A Walk in the Park and Fake Yakitori

Buy a random book from ye olde jidouhanbaiki so you won't be bored on the subway! =D

After a short rest at the guesthouse--which was really more like a hostel, bunks and everything--we went out to Ueno-kouen and the Ameyoko area for an evening meander. Ueno Park was Japan's first public park.

A view of the Ameyoko area from Ueno Hill

This is the Saigou Takamori statue in Ueno-kouen...He was a samurai who supported the Meiji Restoration at first, and then changed his loyalties when the government took away the powers of the samurai class. He's the guy Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) is supposed to be in The Last Samurai. In fact, Ueno Hill was where the 1868 last stand of the Tokugawa Loyalists took place, a little over 10 years before the last battle of the Satsuma Rebellion--the Battle of Shiroyama--led by Saigou Takamori.

Here is Kiyomizu Kannon-do temple, which is modeled after Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto. (Kannon is the Japanese name for Kuan Yin or Guanyin, the goddess of mercy in the Buddhist pantheon. 

The main image in this temple is the seated Senju-Kannon (one-thousand-armed Kannon who is protector of those born in the year of the rat), but there is also an image of the "child-growing" Kosodate Kannon. People who wish for good child-bearing and sound child-growing offer dolls as substitues for their children. There's a well-known memorial service for dolls held in September as well.

There are lots of signs up around and nearby the temple rallying for it to be included as a World Cultural Heritage Sight as well...

In the park, we found this totem pole belonging to the Tokyo chapter of Lions Club International, a volunteer organization. Definitely an odd-looking piece: kind of a mix between Asian and Northwestern Native American styles.

After sunset, we wandered around the Ameyayokochou Arcade, a kind of shabby but brightly lit market. We meandered through some shops, and I tried out the new rhythm-game fad in Japan: Taiko no Tatsujin. It's pretty much the same idea as Rock Band, Guitar Hero, DDR, etc. Beat the drum with the appropriate strikes in the correct rhythm to popular songs, J-pop, anime, classical, traditional Japanese. (It's funny, the drum sounds--the dum, ka, and teks--are almost the same translated into Japanese.) We ate a little bit at this dingy side-street place, but they didn't really serve us the yakitori we wanted...it was various parts of the chicken on kabobs. Now, it's normal for the yakitori selection to include liver, heart, skin, white meat, wing meat, even small intestines, but those kabobs remaing on the plate in the below picture--that was pretty much pure fat. Eugh. Literally fat on a stick.

We ended up eating at McDonald's...again. McDonald's here are a lot nicer than those in America, although I do hear that they've improved back home. I wouldn't really know, I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in the US since I was in elementary school. Some of the Mickey D's in Tokyo had traditional Chicken McNuggets, but most of the ones I've been to have this delightful thing called Shaka Shaka Chicken instead. It's fried chicken patty they give you in a bag. You pick a seasoning, lemon or pepper for example, and pour it into the top of the bag, and, guess what? Shaka shaka! You open the bag at the tear near the bottom and you have seasoned fried chicken patty. Some other items on the Japanese menu are: Teriyaki McBurger, Ebi Filet-O, and sometimes they have things like Chicken Katsu Burger, Ume Nuggets, and Tamago Double Mac.
During our last walk before we returned to the guesthouse for the night, we were pretty sure we saw some prostitutes down this one street. One of my teachers said that you can't tell by the way women dress if they're prostitutes...But I'm pretty sure. They didn't look exactly skanky or anything. But it wasn't just the fact they were wearing short coats over short dresses and stilettos, or the way they were made-up. It was the way they were waiting expectantly at the sides of the street, with large men lurking around here and there...

On a completely different and adorable note:
Engrish of the Day:

A gift bag I found at a 7/11 near the guesthouse...The most pitiful and adorable Engrish I've seen yet. I ended the bag buying it for me mum. =P

We're not lost; we're just taking the scenic route.

 Well, we spent quite a few hours in the Ginza area, wandering around taking pictures. It's quite a beautiful area to wander around in, and not too busy or crowded fairly early in the day. Not outside the main streets anyhow.

The manholes in Japan are always entertaining.
At first there was a vague notion to find the Pokemon Center, but after a rather long walk, we started asking for directions. We were starting to get hungry too.

 

A first glimpse of Tokyo Tower, and...I'm not entirely sure what to make of this restroom, surrounded by quaint greenery and set into the ground from the sidewalk...

Eventually we discovered the Pokemon Center: I was clever and saw a lady with her child carrying a Pokemon shopping bag, but the guys ahead of us technically found it first, by sheer walking power. The Pokemon Center is...less of a center, and more of a shop: lots of Pokemon merchandise, and those little marble lottery draws, but not a museum or anything at all. I guess the word "Center" usually brings to mind some sort of informational/museum-like place, with a shop on the side. Doesn't seem be the case so much here, as we will see later with the Tokyo Anime Center.
Then there were goofy photo shoots outside. Then on with the wandering!

(Maxim, Elliot, and Guillaume)

Tokyo's very layered like this (with walkways going above streets, and trains above that,etc):

A nifty thing in which to clean one's glasses--just on a street corner

We did check out part of the Sony Building (above)--mainly the floor where they show off their 3D video technology. I kind of fell asleep during the demonstration. Not because it wasn't interesting, but because I hadn't really had good rest the night before, the lights were dimmed, and  I was starting to get really hungry. I can report that the part of the 3D demonstrations I was awake for were actually very impressive. But it was definitely time to go hunting for food.

First I cut off zeir heads, zen I pull out zeir bones...

 So I promised an explanation of Golden Week earlier: it's a series of tubes--I mean holidays--including Greenery Day, Constitution Day, Showa Day, Children's Day, and perhaps some others I can't recall. This year we had Thursday and Monday through Wednesday off. For some reason, the university didn't give the students Friday off, even though many probably wouldn't show up just for that one day. It's pretty much the only vacation during the spring semester in Japan, and very busy, so it's important to make any necessary reservations for that week as soon as possible.

And on with our Tokyo adventure.

After our delicious breakfast at Starbucks, we went to visit a much less aromatic sight. The Tsukiji Fish Market is the largest wholesale fish market in Japan and in the world.
As such, it's incredibly busy, smelly, wet, and open to tourists for only certain hours of the day.


Don't get me wrong--it's a very interesting place to wander through, or rather, squeeze your way through the aisles, dodge all the bikes speeding through the larger passages, and try not to let forklifts run over you.
If you're ok with people chopping up sea creatures, and a few small tanks of bloody water, then probably the only thing that will terrify you is the heavy traffic in and outside of the warehouses.




Remember the song the chef sings in The Little Mermaid? Start there, and add in some Sweeney Todd gore.



Not that they're cruel to the fish and squids, etc.  As far as slaughter goes, decapitation is probably about as humane as it gets. It felt a little numbing watching it, after taking Marine Biology and such...although we did go on a fishing boat as a field trip for that class. Most of the students actually caught some fish too. I didn't feel much like partaking, even though I don't have a particular fondness for fish.

This thing looked prehistoric

In any case, maneuvering around Tsukiji kind of feels like playing Frogger. And if you ever go, be prepared for the workers and customers to give you dirty looks for being tourists and crowding their sky.

Or sea.

~~~

Some sights on the way to Ginza

 

les poissons, les poissons, hee hee hee haw haw haw...