It was another early morning today. Aren woke up at 4:30 am, and couldn't sleep, so he watched a movie while I grabbed another 2 hours of sleep. We were fed and ready to go by 8. Aki came and picked us up at 10 for today's tour. We started at the Imperial Palace East Gardens.
The Gardens are free to visit, and are just splendid. The moat and epic stone wall are from the Meiji period, late 1800s, but the palace was rebuilt in the 1960s.... we kinda destroyed it during WWII, sorry! Inside the walls is a lot of greenery: trees, grasses, flowers, swans, etc. The grounds are huge, the gardens are just a small part of the Imerial complex, which we drove around the perimeter of for 5-10 minutes before we even got to the gardens. We had a lot to do today, so we didn't stay long, but I'm glad we went, it was a great place to visit, and was easy to get around. On the way out we stopped by the museum to view some of the pieces within the Emperor's art collection. Unfoturanately, we weren't allowed to take photos of this pottery, much of which was several hundred years old.
Our first view:
Note the skyline in the back
As Aren took a photo of this crane, a Japanese tourist took a photo of him
The entrance to the gardens
This is a guard house, and one of the few original buildings left on the property. Aki told us they were lower class Samurai who worked here, much like the modern day security guards are vs. police
Great detail in the roof
Original lamp
View from the overlook:
After viewing the gardens, we went up to the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno. The museum is huge, with several buildings all dedicated to specific focuses. We went to the main building, dedicated to Japanese art, and chose only to see the top floor. The top flood had a lot of very old pieces in it, the oldest we saw was from 1200. There were a lot of beautiful scrolls, screens, pottery, swords, kimonos and other items. Looking back now, we should have stayed for the first floor as well, but as with the gardens, we wanted to see as much as possible.
Outside:
19th centry laquer wear
Falcon screen
One of the older pieces we saw:
There were a lot of old paintings and caligraphy on silk. A lot of the oldest stuff (8th century- 12 century) you weren't allowed to take photos of. We weren't using flash, but we also didn't want to get in trouble.
How do you craft a lion when you have no idea what a lion looks like, kind of like this?
Aki has some samuri swords, passed down to him from his samuri ansestors
Not kabuki but another form of Japanese theater called Noh. It is darker, with less expression and is also harder to understand.
I wish I had someting to show you the scale of these samuri armors. But they were tiny. The people who wore these had to be the size of an average 10 year old. Within the past few decades Asians have really shot up in heights, thanks to our western food.
Edo period
I think this one was form the 17th century.
Edo helmets
After the museum we were very hungry. We walked to Ueno for food and shopping. We ate at one of Aki's favorite sushi restaurants. It was all sushi, so my picky boyfriend held out, we got him some yakitori afterwards, which was much more to his liking. After that, we went on the hunt for a better pair of shoes for me and some Japanese style gifts. Both of which we found.
Yum. I learned something new here. In Japan, they put the wasabi right on the sushi, no need to mix it in your soy sauce. They also just pick it up and dip it in the soy sauce with their hands rather than with chopsticks. I always removed the fish, dipped that, put it back on, and ate it with my chop sticks. However, you also get a nice, walm towel when you eat in Japan, so it is easier to clean your hands. And if anyone could tell me what the pickled orange thing is around the cucumber (top left) I would appreciate it, Aki knew no translation for it.
We spent hours walking around Ueno. It is such an interesting shopping area, we saw so many new and wonderful things. In a lot of ways it reminded us of downtown LA: a lot of little shops all with "the best prices" and room to negotiate on prices. But there are a lot of differences between Ueno and downtown. For one, everyone in these shops are outside yelling their sales pitch. Many held up signs that said "lowest prices, 1,100 yen" or the like. Some handed out fans with ads on them, or spoke into microphones. We went into a large store in search for a yukata for me. The store was at least 6 stores tall and each floor was packed to full capacity with people. I felt like I was part of a huge ant colony that had just found a fallen piece of food. We asked Aki if it was always like this or if it was just because it was Sunday, he said it was always crowded.
Lauren with Aki, our guide
Alright, Japanese parking garages are FTW. This one I dubbed the "car-o-sel" but it was actually more like a car ferris wheel
now it's Aki's car's turn:
After our shopping in Euno we decided to go to the electronics district of Akihabara to try and get Aren a nifty new phone. At this point my new shoes were starting to wear into my skin. We were going from store to store looking for good GSM capatible phones with little luck. Finally, the boys left me in an "Italian" restaurant while they continued the hunt. I ordered and ice coffee and waited for them to come back with no new phone. The awesome Japanese phones are just not made in the GSM, or US compatible fashion. And they are cool phones, Aki's phone has TV on it!
They closed the street down for shoppers
Back at the parking garage for another neat trick
We left Akihabara tired, but we haden't yet seen Ginza, which both my father and grandmother recommended. Ginza is the Rodeo drive, or Park Avenue of Tokyo. It's not the hippest place to shop, but it is still really expensive. We were driving by Gucci and Doir shops, and saw more German cars there than we have in the past two days together. We took photos of the Kabuki theater through the window of the car, and we might have to come back later so Aren can play around in the Sony store. Maybe I'll go around to the expensive shops and see how many hundreds of thousands of yen things cost while Aren drools at technology we won't have for another couple years.
Some photos from the car:
Tokyo station: we go to so many train stations, but we rarely see the outside of them
Skyline
These guys are annoying
Kabuki-za from the car
Ginza is a nice place to shop, as you can see
On our way back to our hotel:
Aki drove us back to the room after this. We were worn out! We had been out exploring the city for 9 hours! Luckily for us, this morning we bought some just add water noodle bowls at the AM PM, just for the hell of it. This came in handy since neither of us felt like another difficult attempt to buy food. For the record, I picked out a much better bowl then Aren did.
Who knows what tomorrow holds. Kabuki? Sumo? Maybe more Ginza and other activities. Unfortunately we missed two big activities this weekend that we wanted to see: Roppongi, the Las Vegas of Tokyo, on saturday night and Harajuku, where teenagers dress up like freaks and parade for cameras, on a Sunday afternoon. Oh well, we saw so much today it is hard to be disappointed.
2 comments:
Looks like you had a great, exhausting day! The building visible from the palace with Mainichi on it is the home of the Mainichi (daily) newspaper. I was a proofreader of the English there one summer during H.S. The first thing I wanted to do was edit the paper's name: The Mainichi Daily News. The Daily Daily News?!
I wonder how I learned to eat sushi by dipping the fish and putting it back on the rice, so you learned the same technique. I thought I was doing it the Japanese way -- either Aki is more casual and things have changed, or I picked it up from your Grandmother, who as you know, has her own style!
Sounds like you're having fun. We have the usual Palm Springs vacation. And thanks, now I am really hungry and want sushi >:-(
Well tell Aren I say hi!
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