Ninja!

Okay, first off it's really frustrating that everything on the Internet has switched to Japanese now that I'm here. It's total guesswork on which button does what.

Last night was the ultimate Japanese cultural experience. My coworker kept reminding me over and over, "this is not traditional Japanese!" But it's exactly what I wanted.

We went to a restaurant called Ninja! It had this tiny little entrance that I had to duck to get in. The hostess claps her hands and this crazy ninja guy comes running. He takes us through a series of mazes (including a moat and drawbridge) into this little "ninja village." You sit at your table and are literally locked in this tiny little room. The food was nothing short of bizarre. I had shrimp and crab pudding (disgusting), something that was on fire, veal and foie gras creme bruelee, hot stone soup (awesome!) and red rice sushi. Desert was a series of a bonsai chocolate tree (there's a picture of it on the website under Food Menu), a cheesecake frog, and some mochi ice cream dishes. I know this sounds cheezy, but there was also a Ninja magician that came to the table. This guy blew my mind. We were all no further than a foot away from this guy, and no one could figure out how he was doing his tricks. It would sound lame to try and describe them on email, but the finale was a ring trick. He had done all these tricks with my boss' ring and a string, but in the end it somehow disappeared (for about two seconds, mind you). A huge flame went up in the room and this little box appeared on the table. My boss had to open the box with a key (that appeared behind her ear or something), unlock the box, then open up this envelope that was folded like origami. It took her like a full two minutes to get the darn thing open, and her ring was inside. We were all tripping out on how good this guy was.

Anyway, we didn't get home until 11:00, so that threw the concept of a good morning run out the window. But it was well worth it. Today we are cutting out of the office early and my boss is going to show me around Tokyo!