April 2007 – Page 4 – studionebula.com

Tokyo National Museum, Ueno Park, and Chinese Food

We arrived at the museum shortly before it opened. It was raining a little bit at the time so we waited in the covered area in front of the ticket vending machines. Once we were inside we were approached by a young attendant who noticed us gazing around trying to figure out where we might ask to borrow a wheelchair for Tracie. She didn’t seem to speak much English but Tracie resourcefully pantomimed using a wheelchair and the young woman quite literally ran to get one once she understood what we were looking for. read more

The Second Thing

I did say I had two points to make in my previous post, didn’t I? The second thing was this: I made a quip about decaffeinated beverages and the Japanese consciousness in an earlier post. However, when we asked Tamae-san about decaf coffee, the poor dear did look at us with some amount of skepticism and confusion. We had to explain why we were interested in such a travesty (which is because Tracie is completely off caffeine to avoid headaches). I think it’s just something that they don’t do here. read more

Addenda

It’s about 8:15AM and we just finished breakfast. We’re heading for the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno park shortly, but I thought of a couple of things over breakfast that I meant to mention in yesterday’s entry.

The first thing I forgot to describe was the couple sitting near us in the noodle booth. They arrived shortly after us and were probably Scandinavian, in their late 50s or so. He was clearly as amused by the place as we were. She, on the other hand, wasn’t at all amused. She visibly didn’t want to come in in the first place, but he was hungry enough that he decided that he was going in anyway so she reluctantly followed. He ordered a beer (they served Asahi in cans) and a plate of noodles and dug in with gusto when it arrived. She glared at him and anything in her field of view. Everntually, after watching a local couple order and enjoy cups of something served from a heated pot near the front which I would guess was corn soup, she asked one of the proprietors for the same. It didn’t look like she thought highly of it, and when she was told that it was 200 yen (about US$1.60) she was visibly put out. Her husband was unflapped, dug the money out of his pocket, and went back to eating. She berated him at some length and finally got up and left even before he was finished–she literally couldn’t wait to get out of the place. He stuffed a few more noodles into his mouth, slugged down some (but not all) of the remaining beer, and followed her out. read more

A Day in Asakusa

I first heard the song Technopolis by Yellow Magic Orchestra about 27 years ago. YMO was a pioneering synth-pop band in the 1980s that achieved international recognition, a rare feat for a Japanese band. The song Technopolis is about Tokyo; it features as its sole lyrics a voice synthesizer spelling the word “T-E-C-H-N-O-P-O-L-I-S” and uttering the name “Tokyo”. I just listened to the same song on my iPod while looking down on Tokyo from our hotel window. Little did I suspect, 27 years ago, that I would one day visit this wonderful city. read more

This One’s For You, Dan

I’ll explain the inside joke: my friend Dan Phillips happened to be in Tokyo a week or so before we arrived here. He IMed me with a certain amount of glee because he had just discovered a brand of canned coffee called Deeppresso. I found some in a vending machine today. It’s quite good.

More Random Observations

It’s Monday morning, we’ve just had breakfast, and we’re about to head out for a day of wandering around in Asakusa. Here are some more random thoughts and observations, in no particular order:

Tracie read my last posting and pointed out that we didn’t actually take the subway–we took the train. Japan has a subway system, a train system, and a rail system. The distinction between the latter two isn’t readily apparent, and all three share stations to some extent. Yes, it can be confusing.

Tracie also says that the name of the station is Hase Station, but that isn’t the name of the area in which the Great Buddha resides.

Beverage vending machines are ubiquitous, both in Tokyo and in the smaller areas we’ve visited. You can find one on just about every block, and several near any attraction. They dispense both hot and cold beverages, including soft drinks, beer, coffee, tea, and water. No, I still haven’t tried Pocari Sweat yet.

You can’t predict how much English any given person will speak. There doesn’t seem to be much correlation to age or gender, although most people seem to speak at least a little. On the other hand, we haven’t yet had a serious communication-based problem; it’s actually rather remarkable how quickly we’ve been able to do what we need to do with only a few words, hand gestures, and fingers pointed into a guidebook.

Japanese kids tend to be so cute that you just want to pick them up and squeeze them. Obviously we refrain from doing so. They also tend to be well-behaved and we have yet to see one pitching a fit in the manner that contemporary American children to do when they don’t get things exactly their way.

Engrish is everywhere, particularly on T-shirts. (See Engrish.com if you’re not familiar with the term.)

We’ve already started bowing, without any conscious decision to do so. People smile at us when we do it. I’m not sure whether it’s because they’re touched that we’re making the effort or amused by our inept attempts.

People smile a lot in general. People also seem remarkably relaxed.

Kamakura

For the moment I’m not going to try to catch up with the end of yesterday’s activities because there’s too much to cover today.

Today our main goal was to see the Great Buddha (called Daibutsu in Japanese), a 11-meter tall bronze statue of Buddha near Kamakura. This excursion involved our first encounter with Tokyo’s famous subway system. We took a taxi from the hotel to Tokyo Station. Tokyo Station is not Tokyo’s largest subway station but it’s a little hard to imagine a larger one. It seemed quite vast and the steady flow of humanity (even on a Sunday) was almost mind-boggling. At first it was all a bit overwhelming and we quickly decided that we really didn’t know where we were supposed to go to find the rail line described in our guidebook, but it didn’t take long to find a helpful young clerk at the ticket office. He pointed us in the right direction even before Tracie finished phrasing the question. After that it took several escalator rides and only a minor amount of puzzlement to find our way onto the right train. read more