Philly in Tokyo

About two weeks ago, Juan and I spent a wonderful day in Ueno Park. Tokyo's Ueno Park is similar NY's Central Park (however, since I was only ever in NY for about 2 hours... this is all based on speculation). Beautiful green avenues for strolling arm and arm with your lover, great museums, a Zoo, a handsome lake complete with pagoda and paddle boat rides, vendors selling snacks and sodas and birus (that's beer in Japanese), and dozens of buskers vying for your attention and loose change.

Even though Ueno is a great place to visit without any agenda, Juan and I were there to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. We had been seeing the fliers for a special exhibit for several weeks and we decided it was high time we got out and saw some beautiful pieces of art. The Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art" Exhibition was calling to us from posters on every subway and bus we rode. Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and Duchamp... Oh MY!!!

However, the highlight of our day was not the priceless works of art... it was the Philly cheese steak sandwich we ate upon exiting the museum. That's right, just outside the museum, there was a food truck selling delicious cheesy-meaty sandos. MmMMmmmmmm..... My only complaint was that Japanese don't know how to make a proper cheese steak. I mean... she was taking all the grease and oily goodness and scraping it off the grill and into the garbage and not into my sandwich. Come on!!! That's the BEST part!!! But other than that... It was the best part of our day in the famous Ueno Park.