• Date: 2013-03-13
  • Position: A Train to Chichibu
  • Speed: More than 0 kph
  • Heading: North ish
  • Air Temp: 8C
  • Wind Speed: -
  • Cloud: -
  • Prep: -
  • SST: -
  • SSS: -

Food

Breakfast occured rather late, I had katsu kare (Curry) rice. It was pretty awesome. Dinner was some omuriasu, which is rice that has been made with ketchup and wrapped in egg (hence the omu part). Whoever had been warning me about the small portion sizes in Japan was lying occured rather late, I had katsu kare (Curry) rice. It was pretty awesome. Dinner was some omuriasu, which is rice that has been made with ketchup and wrapped in egg (hence the omu part). Whoever had been warning me about the small portion sizes in Japan was lyingg

Journal

I decided that today I would take the train north to Ueno and visit the park there. Navigating the trains has been no issue, and it was only 3 stops north of Kanda. The park itself was very large, and I think I spotted a zoo. The buds on the cherry trees looked like they were about to burst open. A few of the trees were just starting to bloom, which were quite popular with the photographers in the park (myself included).

I visited the Tokyo National Museum that is in the park. There, many artifacts from ancient Japan were on display. To me, the most impressive items were the swords and armor. The blades that were on display appeared to be of very high quality (I don’t there enough ‘very’s here would fit a reasonable space). The armor, greatly appaered to be for intimidation rather than protection, as they did not appear to have much in the way of actual protection from sharp fast and pointy things. I still wouldn’t want to meet an ancient Japanese warrior who was pissed at me.

Heading south out of the park, I went by a shinto temple (jinja). Not knowing the procedures, and my strong desire not to offend meant that I did not do any cerimonies. My path took me through some sort of market area. Some impressions, except for the few main roads, the entire place, and really most places I have been so far, are very pedestrian friendly. It’s to the point that people walking almost share the roads with cars and trucks.

I kept going south until I found Akihabara, which I didn’t realize until I was in until I spotted a familiar looking penguin, the Don Kihotte (I can never remember how they romanize it) penguin. Which was my favorate food store in Hawaii. Naturally I went in, inside I had my first real taste of how vertically built Tokyo is, almost every place I’ve gone into has had more than one floor. Don just happaned to occupy the entire building except for the 8th floor, which housed the AKB48 studio. If you don’t know what AKB48 is, just google that one.

I wandered around Akihabara for maybe 4 hours just looking at everything. It was interesting how much “Adult” content there was, especially figurines that are basically naked. Surprising due to pornography being basically illegal here (that is, porn that actually clearly shows anything). The real “haha” moment for me was when I needed to use the bathroom, which the signs on the wall said (in Japanese) that they were on the 7th floor of the building I was in. What I had failed to notice was that that floor was also the “AV” floor, basically a floor filled with what is as close to porn as is legal here. Didn’t matter, had to go.

After some food, I kept walking south toward Kanda with the intent of maybe making it there well after 1700. That didn’t happen, I just kept walking, and by the time 1700 rolled around I was at Tokyo station. Which I wanted to see while not carrying my large bag and trying to figure everything out. It is hard to describe the number of people just rushing about.

Dinner that night was in Kanda near my hotel at a place called “Japanese Cafe”, it was my first time at a place where no one spoke any english. Lucky for me, the menu was mostly in Katakana. Also, whoever was telling me about tiny portion sizes in Japan was either lying, not doing it right.