Old Tokyo
We set off on foot today, past Nicholai Cathedral — Tokyo’s Russian Orthodox church. Sadly its opening hours didn’t fit in with our plans, so we could only look at it from the outside.
We had a “morningu setto” at the “New York Cafe” - bagel, coffee and “sweet potato pie horn”.
We walked North, stopping to find our first shrine of the holiday — Yushima Seidou, a Confuscian shrine, apparently. Here, we learned how to pay respects at a shrine: wash your hands and rinse your mouth in the holy water, offer a coin, strike the gong, bow twice, put hands together in prayer, clap twice, bow once more, step away backwards.
We kept walking North and all but stumbled upon the larger Shinto shrine, Yushima Tenjin. Here, university students hang wooden tablets in their hundreds, praying for good exam results.
Before coming to Japan, we both invested in laceless shoes, the better to slip them on and off when propriety demanded bare feet. Two shrines down, and we’d had no need to remove our shoes. This investment had better not have been in vain!
Some hilly streets and steps took us on to Ueno’s Ameyoko arcade — a bustling market area, very similar in atmosphere to Birmingham’s Rag Market, or the old Bullring markets — except with more dried fish stalls. There were lots of watches for sale, and DVD stalls, bags, shoes and clothes. We were surprised at the lack of bargains: DVDs were not cheap, and we saw 12,000 yen trainers and 35,000 yen leather jackets.
The other end of the market was right next to Ueno park. This is sakura central, and sure enough, it seemed as if half the city was there to sit under the cherry blossom eating their lunch in groups. In the breeze, there was a constant flurry of dropping petals. So much so, that it was hard to see how the trees weren’t bare yet, but they were not. The trees were thick with petals. Children ran around trying to catch petals, in order that their wish
might come true. One petal landed in Debbie’s hair, which must surely bring good luck?
There is a Buddhist shrine in the park. Once again, there was no need to remove any footwear.
Near the park’s grand fountain, we heard the sound of an accordion, and laughing. As we approached, a street performer in a voluminous purple gown stopped playing her accordion, and moved on to a performance in which she sang opera, while inflating balloons for balloon animals between lines. It was amusing to see how quickly the crowd dispersed when she brought out a hat for donations.
We found our way to the metro station, to our surprise, it was right where we’d entered the park, although it didn’t feel as if we’d walked in a circle.
We took the metro a couple of stops, to Asakusa. Leaving the station, we were thrown directly into a tourist-oriented market. Fortunately, not all tourists are gaijin, so we were not entirely surrounded by English people, Americans and Germans. Many of the stalls had a distinct souvenir orientation. I will admit to buying some trinkets.
Here, we found a welcoming conveyor belt sushi bar. We have become good at navigating these establishments - asking for wasabi, water, the bill like pros.
Fourth shrine of the day: Chingodou-ji. This was Shinto shrine to tanuki: raccoon dogs with enormous testicles, apparently.
Immediately next door to the Chingodou-ji, Sensou-ji is a Buddhist shrine, and an important one at that. We admired a number of Buddha statues, a complete set of Buddhist protectors (which one you get depends on your birth year), surrounding a large golden Kannon. I later learned that the whole temple is based around a golden image of Kannon fished from the river in 628AD. That image has stayed put since then, but we didn’t see it and by all accounts it’s only 6cm tall. The temple area also houses a huge pagoda, and oodles of incense. We didn’t need to take our shoes off, although we did see some
abandoned shoes near some tatami mats in an area that didn’t seem to be appropriate for tourists to visit.
We walked on, past a decrepid looking fairground, to Kappabashi-dori, the catering supplies district. Normally when visiting a city, I feel no need to visit its catering wholesalers, but in Tokyo this is the plastic food district. This is where they sell the realistic looking noodles, sushi, spaghetti bolognese, and so on, that Japanese restaurants display outside their establishments to lure you in. We treated the street as a museum. The
items are hand made, and even an individual sushi piece will set you back over 1,000 yen. Wrap that around a USB flash drive (as some enterprising shops have) and you’re talking over 6,000 yen.
As we browsed Kappabashi-dori, it began to rain. That was OK, we had umbrellas. We took the metro back to Akihabara. Emerging from the metro, there was a thunderclap. It was bucketing it down. Within half a street, our trouser legs were drenched (but we still had umbrellas for our top halves). We returned, bedraggled, to the hotel.
After kimono hour, during which I had a hot half-length double-depth bath, the rain had stopped. We decided we should try the high-end Japanese burger chain “Mos Burger” before leaving Tokyo tomorrow. We returned to Ikebukuro where we thought we had seen one. This didn’t really work out. When we couldn’t find a Mos Burger, we settled on low-end Japanese burger chain “Lotteria”. It was OK, but far from a gourmet experience. It was fast, at least, meaning we could get home (via Muji, for some pants to avoid laundry) to pack ready for a quick checkout tomorrow morning, when we have a train to catch.