Ginza's main street, plus a bus which I swear wasn't there when I took this photo. Kind of like Shibuya or Ikebukuro, only with less neon and more brand names even I recognise.
Overall, Ginza made the impression of a grown-ups' Shibuya, for people who are old enough to have a sizeable income and to want to spend it on brand-name status symbols rather than on shiny things that go "beep". I have little respect for status symbols (though I acknowledge that my own allegiance to the shiny thing camp is no better a form of consumerism), so didn't find much of interest here. My one desired destination was the Sony Building, where one may see and play with Sony's latest products, including that word that ignites a flame in every true geek's heart: prototypes. Needless to say, it was temporarily closed. Until tomorrow morning, what's more. Such timing...
The money made from overpriced label purchases is at least put to good use decorating the shop fronts. This jeweller's was far from the most gaudy.
With a sigh, I made my way to my next destination: Ueno Park. Ueno was the site of the Tokugawa regime samurai's famous last stand against the imperial forces that brought about the Meiji Restoration. As one does with a blood-stained, despair-filled battlefield, the government then decided to turn it into a public park. There's even a small cemetery dedicated to those fallen in that battle.
Death. Taxes. Ambiguious guidance for foreigners in Japan. It's nice to know some things in life are absolute.
Ueno Park was a very different beast from Yoyogi. Where Yoyogi Park was a place for people to come and be themselves in the midst of nature, here the government just seems to have said "visitors need to be entertained; plonk down whatever you think is worth visiting and we'll cover the rest in trees". Hence an erratic layout of statues, shrines, temples, ponds, entertainers and the highest concentration of museums in Japan.
Ueno Park centre. The building in the distance is the Tokyo National Museum, more on which later.
To be honest, all this random construction did not impress me that much. As a park, it lacked the natural feeling of Yoyogi, and the religious sites were small and unspectacular - I think I may have reached saturation point, and hereafter will only be impressed by genuinely exceptional ones. The museums looked fun, but my time was limited, especially since they closed as early as 5pm.
This terrifying totem is the first line of defence against pesky children attempting to penetrate the perimeter of Ueno Park Zoo.
The face of the second Ueno Daibutsu (the first having perished in an ancient disaster). The rest of the body fell off during the Great Kanto Earthquake, and was eventually carted off as metal to make weapons during World War II.
I saw two kinds of public entertainer: a two-person acrobatics act and a lone juggler. The acrobatics was pretty mediocre compared to other acts I've seen, but the showmanship was excellent, the pair taking on the roles (I hope) of a cowardly performer and an assistant happy to throw her boss's life away in the name of better tips from the audience. Meanwhile, the juggler was noteworthy for performing with a variety of objects such as rings and balls, and all to the beat of beautiful background music, so that at points it turned into a dance. Unfortunately, the more he focused on the juggling, the less inspired the dancing became - and whenever his focus lapsed, he dropped things. In watching him, I concluded that, as with acting, the most important thing isn't always the capacity for a perfect performance, but the ability to incorporate mistakes into one's act. Much more so with amateur performances.
Bentendou temple, distance view. The temple itself was nothing special (except that it was filled with intriguing plaques covered with kanji beyond my level), but note the surrounding ponds.
Yes, this is all part of the pond. The thickness of the vegetation made it look like solid ground.
In addition, the ponds were inhabited by fish easily large enough to count as landmarks in their own right. These are just the smaller specimens.
Some scholars hypothesise that the samurai's defeat at the hands of the imperial army came about as the result of a gradual decline in military standards over the course of the Tokugawa era.
After finally locating the elusive statue of Saigo Takomori (above), I headed for Tokyo National Museum, supposedly the best in the city and home to a vast array of Japanese and Asian artworks and items of historical interest, on constant rotation due to the relatively small display space. However, as I sought it in defiance of the LP map, I was called over by a couple of Westerners struggling to elicit directions from a young Japanese woman (who was staring at a map displayed on her mobile in bemusement). I duly arbitrated between them, then ultimately decided the LP map would do and took the lead - happily, their destination was the same as mine.
At the other end, they offered to explore the museum together, and paid for a student ticket for me as thanks for the guidance. That is how I met Bob and Diana, a pair of Macedonian dentists from Toronto, Canada. They were here on a week-long tour of Japan on their way back from an international dentistry conference in Singapore. We spent a happy hour or so contemplating various exhibits and trading stories - I knew a lot more about Japan than they did (also a lot more than I thought I knew), and they had much to tell me about their travels - in particular, their love of museums in Egypt. I also learned about their daughter, who is in New York studying the family trade for exorbitant tuition fees, and a few things about the use of mercury and gold foil in contemporary Canadian dentistry (you'd be surprised at the parallels with 12th Century Buddha image moulding techniques). Once closing time came, I escorted them to a nearby Inari shrine and gave them directions back to their station (the same one as mine) for when they were finished, then hurried home in order to try and catch the latest episode of Bleach (plus the early return would afford me packing time for tomorrow's move to Kyoto).
While all this was going on, by the way, they had me take many photos of them with various objects and landmarks, and ended up complimenting me on my photography skills. This makes me very happy, given that I'd practically never touched a camera before coming to Japan.
Samurai armour. The museum was shockingly inconsistent on which exhibits could be photographed (without flash) and which couldn't - there was no correlation to the nature of the exhibit or the materials it was made from.
Oh, how I hurried. I had to endure the commuter express on the Toyoko line all the way from Shibuya to Hiyoshi - that's four stops, but they felt like an eternity of being crushed by Japanese salarymen on all sides. Incidentally, I can now see why groping is such a problem on Japanese trains - if you're not holding an
overhead grip, it can actually take effort not to have your hand pressed against the posterior of the person next to you (whatever their gender), and conversely there's minimal room for a molestation victim to turn around, never mind defend themselves. In case I haven't mentioned them yet, some carriages become "women-only" during commuting hours precisely to combat this. Others, I learned recently, have seats that retract at those times to provide extra standing room. Japan may not be great at solving its social problems, but it has some remarkable ways of ameliorating them.
When I finally made it to Hiyoshi - where I had to change from the commuter express to the slow train for the rest of the trip to Ookurayama -I phoned Michiko while waiting for the changeover (you will recall that phone calls are forbidden in Japanese trains), to ask her to tape the episode as I became convinced I wouldn't quite make it. And found out that it started half an hour earlier than I thought - and was now nearly over.
In the event, Michiko seems not to have understood my assertion that it's not worth taping the last ten minutes of a half-hour episode, and not only taped it, but grew quite frustrated when I declined to watch it, explaining that after missing the first half, I wouldn't know what was going on in the rest. She didn't seem to accept this logic, whereas I was unwilling to spoil for myself an episode I could catch in fansubbed form the next day. Eventually, once I explained the existence of the fansub, she relented. As an aside, I believe that I have yet to mention that in the Urushibara household, the TV is ALWAYS ON. ALWAYS. To me, this is horrifying, both because unnecessary prolonged exposure to strong EM fields equals death to my brain and because a lifestyle which treats TV watching as default is...well...like willingly becoming a zombie, the way I see it. But it seems to be a fundamental family tradition (and, to a point, it makes sense, since Michiko is home alone for long periods of time as a housewife, and Yukio often comes home too tired for much other than TV), so I have said nothing. Sadly, I lack the cultural knowledge to know what to make of the fact that their constant TV viewing consists of Japanese variety shows.
Anyway, I have spent enough time on e-mails, this blog is done for now, and it's already 10.30 so I should get on with the packing. Here's to first impressions of Kyoto!
Bonus photo: the karasu or Japanese crow is notable for its remarkable size, proud bearing, volume of croak and abject refusal to pose for photos. I have taken several crow photos up until now, and this is the first I can count a success.
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