Ueno

We took the metro to Ueno this morning to find Evan some jeans and to visit the national museum. For breakfast/brunch we found a big department store with a food hall in the basement. It was an extremely impressive place - comparable to the Harrods or Le Bon Marche food halls - with anything you could possibly want: pastry, sushi, soba, tempura, yakitori, tonkatsu, all kinds of dumplings including siu mai and gyoza, and a market full of ingredients including any seafood product you could think of. I refrained from taking pictures but I couldn't resist one of the most gigantic pile of seaweed known to man.




Evan and Alaina had some gyoza and sushi rolls.
I went up to a yakitori stall and somehow got across to the lady that I wanted her to pick some out for me. They are all different cuts of chicken, but they weren't labeled. The large balls were a bit intimidating... I translated the word later to 'meatball.' They had a pate-like taste, so definitely some type of internal organ in there. It was all good though, particularly with the sweet sauce poured over. I also bought an onigiri with some type of roe in it...pretty good too. (Onigiri is just a triangle of rice stuffed with something and wrapped in seaweed)


Evan took off by himself to find some jeans at some stores he knew about nearby, so Alaina and I walked through the park on the way to the National Museum


We stumbled upon a display of bonsai trees - so pretty.


(Charlie Brown bonsai)



Then came the museum. I didn't take pictures inside. It was nice, if a bit small. They had all sorts of things, like pottery, tapestries, paintings, sculpture, clothing. The most impressive were the laquerware objects inlaid with mother of pearl. You've all seen examples of this before - it's very typically associated with Japan (and was once referred to as 'Japan'), just as porcelain is associated with China.

After that I split up with the others. They went to the island of Odaiba, and I went off to look around Ueno by myself and make a stop in Ginza on my way back to the hotel. In Ueno there is an area that is like a permanent street fair with tons of little stalls with clothing, food, souvenirs, housewares, etc. It was packed with people - mostly locals including kids in their school uniforms. In Ginza I stopped into a few huge toy stores to see if I could find any super-unusual and cool toys or little gifts. The stores were fun, but there wasn't much I haven't seen at home in Japanese specialty shops. Of course I stopped to hug the massive Totoros.

-K

p.s. comment! no, really.

Harajuku, Shibuya, Akibahara

..continued

So after the imperial gardens this morning, we took the metro over to Harajuku to see the Meiji Shrine, a famous Shinto shrine. It has beautiful wooden gates leading up to it, the largest of their kind...



Before going into the shrine you should perform a ritual hand washing

Outside, many people leave prayers on wooden tokens

the entrance gate
the shrine (no pics allowed inside)
Beautiful!


We were already in harajuku, which is famous for trendy young fashion, so we decided to start shopping. I thought these shirts were great
...particularly this one
This is the entrance to Takeshita street, with lots of cheap clothes and accessories stalls, and crepe stands. Almost bought one of those giant hair bows, but didn't. Picked up a tshirt nearby.

um, wha?
We then walked to Shibuya and shopped a bit more, and saw Shibuya intersection (from Lost in Translation, if you've seen it) and the bustling Shibuya station.

I insisted we take a trip up to Akihabara (Electric Town) before dinner, which is the home of electronic and otako (geek) culture. An interesting novelty of this area is the 'maid cafe' - a cafe where you are served by girls in maid outfits. They try to recruit you on the street.
An arcade just like Lost in Translation :0D

For dinner we stopped into a sushi bar. I had some delicious tuna, salmon, and yellowtail sushi and miso soup. I could not believe when my bill came and was only $8. Whattttttt? I would eat this every day.

-K

Ginza, La Qua spa, Imperial palace

Hey guys! Double-post update for you. Please comment if it so pleases you.

Yesterday after the fish market we came back to the hotel to regroup. We decided to go for lunch and some shopping in Ginza, the upscale shopping part of town.

Forgot to take a pic of lunch but it was at a little Korean place in the food hall level of one of the department stores. I had a soup with oxtail and rice, yum. Evan and Alaina should tell you what they eat when they update :0) We weren't allowed to take pics of our sushi breakfast. Actually there are a lot of places where photos are prohibited here...so if you're wondering that's probably why there isn't a photo of something.

A busy intersection in Ginza (the Sony store is behind me..we went in there and saw some cool stuff)


After the Sony store we were feeling pretty beat. We read in the Lonely Planet book about some hot springs, so we decided to give that a try. The place was in the Tokyo Dome complex.




Sadly there were no cameras allowed inside, but let me tell you it was amazinggggg. Here is a photo of one of the baths from their website:


The baths were gender-separated and totally natural (except for a little 'modesty towel.' There are facilities for scrubbing yourself well before entering the water. There were many baths of various temps, and steam rooms and saunas, the hottest being 90C! (yeah that's 194 F)

Upstairs there was a floor of relaxation rooms at various temps with heated floors. Just lay your (regular-sized) towel down, lie on the heated floor, listen to traditional japanese music and drift to sleep..... afterward you will be very hot, so step into the cold room and watch the jellyfish tank for a few minutes!

Downstairs there was a floor of massage rooms, facials, etc, a lounge with comfy chairs and tvs, and restaurants (they gave us special outfits to wear here).

This place was amazing. We spent about 6 hours there, including dinner (I had broiled eel on rice in a hot stone bowl). They didn't care how long you stayed - it was only about $30 for access (not including massage). It was seriously worth a lot more. (6 hours in spa +dinner+20min massage=$60. whaaaaaaa?) I think this will be a highlight of the entire trip...such a cultural experience.

After being pampered for 6 hours we stumbled home and fell into bed, hence no update last night.

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This morning, we wandered around a bit looking for brunch near the imperial palace, which is situated in the center of the city. We found a crowded little area and stepped into a tempura joint for a bite.



My tempura with broth and soba noodles, accompanied by rice wrapped in bean curd, cost about $6. So much food! Beats fast food in our country.

On to the palace. It's only open to visitors 2 days per year, but the outside is pretty enough.





Such pretty bonsai trees!

I'm sure you were wondering how they do that:The east garden of the palace is free to visit - a beautiful japanese-style (duh) garden


-K

Tsukiji fish market

We woke up at 4am to go see the world's largest fish market. Earlier this month they started restricting access to the tuna auction, and unfortunately it was sold out by the time we got there. We still wandered around the wholesale area (where we weren't really supposed to be) and I snapped some pics as we hurried along the aisles. There was every sea creature you could imagine....

Tuna, of course (maguro)

Shellfish of all kinds, like these (whelk?)
Uni (sea urchin)
Little fishies
More shellfish (scallops, clams...)
Itsy bitsy squid
All the different cuts of tuna
Even more teensy fish for flavoring
All kinds of fish including snapper (the red ones)
Octopus
Fish...the price in dollars is pretty much yen/100


Octopus!
Ebi (shrimp)

I also saw sea cucumber and geoduck which I have seen people cook on top chef :0)

We ate fish from the market at a little sushi place nearby. And on the way back to the room I got a bottle of Calpico. Heaven.

Well it's only 8am so we are going to regroup and go explore!

-K