVATE" on the little sign next to the elevators and we were shown into an elegant conference room with comfortable seating and a beautiful wide screen TV. Then, we sat back and relaxed while drinking either tea or coffee (tea for Debra and I, coffee for Mrs. Medlin and Mrs. Mizoguchi) and watched an informative video on Mikimoto Pearls.
The video quickly and elegantly summarized the history of the company, beginning with Mr. Mikimoto who had the unique vision of cultivating natural pearls for use by humans. Part way through the video, I found myself almost wishing for an interruption from a small cartoon character – perhaps in the shape of an oyster – that would proclaim in a high voice, "The Mikimoto Story." Ah, but that might have just been because of Debra's amazingly accurate recreations of the "Yomiuri Story" that she had treated us to over the past few days.
After the video was over our guide took a few of our questions and then led us down to the third floor. On this floor, Mikimoto showcased its finest pearls – some of which were simply breathtakingly huge. One large pearl, set on a gold ring, was marked 10 million yen -- over $75,000! Other beautiful creations included a necklace of multicolored pearls as well as interesting designs with black pearls from the South Sea.
We then had a bit of free time to wander about the store, exploring the various jewelry and pearls. On another floor, I found myself drawn to an amazingly crafted blue emerald ring in the tiny (comparatively speaking) Men's Jewelry section. But most of the jewelry had far too much gold – I also found myself looking at the engagement rings and wondering when I would finally be able to buy one of those for my beloved to be… Ah, I have yet so much life to live! What joy, what joy, what joy lies yet ahead.
Content with my life, and bearing a broad smile as proof, I saw that the light fixtures that hung in the lobby caught the rays of the morning light in a way that somewhat reminded of pearls in a strand. I pulled out my camera and snapped a photo, but it was not long until a guard came up and informed me that I was not to take photos of merchandise. I explained that I had taken a photo of the store's beautiful light fixtures and demonstrated it on my digital camera as proof – offering to delete it if that were not acceptable. Satisfied, he nodded and said that it was okay.
While I was snapping my photo and talking with the dutiful guard, Debra had picked out a piece of pearl jewelry for her mom. After having it wrapped and packed, we bid our gracious hosts good-bye and departed from Mikimoto Pearls, heading back to our van. Our wise (and excellent) driver had parked near a Starbucks, but we were all sufficiently caffeinated for the moment and so opted to head to our next destination.
We pulled up at Takashimaya Department Store and got out. Our first destination was the cafeteria in the basement. There I ordered one of the three items on the menu that did not have seafood and, after a short wait, were seated at a table. We quickly ate and were soon off to the seventh floor to begin shopping/touring the store (I found myself longing for a search engine for the store). Mrs. Medlin mentioned that, though neither Debra nor I had seen it, during lunch some kids had been using "training chopsticks" that held in the fingers in some way, as well as being bright blue and/or pink.
After boarding the elevator, in which a girl in a uniform announced, in Japanese, what was on each floor and pushed the buttons we soon arrived on the seventh floor. I was surprised to see how Western everything was. Why, the department store felt much like something one could find in NYC back stateside. Many of the products even proudly advertised their European origin.
Once we had set a meeting time with Mrs. Medlin and Mrs. Mizoguchi, Debra and I went exploring on the other floors. Much of what we saw was very, very Western. There were American and European brands at Japanese prices – i.e. much more expensive. Still, judging by the proliferation of shoppers, it seemed that the department store was fairly popular. And judging by the proliferation of products, it also appeared the department store was quite prosperous.
With 10 minutes until our appointed meeting time by the first floor elevators, Debra and I stumbled upon the CD player section of the store. There, we once again saw the amazingly thin CD players that we had seen in Akihabara, except, surprisingly, they were slightly less expensive here. As my CD player had broken earlier in the trip, I was considering a purchase and Debra was looking for something thinner and lighter than her current machine. After about ten seconds of silence, we looked alternately at each other and at the CD players and hailed a saleslady. She came up to us smiling and saw that we pointed to the very thin silver Sony CD player. She opened the case and pulled one box, but both of us laughed and held up two fingers. "Two?" she said, a bit amazed perhaps at these random American tourists, but she got another box. Then, with care, she led us over to the counter, where, with an associate, she opened the boxes and showed us everything we were getting – a practice that does not occur in the US. Then, once we were confident that we were receiving everything the box had promised (and when we had also become quite exciting at how very cool these CD players are – hey, electronics shopping is fun) we purchased them and then ran for the elevators.
Once on the first floor, Mrs. Medlin joked that she had had to stand a good ways from the elevator lest the uniformed girls inside think that she wanted to go up a few floors. One of them had even hailed her to get onto the elevator. We were reminded of the "professional pushers" that worked on the normal (non-Shinkasen) Tokyo rail and subway whose job it was to simply push, shove, compress – pick a word – stuff as many people into the cars as possible, verily using physical force.
Then, with our foursome once again assembled, we boarded the van again. We set out to the Oriental Bazaar in Harajuku, where I finally descended to the basement and completed my shopping. The last time we had been there, I had been so exhausted (or perhaps simply tired of...) of Harajuku that I had taken up temporary residence on a handy bench. Shopping with Debra is quite an experience – she is skillful and quick-witted beyond measure of men, sometimes finding appropriate gifts by some strange innate skill… I do not think I will ever understand women. I still found myself longing for a search engine, as I joked, or at least some sort of Recommendations database. Silly computer scientist me.
After the bazaar, our driver dropped us off near a Starbucks and – to my surprise – Yahoo! Café. After ordering, Debra and I ascended to the top floor, where the café was located. To me, it felt verily as if I were back on the West Coast, for there were laptops and these cute little coffee tables. Fittingly, given that ISEF had been in San Jose, the Valley vibe pulsed through the little establishment.
Returning to the van, we drove off to the hotel. Tonight was night of our "formal dinner" in the Japanese style restaurant of the New Sanno – Mrs. Medlin, Debra and I had made reservations to treat Mrs. Mizoguchi to dinner, with our heartfelt thanks for her amazing leadership and guidance. But first, Debra and I worked out a bit and then ran down to make it to the dinner in time. We all assembled and headed in for a sukiyaki style dinner.
The tasty meal, made right before our eyes on a rather large cooking surface, had for me, consisted of yummy Japanese teriyaki chicken. Perhaps it is ironic that I found what I considered excellent Japanese food in a restaurant within an American hotel. In any case, after dinner Debra and I gave our thank you gifts to Mrs. Mizoguchi. Though we had not spoken about it before buying the gifts back stateside – or rather, because we had not conferred – we had both gotten Mrs. Mizoguchi American flag scarves. However, the scarves were stylistically and practically different (read: Michigan and Texas have much different weather) and thus, we hoped, would work well with Mrs. Mizoguchi's wardrobe whether in blizzard or sunshine. She thanked us profusely and then one-upped our gratitude with her amazing generosity by giving us Japanese greeting cards. I received examples of Japanese architectures, while Debra got a collection of geishas, with both sets being drawn in the traditional Japanese paper art style.
After dinner, and after thanking Mrs. Mizoguchi once again, Debra and I went down to the Cybercafe to surf the net. However, we then decided to try some ballroom, for Debra had expressed interest in learning and I know a few steps. We had a good deal of fun, though I suppose much of it might have come from seeing the expressions of hotel patrons when the elevator doors opened on the basement level to reveal a pair of kids ballroom dancing. Still, dancing isn't the same without music, no matter how active I tried to make my "Quick Quick Slow" count.
Deciding against a movie because tomorrow would be the big day – the Japanese Student Science Awards – we parted. Back in my room, I looked over my luggage, now supplemented by a large amount of gifts and materials gathered from all the places we had visited. It hit me then that the trip was ending – that these incredible two weeks were coming, at last, alas, to an end. Saddened, yet energized with the possibilities of tomorrow – after all, I would be meeting another Princess! – I fell into a deep, restful slumber, ignoring all the construction and traffic seven stories below my window.