(Just a warning–these pictures aren’t the best. We tried to take as many as we could, but when you get down to it, the pictures just don’t represent what we actually saw (whether that is because the scenery was just that good or our photography skills were just that bad is for you to decide : ) so we spent a lot more take just taking everything in as opposed to documenting it . . . not that that decision helps you out at all)
We also decided to take it easy (in the most relative sense). We were half dead from the hell week we had between getting back from the UK and leaving for Japan (and China, essentially) so we figured that we would just choose one area to explore or two sites to see each day. I think it worked out for the best . . . especially paired up with our new sleep schedule that we fell into due to the flight and time difference. We generally get to sleep around 10 each night (you all know the only thing Denis and I ever did was go to see our shows, and now that there is no Bowery Ballroom, Mercury Lounge, etc, we have no need to stay up . . . what are we going to do? Go to a bar : ) and get up at 6. I hope we can keep this up because it will make teaching a hell of a lot easier (especially for Denis, who didn’t have to wake up until 8:30 to get to work on time when we lived in HOB . . . talk about rude awakenings).
DAY ONE–UENO FROLIC:
After a breakfast of grapefruit juice and a blueberry muffin (really, really good : ) we made it over to Ueno Park. We knew that the park was a little less manicured than most, but it still seemed like a good place to start our Tokyo trip due to all of the things to do around it. While it was no Central Park, it did have its own charms. The first thing we noticed as we stepped out of the subway was the insanely loud noise emanating from the park . . . it took me a while to place it (been around NYC too long : ) but I finally realized that it had to be cicadas . . . millions of cicadas (they don’t scare me though, so it was all good). Denis put a funny video up, if you want to hear what it was like.
We wandered around for a bit and saw some fun things. There were these huge water lilies–they were so close together and so tall that you couldn’t see the lake they grew in at all. In a different section of the lake were some turtle and massive grey fish. We actually got a bit lost after this part because we didn’t want to go to the zoo, which was the only entrance by where we were. It wasn’t so bad though, we ended up walking through all these back streets parallel (maybe perpendicular at times : ) to the park. I got to see some sheep as we cut back around the back of the zoo (The Scotland ones were cuter–by far, but this one was still fun . . . I felt kind of bad for him because he obviously had not been shaved in a while, and it was HOT). We ended up going through an entrance that let to a shrine. Under the torii were all these feral cats. Some of them seemed happy and content to go about their way, but there was this one that was decidedly unhappy. I guess I would be too if my tail was missing : (
Walking through the shrine was pretty cool. I know that all over Japan, there are shrines and temples tucked away among the modern buildings of the cities, but this was our first one, and it was neat to see relics of such a different time within a couple of meters of a bustling business district.
But again, as I said before . . . it was insanely hot and I wanted and icy . . . well, I guess you might called it a shaved ice, but you are stuck in my world now, and shaved ice (and other cold things that are not milk-based) will be referred to as icies. We came to a kiddie corner of the park–it was all flashing lights and crazy songs emanating from the little rides. Right away, I spotted a potential icy hot spot. I was correct in my assumption, but I couldn’t seem to get anyone’s attention to order my direly needed icy. Finally some guy took pity on the stupid foreigners and pointed to a machine . . . we had to put our money in the machine and choose what we wanted, then bring the the ticket up to the people.
I like it . . . very efficient. (Even more efficient if we had just went around the corner and seen the one in English : )
Mmmm . . . icy. Actually it wasn’t that good–the part that was mostly plain ice was like heaven in my mouth . . . but the actual “lemon” flavored syrup was basically just sugar with yellow color. Oh well, it did its job–made me not hot for a few minutes.
If you look behind Denis, you will notice an old man sitting there–he was enjoying a red icy. He smelled pretty badly, and I was almost certain that he was one of the many homeless people who make their homes in Ueno Park. Out of nowhere, he just starts rambling at me in Japanese. I have no clue what to do. I try smiling and saying “English” and “American,” but to no avail . . . the guy just keeps going on and on. Finally we just sort of waved goodbye and moved on. Denis said the man had been talking to himself for a while, but I hadn’t noticed (too engrossed in my icy, no doubt).
We made our way over to the Tokyo National Museum. This was one of the places that we both had on our hastily put together “to-do” lists. It did not disappoint. I don’t have a problem admitting that I am kind of a New York snob. I absolutely love the city and so far haven’t found anything else to match it. I thoroughly enjoyed London, I fell in love with Venice, the many other places we have visited have been great, but at the end of the day, New York always comes out on top. One of the reasons for that is because of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Super–nothing beats it. But the Tokyo National Museum was different enough that I didn’t feel the need to compare it with the Met. It was well organized and spacious. It wasn’t overrun with insane people. I thoroughly appreciated the water fountains that I came across. And the museum offered me a gentle introduction to the squat pot (more on that later). I do wish there were more English explanations, but I understand that there could only be so much done for whitey : ) The ones they did have were thorough and well written. We took a bunch of pictures, but if I put them in, this post would be more never-ending than it already is (Denis put some up, though, if you want to check them out.
We also had quite a bit of fun in the gift shop . . . we are pretty cheap when we travel, but we couldn’t help ourselves here.
These were some post cards that I bought . . . I am looking forward to getting to frame them and hang them up (what, do you actually expect me to pay a lot for wall hangings : )
Denis and I have a small magnet obsession . . . the lettuce guy and the frog and monkey were perfect. I also got some fabric of the same artwork to eventually sew a bag out of (when I will have access to a sewing machine again, I couldn’t tell you).
There was also these crazy guide books there that I couldn’t tell if they were satirical or not. I think they were, but I can’t be certain. There was one particular one that focused on speaking Japanese. The grammatical structure of Japanese is completely different from English and leads to some hysterical literal translations. You can click on the picture to enlarge it and see the text a little better–it is kind of blurry because I took the picture on the sly . . . I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to or not, so no flash and no focusing. Not too bad under the circumstances : )
I was absolutely famished after the museum. We hadn’t eaten (not counting the icy) since our eight o’clock breakfast (it was now three). You have to remember, it was still our first full day in Japan, and when you have no clue have to speak the language and you are utterly illiterate, well, obtaining food can be a bit daunting. But hunger won out . . . as we walked back toward the subway station, I saw a soba noodle place (buckwheat noodles, usually served cold) and I insisted we go there even though it was upstairs (again, when you are clueless, having to go upstairs makes it just that much more intimidating). It was worth it! I may not look like I was enjoying my food as Denis caught me in mid-chew, but it was delicious (and would have been even if I were not deliriously hungry.
Denis actually ordered what I meant to order, so I kept nibbling at his shrimp tempura.
We were going to go back to our hotel, but I remember seeing some fun stuff when we first got off the subway in the morning and I wanted to go back. We ended up spending hours wandering around the Ameyoko Shopping Arcade. Again, look at Denis’s site if you want to see some more specific pictures of the place–he has some funny ones.
Even though we saw some amazing places to eat, we ended up with fast food : ) It was too cheap to pass up, and we wanted to stretch our money as far as possible. We were able to put our ticket for food lesson to use and didn’t mess anything up or look too much like fools : )
I don’t think I could have asked for a better first day (minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit!) in Japan.
DAY TWO–IMPERIAL PALACE KICKS OUR COLLECTIVE ASS
For our second day, we decided to tackle the Imperial Palace . . . as you will see, the Imperial Palace tackled us. By no means do I regret going . . . I actually loved it; I just didn’t love the hate. I hated it. I had a black skirt that had a synthetic (like rayon or something) lining and it was totally stuck to my legs–hideously and disgustingly stuck to my legs (thank God the outer layer was a stiff cotton, so it basically stayed where it should have : ) and Ueno was bearable due to all the shade and stopping, but in the East Palace Gardens, shade was a rare commodity. Again–thirty degrees cooler, and you wouldn’t be able to drag me away, so maybe this heat wave is a good thing!
I wanted to like this melon bun (pineapple bun in China) so badly, but I hated the fried taste, and Denis got my throw-aways.
The Diet Coke is gross here . . . even though I hated it in America for most of my life, I learned to appreciate it in the past year or two. I think this stuff broke Denis’s heart. But Coke Zero is much better here and much more readily available.
Below are some of the views from walking around the perimeter of the Palace. Most of it is closed off to visitor for almost all of the year (I think it is open on two days or something like that).
The government opens up the Imperial Palace East Gardens for tourist. Again, the juxtaposition of the city and palace was interesting. The Japanese garden within the main garden was one of my favorite spots–the koi were huge. In the upper part of the garden there were these magnificent old trees–they towered above everything else. I was dying to go the the Mt. Fuji viewing house and potentially get to the view, but you could only see the building . . . like all the other structures, it was off limits : ( There was a bamboo grove with something like 27 different varieties of the stuff–I had Denis stand with my favorite one . . . some native-born Chinese call foreign-born Chinese something having to do with the hollow inside of bamboo, so that is what the pointing picture is all about.
Well, you can’t really see how the Imperial Palace wrecked us because I did my best to keep that out of the pictures. One thing that saved us was the “rest houses.” At most of the major attractions (and at a bunch of stops throughout the Imperial Gardens East, air-conditioned huts with a bunch of benches, vending machines, souvenirs, and frozen treats are set up to allow tourists to cool off and get their bearings. These were a Godsend. I honestly do not think I would have made it out of that day without major heatstroke if it were not for the rest houses . . . and I got a fun orange icy at one (imagine the old school calypso pops–so good).
We were being good little tourists and decided to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was outside the opposite gate of the palace that we entered from. We were pretty excited about this, but once we finally hauled our tuckuses over there . . . we found out the museum was closed. I was bummed–and that kind of did me in. Again, it was about two in the afternoon, and we hadn’t eaten (minus the icies : ) since eight. We headed back to the hotel in search of food . . .
I couldn’t have been happier when I found this little udon chain under the JR tracks right in front of building!
This was Denis’s udon, but I didn’t take a picture of mine . . . I don’t think I can explain to you how much I love udon. You know how there are gateway drugs, we this was my Japan gateway. I started with udon, and then it snowballed from there . . . and now I am hooked. Even with all these choice before me, my heart still goes out to my dear, sweet (well, really more savoy or salty : ) udon.
I almost crawled back up to our room, but when this is your view, it is not so bad to hang out there for a few hours.
Once we were finally able to walk again, that is just what we did. We walked . . . I guess we mostly skirting Ginza–I don’t know where it technically begins and ends. But no matter what it was, it was great. I didn’t have a tripod or a good flash, so this is the best shot we could get.
This one is worse, but again, think cute street.
We didn’t head out looking for Italian food, but when we passed this place, it smelled great (and it was under the tracks, which were becoming our favorite place to find good, cheap food.
The place was warmly decorated–it was an interesting mix of Italian and Japanese. The pizza was good–very good, and the pasta was solid. We were more than happy with that combination.
Once we finished eating, we continued to explore our neighborhood around Shimbashi Station. I was falling hard . . . thoughts of adding a third year to our two year plan were already forming in my head. Hmmm . . . I wonder if I could learn Chinese and Japanese . . .
DAY THREE–IKEBUKURO AND EDO-TOKYO MUSEUM
This was the day that we had to trade in the JR pass vouchers that we purchased in New York and get our actual JR passes. These would be good for all the Japan Rail trains, the local ones that run in and around Tokyo and the shinkansen trains (bullet trains) that we would have to take to get to Hiroshima and Kyoto. Our station wasn’t one of the ones that had the office we needed, so we decided to make a trip of it and head out the the “Queens” of Tokyo. (This was Denis’s metaphor.) It was a fairly long subway ride, but a lot of it was on elevated tracks (kind of the the ride to Queens : ) so at least we got to see some more of the city. Ikebukuro station was nuts–it was something like 10:30 in the morning and there were people everywhere. It earned its rank of Tokyo’s second busiest train station. We were doing pretty we until we got up the the counter of the exchange office . . . we forgot that we needed to bring our passports in order to complete the transaction. Ahhhhhh . . . technically we went all that way for nothing. We were annoyed, but we sucked it up and went to the Seibu food hall. Again . . . not what it was supposed to be. It was neat and all, but stupid Lonely Planet made it sound very different than it actually was. So while I was salivating over the gyoza and other goodies, there was nowhere I could stop and eat them if I bought them (I did get a tasty sample though : ) So we had to content ourselves just looking around.
By the time we got back to our hotel, we were starving (because lonely planet also said that there we a bunch of restaurants on the top floor that had great lunch deals . . . I don’t think 1800 yen (about 17 dollars) is a very good price for a lunch). I also knew Denis was disappointed about not being able to gorge himself at the food hall, so I suggested that we frankenstein a lunch from the supermarket near us. They had a hall that went from one side of the station to the other with all little food stalls. We scurried from the rice lady, to to gyoza lady, to the sushi lady, and picked up some fresh fruit from the market.
AMAZING gyoza . . . way better than the ones we get at Mitsua in Edgewater . . . and we used to think they were great.
Lunch zone . . . beware.
After stuffing ourselves, we decided to keep the day on this upward momentum . . . after flipping though the stupid, stupid Lonely Planet book for a bit, we decided on the Edo-Tokyo Museum. We used our handy-dandy JR pass and took the train over to Ryogoku. At first, I wondered if we had another mess-up on our hands, not a total miss, but a “eh, it was okay” place. While the upstairs of the museum (you start at the top) was neat, there was a huge replica of the Edo period bridge in the middle of the building, it wasn’t really our thing. It was a lot of replicas in miniature and a few interesting art pieces. The replicas were awesome, it was obvious someone put a lot of effort into them, but, again, just not us. When we were about to give up and just go walk around outside, we discovered that the downstairs was just our thing . . . a huge amount of it was devoted to, what else, BOOKS. A bunch of exhibits were devoted to the development of publishing in Tokyo–it went from the different kinds of books and newsletters they made to have they changed throughout the various reigns. It also focused on how the books were printed (this was one of my favorite parts) and how they were distributed or sold. After that section (you can imagine how much time we spent there), there was all this information about currency and trade, jobs, how they planned the different wards in the city. It was such good stuff, but we had to start rushing through it at the end because we wasted so much time upstairs trying to make it worth it : ) oh well . . .
At the very end, was all these artifacts from the earthquake, the World Wars, and other more modern-history aspects of Japan. I totally recommend this museum!
I included this picture, because I am pretty sure that a lot of you don’t click on the pictures to make them larger, and I wanted to share one of the best parts of the museum (to me okay . . . don’t judge it based on that : ) This was one little part of a large block print . . . the display had all of the different blocks that it took just to create this small corner of the finished product. You can’t tell from the picture, but each individual stamp, with its single color, was beautiful in and of itself . . . loved it : )
And I couldn’t pass up the chance to share a little Janglish with you . . . this wasn’t even the funniest one, but it was one I took a picture of . . .
And . . . I got to use another squat pot . . . yeah! I managed okay with the suckers, but I wanted to make sure that I was going about it in the best way possible, so I did a little research . . . that’s right, gotta love the Internet : )
I discovered that the squat pot has a lot of health benefits in comparison to the western style sitter . . . The literature was very convincing, but I wonder how convincing it would be to someone with food poisoning? (Sorry about that . . . ) Feel free to click on the pot for some more information
Everybody wishes he could have a turtle to ride . . .
The museum building itself was something to look at . . . again, not very easy to capture, not on film, digitally? but the sides were these huge cantilevers . . . very impressive.
The cicada that didn’t make it : (
A memorial that we got to about two minutes after it closed . . .
I tortured Denis with a walk along the river before we went home . . . again, it was about 8000 degrees, and he was wearing jeans, but he humored me and I appreciated it.
Tokyo is in the bidding for the 2016 Olympic. Good luck!
Yea, no smoking : )
And back to the udon place for dinner . . . this time with tofu and a little salad with tuna . . . mmm.
DAY FOUR–DENIS’S BIRTHDAY . . . ANIME AND SUSHI . . . OH MY
As soon as we decided to go to Tokyo, and once we figured out that it would be on my husband’s birthday, I knew exactly what I wanted to get him . . . tickets to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. We both love Miyazaki’s movies. Denis has been watching them since he was a child, and I jumped right in when we started going out (so that means ten years for me : ) This museum was supposed to be one of the highlights of our trip . . . do you sense a “but” coming up?
Oh well, it just wasn’t what we expected . . . in fact, I thought it was kind of stupid, but that is my opinion, obviously, most other people are obsessed with it. The admission included a viewing of a Ghilbi Studio short. The one we saw was cute, but there was so much Japanese writing as part of the story that we were missing a lot. There were posters of some other ones that seemed like they would have been easier for non-Japanese speakers to follow. After that, we began walking around the museum. You weren’t allowed to take pictures at all, so I can’t show you what I mean, but try and follow my rambling . . .
The building was made to look like a sort of tree house/country cottage. All of the workers were dressed in costumes from some of the films. It was cute and all, but it wasn’t very substantive. There were lots of drawings and stuff, but I wanted to learn something about the making of the films, something about the process of the animation or even something tangible to represent Miyazaki’s feelings about the final products or how he goes from inspiration to the drawing board . . . and Sara, there was a Cat Bus . . . but it was only for kindergarten kids and younger : ( talk about a shot to the heart. I wanted to museum, but it was more of just a play house . . . a very, very packed play house. The crowding didn’t help things.
While we were disappointed, we weren’t heartbroken or anything . . . I kind of had some inklings that it might not be that great. We decided to walk back to the train station from the museum, and it was a good choice.
Again, just walking around a new place is fun for me and Denis, so the day was salvaged. We went to one of Denis’s favorite chains, Yoshinoya, from home and, as we expected, it was much better here.
We spent a bit of time walking around Mitaka . . . it was like the Hoboken of Tokyo . . . and I got to play in a stationary story for a while (I love Japanese stationary stores . . . they have the best pens and stuff).
After some much needed repose, we headed out to do Ginza for real. I read that they closed the main streets to traffic on Saturday and Sunday, and that was the best time to head out there.
Walking around in the middle of the cavernous streets was fun experience. We meandered along the main road for a while and weaved around some of the smaller roads. It was blissfully cool out, too, which was a welcome change of pace.
It was one of those perfect nights . . . love it.
And to end it with this meal . . . I have never tasted sushi like this, not even when Denis’s parents take us to the nice places in the city. This was amazing, and it was just like a whatever, average sushi place. I can’t even imagine what it would be like if we went to one of the top of the line places. I probably wouldn’t be able to handle it . . . and if I made it, I would never be able to eat affordable sushi again : )
DAY FIVE–HARAJUKU AND SHINJUKU FUN
On our last day, we decided to do two quintessential Tokyo things–go to Harajuku and Shinjuku. It worked out really well because they are located right next to eachother on the JR Yamanote Line, which we could ride for “free” since we traded in our vouchers for the actual JR passes. Even though it was our last day in Tokyo, it was a great one to end this part of our trip on.
Harajuku
Harajuku was great–everything we wanted it to be . . . right out of the train station (well, across a bridge and around a corner) was our favorite Japanese park to date. I guess part of what vaulted it to that exaulted status was that it was all park all the time. In all the other parks we had been in, you could never fully escape the sights and/or sounds of the city, but here, there was nothing but park–some damn fine park, that is!
The path led to the Meji-Jingu shrine–again, probably our favorite to date. Even with streams of people milling about, there was something serene about it that I didn’t quite get at the others we had visited so far (not that it wasn’t there . . . I just missed it : )
This is supposed to be the largest wooden torii in Tokyo (I think . . . It might have been the largest under some other catagory). Whatever it was, it was very enjoyable to see.
Just as the rest of the grounds were . . . the scale of everything doesn’t translate well in the pictures, but it was quite grand. Something that also added to the expereince was a traditional Japanese wedding that was taking place while we were visiting.
After touring the temple and wandering through the park a bit more, as usual, we were hungry. Today, ramen was high on the food to do list . . . and I found the best place. We had to venture upstairs (which again, is scarier than streetlevel : ) but it was well worth it.
Some views of the main street that we walked on. It was a nice, tree-lined street with an interesting mix of international and Japanese shops and restaurants.
This is the bridge where all of the cos-players and Japanese goths are supposed to hang out in all their finery . . . but we only saw a couple of people really going for it. Oh well . . . I was looking forward to seeing some really out there costumes (though when we first got there, there was one guy who was dressed up like The Predator (or so Denis tells me : ) and that was pretty good.
Shinjuku
Our next stop was Shinjuku–the walk from the station to the street was a good couple of minutes, and the whole way, there was this awesome mural . . . this was only one little part of it, and I’m not really sure what it means, but I loved it.
As usual, in our Japan experience, it was hot . . . damn hot. So we slipped into, what else, a mall! And where would we go in the mall . . . the food court! It was a tres posh food court, with some prices to match . . . but it was worth spending 450 yen on a real diet Canada Dry Ginger Ale, an imported one, so no off taste. The donut . . . not so much.
I did like the unusual spelling of “ingredient” as it added a nice Asian flare to the NYC institution : )
Spiffy buildings . . . after we finished up with the food court (and a trip into an absurdly expensive Banana Republic . . . oh, and Dad, there were Coach stores everywhere–any news on the business trip?) we set out in search of the Kinokuniya book store and its fabled FLOOR of English language books. It did not dissapoint. We spent about two hours milling over the rows and rows of books, beloved books. We definitely needed that . . . it’s like a drug for dorks : ) But we each came away with a new book, and they were the fun British sized ones, which are much more portable than the traditional American QPs (the bigger paperbacks–not trashy romance novel sized : ) After we dragged ourselved away from the bookstore, we spend another hour or two just wandering around the streets of Shinjuku, trying not to look too touristy as we kept looking up to check out all of the buildings.
Our charms from the shrine . . . mine is supposed to make me worry less . . . hmmm, less teeth grinding maybe?
This yukata was so comfy . . . I wanted to steal it from the hotel, but I am sure they would have charged me an insane amount.
Some images from our last night in Tokyo . . . we were both at our blog posting sites, with the Olympics (in Japanese) playing in the background. Oh, and I wanted to share our crazy toilet with you . . . heated seats, anyone? Not just for Audis anymore!
See you in Hiroshima!
