After last night's weirdness, today was downright conventional. It was great to wake up this morning and not have to think about which bus to take or worry that I might get lost. There's a certain sense of adventure that comes from stepping out into the unknown, but it's also really nice to start the day with no concern about how to get where I'm going.

And so it was today. I left the hotel at about 8:30 and walked around the corner to my favorite soba joint to have some breakfast. Have I mentioned before that breakfast is just another meal here? No special breakfast foods at all, as far as I know. When I ate at the hotel's breakfast buffet, it seemed that the non-western stuff was just like anything else you would eat at any time of day in Japan. That's okay, I like it all!

After breakfast, I took the subway up to Asakusa to do some souvenir shopping. If you remember my entry from September 17, I visited Asakusa's Senso-ji temple before meeting Reiko to take the train to Nikko. It was early and uncrowded, great for spending a little quiet time with Buddha and the local cats. Today was a different atmosphere, as the pictures show. All the shops were open, all the tourists were there, and it was time to do a little souvenir shopping.

There was no shortage of shops selling gin-yew-wine samurai swords and polyester kimonos, and most of the rest of the shops appeared to have identical inventories. I came up with most of what I was after, went up to the main building to light incense and make an offering, and beat a hasty retreat. On the way out, I stopped outside of Kaminari-mon , the outer gate, to take a picture of all the people taking pictures of Kaminari-mon. Hey, I'm as much a tourist as any of the rest of them, but I've already been there. I'm slowly learning that as much fun as it is to get pictures of all the great places, it's also a blast to take pictures of the people enjoying those places. I hit on this way back on the day of the sumo tournament, when I got the picture of the judge and a rikishi spectating while two of the big guys were grappling. The more I look at that picture, the more I like it. It tells me that the best picture usually isn't the most obvious one. That picture was a gift - I found it inside a more mundane shot I'd taken. I gave up the sharpness of a bigger, higher-resolution shot to get to the interesting stuff.

Seeing that stuff in the first place is the thing that separates artists from snapshooters. Most of the time, I'm thinking so much about getting a decent technical picture that it's hard for me to discover the nice compositions hiding within the mostly generic shots I've taken. I'll always take the obvious beauty shot of a building, but I need to learn to find the really interesting stuff on the fringes.

After Asakusa, I headed for the southwestern district of Shibuya to meet Rieko. We were on a mission, looking for a little Hachiko.

For those who don't already know the story, Hachiko was a faithful dog (an Akita) who used to walk to the station every day to meet his master coming home from work. His master, Professor Ueno, died in May of 1925. Hachiko continued to walk to the station when his master should have been coming home, every day, until his own death in 1935. This story of loyalty made a huge impression on the Japanese populace when it was published in Tokyo's biggest newspaper in 1932. To this day, there isn't a living soul in Japan who doesn't know the story of Hachiko.

In 1932, after the publication of the newspaper story, a bronze statue of Hachiko was erected in front of Shibuya Station. This was melted down for the war effort in the early 1940s. The statue that now stands in front of the station was cast in 1948 after a design by the son of the sculptor who created the original.

If you're going to meet someone at Shibuya Station, you tell them to head for the Hachiko Statue . It's probably the most recognizable and popular meeting place in all of Tokyo. And it worked for Rieko and me - there were thousands of people around, but we had no problem finding one another.

So why were we looking for "a little Hachiko?" Long before I left Knoxville, my oldest and dearest friend Jim (who owns a beautiful tawny Akita named Mingus) asked me to bring back a miniature of the Hachiko statue. Seemed easy enough - there had to be scads of shops in the vicinity of the station selling them, right?

Um.... not so much. Rieko and I walked all over Shibuya for several hours (I'm not exaggerating), asking everyone in sight if they knew where we might buy one. About 95% of the people we asked reacted as if I were the first person in the entire history of Tokyo to inquire about such a thing. The other 5% said, "I think they used to sell them at City Hall..." (Each of the 23 ku (wards) of Tokyo, including Shibuya-ku, is regarded as an independent city within the megalopolis; each has its own City Hall.) Rieko used her cell phone to call City Hall; she learned that "used to" was true.

We asked at every shop, we stopped people on the street; by this time even Rieko had entered "perhaps you would rather..." mode. ("Perhaps you would rather" is the Japanese version of "Give up. It ain't happening. No *bleeping* way.") I fought on for a little bit, but I finally had to admit that I wasn't leaving Shibuya with Hachiko in hand.

Hey, no time to dwell on disappointment - I'm in Tokyo! After my soul-crushing defeat in Shibuya (let it go, Becker...), Rieko and I headed to the neighborhood just north of the Imperial Palace to Tokyo Dome. Are you ready for some beis-baru???

That's baseball to the uninitiated...   a tilt between the Tokyo Giants (Japanese baseball's Yankees) versus the Yokohama Bay Stars. The Giants had clinched a playoff spot the night before, so tonight was slightly anti-climactic. But it's still a blast to go to a Japanese baseball game. The atmosphere around Tokyo Dome was great - the fans were buzzing, and the surroundings are interesting as well. There's a place right nextdoor called La Qua. It's got shops, spas, and a mini amusement park, right in the middle of the city! The roller coaster starts inside, goes outside, runs through a hole in the side of the building...   and it has lights on the tracks. There's also the world's only (last time I checked) hubless Ferris Wheel. You'll see what I mean in the pictures.

Those who remember my last visit to Japan will recall that Rieko and I went to a game northeast of Tokyo in Chiba; this time we went to the most famous baseball venue in the country. Some of the elements were familiar - the huge cheering sections in the outfield bleachers, the girls vending ice cold beer from mini-kegs on their backs, the odd "strikes and balls" count used over here.

I experienced a couple of new things this time around, though. I noticed that other vendors were making the rounds selling airline bottles of liquor! No need to sip on an eight dollar beer, just take a couple of swigs of bourbon! (I didn't - but the girl selling Kirin lager was my best buddy by the end of the game.) Another new experience - takoyaki! In English, the most appropriate translation is "octopus balls." (Insert your own joke here.) They're little ground-octopus meatballs wrapped in a thick layer of batter and deep fried. Stick a toothpick in them and dip them in special takoyaki sauce, and you're eating cephalopods like a native! Very tasty.

Back to baseball...   The Giants went up 1-0 in the bottom of the first, but the Bay Stars charged back with a 3-run homer in the top of the eighth. That's how the game ended - call it a Giants letdown after clinching.

When Rieko and I went to the ballgame in Chiba back in April of 2005, she knew almost nothing about baseball. When we went to a Mets game at Shea Stadium that September, she knew slightly more. Since then, she's been watching the game - most Giants games are on broadcast TV, and so are the national high school baseball championships. She still doesn't know everything about the finer points like the hit-and-run, but she's learned a lot. We had a great time at the game.

When it was all over, we walked around the stadium a bit, watching the crowd and taking in the surroundings. I wanted to soak up as much as I could - I hate to think about it, but I'm down to just one day left in Japan. How did three weeks whiz by so fast?

Tomorrow's going to be expensive. Rieko and I will go to the Jimbo-cho neighborhood, home of the legendary woodblock print dealers. My legs were screaming when I visited Nikko. Tomorrow, it's my wallet's turn.

Enjoy the pictures.

Tokyo Dome Exterior, Pregame 1MB 24 secs	Bay Stars cheering section 772KB 14 secs