sen_no_ongaku | Asia, Day 14

Even though Japan's been amazing, by now we've been traveling for two weeks, our tourist energy is fading fast, and we're feeling ready to go home. Thankfully our last few days in the country are relatively low-impact.

We begin the day with the hotel breakfast buffet, which is divided into Western and Japanese food stations. I don't have the intestinal fortitude to go full Japanese breakfast -- which seems to include noodles and a seafood stew -- but natto is on offer, and I realize that given I've already paid for it and there's no opportunity cost, this is my best chance to try it.

If you're unaware, natto is soybeans that have been fermented by a specific bacterium that exudes a very sticky, thick goop. Everything about it screams "I am disgusting".

And boy, it is indeed disgusting. The texture is horrific, like eating lumpy glue. I describe the taste -- and long-lasting aftertaste -- as "salty, rotten sneakers".

E and the boys revel in my ordeal. (Here's a photo collage E made of the event. Sadly, it wouldn't allow her to put it in chronological order.)

Our destination for the day is the Ueno Zoo, and maybe the Tokyo National Museum afterwards. (Spoiler: we don't make it to the latter.) Among the zoo highlights are the baby pandas, an adorable Pallas's cat, some perpetually affronted shoebills, and getting to see red panda feeding time. There's also a large lotus pond in the middle of the zoo; we arrive too late to see it in bloom -- they flower in the morning -- but it's still a gorgeous sight.

Lunch at the zoo features panda-themed dishes: my noodle bowl comes with panda-shaped nori and a fish cake with a panda picture, and the sundaes have panda-face chocolates.

Once we're done with our meal, it's been a very hot day in the sun, so we retire to the hotel. The TV in our room doesn't have access you YouTube, which secretly thrills me and E, since the boys will be forced to watch Japanese TV if they want passive entertainment. In fact, they get super into a show called Black Bass Masters, and complain when it's time to go to dinner.

We decide to have dinner at a conveyor sushi place near our hotel, and are stymied by the check-in computer, which is all in Japanese. Thankfully, someone takes pity on us and checks us into a table. It's busy enough that many things are gone by the time the conveyor rolls around, so we end up ordering a fair amount via the tableside touchscreen menu -- those items are brought to us by a mini bullet train, which is delightful.

I note that much of the waitstaff is South Asian, and I wonder about the circumstances that brought them here. While our experience here as tourists has been wonderful, I'm given to understand that foreign residents of Japan are often subject to prejudice and scorn, and I hope that these folks are treated fairly.