Day 8 - Templed out in Temple Town

Ok, so here's the deal. You get a fancy schmancy travel agent to organise you a holiday to somewhere you know next to nothing about but want to explore in a genteel manner.  You flick through your itinerary somewhere above Russia at 35000 feet and completely disregard the note in the itinerary that mentions they've organised a tour of a certain city for you. A walking tour to boot if you'll excuse the pun dear reader. And then, in the middle of the night when you need a wee, you suddenly wonder whether the new day ahead is that day, and blow me down, it surely is.  A full day walking tour of Kyoto. Yikes. With my foot in the state it's in? Insanity that I should have put a stop to if only I'd woken up a day or two sooner.  However, it's the worst manners in the world to not show up to a reservation in Japan - be it restaurant or appointment or whatever, so dutifully like the polite people we are, we presented ourselves at 9am sharp to reception to meet Yoshiko who was our guide for the day.  What a lovely charming lady and hey! she had near perfect English! I would have been happy to just sit and talk to an adult (sorry Carlos) for the day let alone be shown bits of historic Kyoto about which I knew next to nothing. Yoshiko was organised, spritely and very earnest. Off we set to 'do' the major temples to the west of the city.

A good luck talisman on a subway train, a gift from a train driver in Tokyo

I can't do a recital of facts. I really can't. I can't even tell you the names of the temples/castle we visited because the tickets and brochures are in my bag and I'm sat here with a beer on unable to walk even as far as my bag. So you'll just have to pester me with your thirst for knowledge at some point in the distant future when all I want is to share a cup of miso soup and a tofu sandwich with you and to pore over the volume of useless information I have collected.  I just know that shoguns and emperors lived in palaces and temples and the shoguns fell out with the emperors and took control of the regions and the nation, and the shoguns in Kyoto were quite aggressive warlords and there were ninjas involved and they do exist, and one of the shoguns banished the emperor from Kyoto then got sad that the emperor died of the indignity and the shogun felt bad. Oh and the current imperial family is 125th of their line and they planted trees a lot at one of the (many) world heritage sites we visited today - what a boon to Japanese society don't you think?  There you go! Japanese history from the 8th century to the present day. Easy huh?  But what I did learn is the following:

• Japan is a democracy with a consitutional monarchy that they wheel out for special occasions. Sound familiar? Dunno if they're as expensive or useless as ours...
• Japanese people are born into Shintoism and die in Buddhism
• There are 96 characters in the Japanese alphabet - two sets of 48 characters each, one written by a man and one written by a woman. The characters have the qualities of softness and roundness for the ones written by a woman and squareness for the men's.
• Japanese people also have to learn a minimum of 3000 chinese characters as they're all combined. The chinese characters came to Japan with the buddhists from China.
• Udon noodles are thick, oily and remind me of worms.  The Japanese diet is seriously starting to pall
• Japanese people are CRAZY about blossom in the Spring and leaves in the Autumn
• It's another country where shoes are clearly a problem inside. There must be a critical school that deals with why this is.
• Temples are Buddhist, shrines are Shinto.
• Kyoto has 42 universities and 2000 shrines/temples
• Kyoto was 4km across when it was founded in the 8th century,it's now 43km across
• Dragons are benign in Japanese lore
• Cranes and chrysanthemums are imperial symbols
• Phoenixes are very auspicious. So auspicious that no one has ever seen one in the flesh (and no, Harry Potter doesn't count)
• In 50 years of operation, Japan Rail has not had one fatality caused by a train accident. 
• Japanese people dress and behave modestly, and do not like their pictures taken in public. Even at their weddings.
• Most temples in Kyoto seem to have burned down, if not once then at least three or four times. It was not explained why this phenomena had happened, Carlos and I wondered whether they were just, you know, very very unlucky. The symbols that they had on the roofs and stuff to ward off fire (shhhh) didn't seem to have worked. Is that something to do with religion being a load of old cock do you think?
• Shinto has some 8 million gods (whilst we're on religion) and these are related to everything. So just imagine - whatever you do right or wrong in Shinto, there's a god already there...

So, having scintillated you with that (now not so) little summary of things Japanese/Kyotite, I'll leave you with some pictures. And yes, I am tired, and yes, my heel is killing - running for a randen tram did not help and effectively wiped me out mobility wise at about 1:30pm, and yes, I can take no more eastern inscrutable food and I've unearthed a Tony Roma's rib place and boy am I going. Meat, recognisable salad and no eyeballs. Whoop de do. Pics are captioned-ish but I've seen that many temples and that many gardens today your guess is as good as mine. Oh and we saw maiko and geiko in Gion this afto. They looked about 12 and I have serious concerns about them. But I didn't dignify this with photos as that would have been touristy and crass.... Enjoy the contemplative nature of just some of the 94 pictures I took today.  Oh and did I mention we're going to Tony Roma's for Ribs tonight? No eyeballs, no miso, no nothing except recognisable western style food. Although Carlos reckons there'll be a miso soup course. Grrrrrrrrr...

A temple, made of tons of wood, lacquer and gold leaf.

5 storey pagoda at Golden Pavilion - 36m high (that's another fact)

Lovely schoolgirls who had their pic taken whilst I snuck this in. They were delighted

Write your prayer on the bamboo thing and pay your money and takes your choice

The Kimono Forest at the end of the Randen line just prior to going to another temple

Reflection in some or other templs strolling garden

Garden

Garden with lamp

Just how I feel in the morning

Garden with temple house thing

A dragon in the temple in Gion.

Day 7 - On the road - again. A step back into the Japan of the past

We departed Hiroshima, for me, somewhat sadly as it was the first place in Japan that I felt I connected with. But still, I was excited to move on to Kyoto and find out what the old capital of Japan would be like.  After negotiating Kyoto Station taxi queue and listening to the cab driver huff and puff (well that's what it sounded like and I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking to me...) we found ourselves at the Kanra hotel. Boutique is a word. Comfortable and clean and achingly modern. We settled in for a bit, then decided to be big brave soldiers and brave the mean streets of Kyoto.  We had a map (quite what use that is, I have to say) and we knew where the main drag of shops was, so off we set.  I was quite happy to walk up the street we were on for maybe four intersections, but my companion deemed that the subway was the only way. One stop later - it taking longer to go up and down stairs at each end than it would have done just walking but I shall keep my counsel, knowing nothing - we emerged onto shopping street central! Suddenly we happened upon a little shop whose

reputation preceded it - Tokyu Hands. Carlos did not know what he was letting himself in for when I oh so casually suggested we took a look inside. Four floors (FOUR! Count them!) of tech, craft, bags, kitchen gizmos......It took a very very long time and a great deal of effort to get me out. And no, I'm not sharing what I bought, some of it will be found inside stockings at C-word time :)  One  little point of note here is that he and I have been enjoying the frankly ludicrous use of English like wot she shouldn't be spoken on t-shirts, bags and so on. This label on rather a nice bag in Tokyu Hands is a case in point if you read it carefully it's smutty enough to get me giggling, and everyone in Japan has a ridiculous label like this on their clothes and accessories. It's akin to the couple we saw walking through Temaguchi with the tiniest pram in the world designed for.....their dog who ws being carried by daddy. I just didn't have the cojones to take a pic of them, but you'll get my drift of all the insanity that is both making me despair but making me glad too....

We marched onwards, via Starbucks and a macha frappuccino (no, not me, don't be ridiculous - Carlos) until we happened upon a covered shopping arcade called Temaguchi. Now this has been there since Shogun times and used to be the city's enterainment quarter.  Now it's packed chock full of everything from bars to bookshops to antique woodblock print shops to quirky clothing and shoe shops, Including a Clarks which couldn't be more out of place... Several woodblock prints and a Lenin cap later we happened upon the very personage of the crab above.  Upon checking the menu outside the venerable establishment, it appeared that they did indeed specialise just in crab.  We walked for a little while longer and then decided that the hail of the waving spider crab could not be ignored and in we went.  I won't bore you with the fine details of the 'premium crab set' that we ordered suffice to say it was truly exquisite.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.  Sated on crab with exrta crab in a crab jus we piled into a cab, back to our boutique hotel room and had yet another early night. This Japan lark is exhausting....

Second phase of spider crab attack

Soup. DIY Soup

Charlie horrified at cooking his own dinner. Orange improbableness is clearly visible bottom centre

The ribbish pot at each end of the table...

Sushi course and the gunkan at the top is filled with crab willy

Eyeball. This is the point at which my liking of Japanese food started to falter. It's definitely an eyeball or two...

NB We did not eat the eyeballs. I'm not sure they ARE eyeballs, but they had an eyeball quality to them when picked up/speared with a chopstick. These, the raw crab willies and the orange strangeness on the starter platter were not acceptable. I should point out in hindsight that at this point personally speaking my tolerance of weird food is starting to diminish at an almost vertical rate...

Day 6 - It's 8:15 and that's the time that it's always been

Over the course of my youth and beyond, I learned about the history of WWII and how the Americans ended the war in Japan, but I confess to not thinking too much more about it. It's easy isn't it, when it's not you and yours that have been affected? I can't not be affected any more because I have seen the museum in Hiroshima dedicated to the A-bomb and its victims. I know with absolute certainty that there must never ever be another nuclear strike, however 'justifiable' the politicians of whichever persuasion claim it to be, and from whichever country they come. I haven't been able to stop seeing the images of the shredded burned clothes, the burns, the shadow on the bank step where someone was just disappeared in the blast. And every piece of evidence shown in the museum had a name associated with it. Usually a young person, a teenager of around the same age of my son. Who were just children, doing their duty (and the Japanese have duty inculcated from the earliest age - it's a no brainer to them) and going about their business helping in the war effort instead of being at school, learning. But it didn't matter whether they were clearing bomb sites or sitting in a classroom. Armageddon was launched on their city with the force of a small sun exploding 600 metres above their homes and 350000 people were affected by this one action. The story would have been the same in Nagasaki too. It must never happen again.

Anyway, I have to balance that by saying that Hiroshima is a lovely small city now. The Peace Park and the A-bomb dome are important, critically important, reminders of why we have to stop nuclear weapons, but they don't overshadow the whole experience of the place, they act as punctuation in this lively city. A reminder and a memorial but not a stick by which to beat the public. One lovely thing that I am completely hooked on here are the streetcars. I've obviously got a latent trainspotter geek somewhere in my psyche, and I want to add 'travel every route of every streetcar from end to end' to my 'travel on every Shinkansen class train' holiday.  I've even (oh how sad I hear you cry - get some more sake down you) got some streetcar video porn, but I can't upload it from here, so you'll have to make do with a streetcar photo instead. Phwoarrrr.

Now the streetcars range from really old, vintage style ones (the number 3 line being a particular favourite - one carriage, brown and cream livery and just lovely) to more modern ones mainly I think on the no 2 line from Hiroshima Port to Hiroshima Station, and everything inbetween. They please me immensely and despite Charlie wailing 'please can we get a cab' the answer my dear friends HAD to be non. So we travelled from our hotel in the morning under the JR station to the streetcar terminal. All I would say is that if you ever ask a Japanese person for directions they won't just point and gesture, they'll actually lead you to where you want to be. I like that. Charlie was horrified that I was even asking...

We headed off to the Shukkei-en gardens first of all, whilst we were fresh and I thought there was a chance of getting Cman's assent. The gardens were builit in 1620 by a local lord and were based on the principle of many small vistas being created throughout the gardens.  The Americans put paid to the garden in August 1945, but thankfully it was one of those things that the great and the good in Hiroshima decided to reinstate.  Autumn isn't quite here yet and the colours that I anticipate and which have only been hinted at around the city are not in their full magnificence. However here are a couple of photos of the garden which give a flavour of colour and style, and if you know me at all, you'll know it made me very happy for an hour or so to be wandering around here...

Once I had had my fill of Koi carp (hundreds of them) and gardenness, we headed off to the Peace Park and the A-bomb dome. I've spoken about them already....

You can see the skeletal dome of the building that still stands as a memorial to the bomb through the memorial.

After ono-giri for lunch ( a set of soup, beef croquettes,pickles and rice wrapped in nori in a hand sized triangle 'pouch' - 2 each thereof - times two people, a matche shake for weird boy and a water for me - and all for about 850 yen - about a fiver...) we set off on the street car (natch) for Miyajima, the island with the 'floating' Tori gate.  Now, the weather was stunning, and it was Saturday so one would expect that the world and his wife would be up and at them, but OMG why Miyajima? It's a bit of a way out of downtown Hiroshima, about an hour on the street car (perhaps there are quicker ways of doing it, but who knew?) and once you get there it's tourismo central... You can't take a decent photo of the gate when the tides out because there are people all over the base of it like ants, and you can't well, see or do anything for the  sheer volume of people all eating from the stalls in the covered bazaar and deer fondling. Yes. Deer fondling. And the deer (who are clearly in charge) seem to even want to go shopping...

Bless. And the whole island stinks of deer poo. Not the most pleasant aroma on a hot sunny day....  When I come back, I'm going to ensure that I go there when the tide is in and of an evening just to catch the sunset. It would feel a whole load more serene and meaningful I think...

Anyway, we did enjoy Miyajima, but it was a trek and it was a bit insane. Charlie had a beef yakitori from a street vendor (and is still alive, I've checked) and a steamed beef bun 'unique to Miyajima' (and Asiana the oriental supermarket in Notters - perhaps they didn't realise...) and we hopped on the ferry, hopped on a number 2 street car and headed back, footsore and a bit sunned out to the hotel.  As we passed confidently (now that we knew where we were going...) through the terminal and under the station, I saw this little beauty hanging nonchalantly on a pole, clearly an official waterin can, and thought 'yep, that just about sums how I feel about Japan up. Nuts and somehow deeply weird, but just lovely....' 

Off to Kyoto on Sunday morning. I've decided to be stressed about taking big suitcases on the trains, but hopeful that someone in the history of Japanese tourism has done the same before and we'll be allowed on the train. There ain't a whole load of room for luggage on these sexy trains you know....

Sayonara! I hope you're enjoying my ramblings. I can't wait for a conversation with another living adult who speaks my language. This will have to do for now I guess.....

Day 5 - Least said soonest mended

 

Day 5 was not noteworthy. We were both somewhat jaded from the night in the frozen ryokan shared only with the beetles, and the travel to Hiroshima seemed endless. A long wait for our cases to arrive via the magic carpet service meant we didn't get out there and copped out with a shower, teppanyaki in the hotel and bed.  But, there's a nice picture of two Shinkansens for you (I'm more than a little bit hooked on these beauties. However, I have not got my handy Japan Rail folder near to be able to identify which series these are. They are not the Hikari SuperExpress, or the Sakura SuperExpress. But they are lovely and they are very very fast)

 The high spot of the day, once all the travelling and the suitcase dramas were over (and we had a WASH!) was the view from the Sheraton in Hiroshima - and I managed to catch the sun going down from the comfort of the club lounge. Stunning huh?

Onwards

Day 4 – High speed to slow down

I have long been an advocate of the early start. Being a morning person does help I suppose, but the world has a newness and a freshness to it that the bearing down of the day can only tarnish.  It also means that, in a high traffic buffet, you get the best choice of food, and pretty much as much of it as you like. Dim sum previously unimagined were sitting in the steamer plump hot and fresh, and the previously unseen ham and cheese croissant were still vaguely warm at 6:35am. Hurrah for an early train.  Suitcases sent off on their way to Hiroshima, Charlie and I set off to Tokyo Station for our trip on the Hikari 465 Super Express. This picture isn’t of a Hikari, but what the hell, these shinkansen are things of beauty. I’m already planning a ‘tick all the Japan Rail bullet trains off’ trip…  super polite (natch) railway person who – and get this East Mids trains – stood up and bowed when we entered the ticket office – sorted our reservations for the next couple of trains for us and then gave both of us a celebratory 50^th anniversary plastic sleeve with pictures of all the classes of JR trains on. Bet you’re dead jealous now!  Made the train with shedloads of time to spare, so we indulged in vending machine drinks. Charlie bit the bullet (but not the train) (geddit) and popped a Pocari Sweat whilst I had a white coffee. Now here’s the interesting bit. Pocari Sweat is vile and was instantly binned.  Out of the SAME machine I got a tin can drink of coffee – expecting it to be iced. No sir. I nearly dropped it in surprise. It was warm! Ok, not thermonuclear, but still hot enough to be very acceptable.  We repaired into the shop on the platform, ostensibly to buy a bento box but ended up with rice crackers, squid jerky (!) and some Aussie beef jerky. Well, why not I say!  We watched the people getting the train ready and need I say more. The antimacassars were all changed, each seat hand brushed, all seats turned to face the direction of travel. And this was in cattle class. I suspect in the ‘green carriage’ they were preparing the fatted calf… We all got on the train, very calm, everyone knowing where they were sitting, and on the dot of 9:03 off we sped, out of the Tokyo suburbs and to Nagoya. I should point out that it was still raining, and that there is absolutely, definitely, no such edifice as Mount Fuji. I should know – we reserved seats on the right hand side of the train specifically. I’m just super glad that we didn’t pay extra for a ‘Fuji View’ at the hotel… Dirty liars.

Some hours later, via Nagoya, Nagatsukawa and Nagiso (there’s an ‘N’ theme going on here, clearly) 

with each train getting slower (albeit the last leg to Nagiso was, I swear, a brand new train – it had new train smell and not a mark to be seen on it) we alighted in mountainous, pine decked country and made our way by taxi to Tsumago.

Now Tsumago has  protected status which means that there can be no satellite dishes or aerials or effectively any signs of modernity on show to preserve the sense of how this post town on the Nakasendo Road would have looked previously. It was an important town on the this road because it was at an important cross roads of the Nakasen-do and the Ina-do and it has historic value in being representative of how a post town was in the Edo period. Just for pedantry’s sake it was post town no 42 (counting from Edo) of the 69 post towns on the Nakasen-do. Why that is important I do not know but it feels like the question from Mastermind or the like. Bet it comes up on University Challenge…

Anyway I’m not going to say more. I’m going to let the pictures do the talking, because, dear reader, I have unleashed my beloved D90 again and she hasn’t let me down.  Suffice to say that although it’s a pretty dank grim Autumn afternoon up here in the hills, it evokes the timelessness of the place superbly, and I for one am glad that I’m here.  Whether I’ll feel glad at 3am when I’ve got to negotiate the stairs of the ryokan to get to the loo is another story, but it’s alright – we’re back in a faceless hotel tomorrow night, hopefully reunited with our suitcases. But the efficiency of the Japanese makes me feel supremely confident that I will be.  The only thing I do want to say, and I hope is conveyed in the pictures, is that this place

seems to pay some sort of homage to the seasons - and to nature - represented by the plants and vegetables growing all around and on the buildings and so on. Hence the pictures of them and in this dark Autumn light against a backdrop of wood and tatami, they just seem to glow. .I'm deeply impressed by the contrast between the town and country that I've seen so far - and also by how much in Tokyo they were real foodies, happily naming the prefecture where the kuzu came from, or where the fish was caught. It just makes me desperate to find out more about Japan, and to visit the places where this produce is grown...

Oh, and the killer spider pic is one of the

blighters lurking under the bridge. They're everywhere  and are just a tiny bit smaller than my hand. With stripy legs. Terrifying, but rather beautiful close up. And I don't think they are killers, they just look like they might be...

I’ll tell you more about the ryokan later, but just wanted to make this post whilst I had some quiet time sitting in our bedroom.  Thankfully Charlie found the wifi….

Day 3 - If we wanted weather we'd have stayed in the Shire...

This morning we awoke (eventually Master Jackson) to the tail end of some monsoon or tropical storm and the Skytree Tower had disappeared. So we haven't just lost Mt Fuji (still no sign) but the great big towers are disappearing now.  Thick wet rain, clouds at our level and really like one of those days that you wish you could just hibernate. But no, dear reader, we are English and steadfast. Well sort of. After breakfast - remembered to try the eggs benedict with crabmeat which really was delicious, and fighting, literally fighting, to get any of the dim sum before the salarymen woofed the lot, we footled around before deciding to make a taxi dash for Odaiba Island.  Now, you might wonder, what the...is Odaiba Island? Well, geographically, it's an exercise in how to make more city. Several small islands on the end of Tokyo were joined together with landfill to make a big one called Odaiba Island. No idea why (apart from the obvious - they are desperately short of space!) and they've kind of made it a shrine to nutsness.  Because of the weather being so disgusting, we didn't intend to walk around the whole thing (besides having no idea what that might entail) and headed for Sega Joypolis. Luckily sharp eyed Carlos saw the sign and mentioned it, because Odaiba is deeply weird and a massive conurbation of sorts.  Plus the taxi driver didn't have a single word of English and was just driving around.  Got out, dived out of the rain and entered Joypolis... And I won't tell you about it because largely it involved lots of really really weird Japaneseness. And I let myself be a teenager again and even had a go on some of the rides (all indoor, all really deeply strange) and had probably the WORST EVER MEAL SOLUTION I have ever had. It was a 'chilli dog with cheese' that had obviously been assembled in the late Edo period and left. To its credit it hadn't decomposed during this time, but there is that doctor somewhere in the US who bought a McD in something like 2007 and subsequently, and has left them on the front desk of the practice. They still look edible apparently. You get my drift.  Anyway, we had some fun, we had our runes read (and we will share the fortune tellings with you if you ask nicely - it was done by the mystery forest computer program so it MUST be true) and I went on a mini rollercoaster that went upside down. As did the bobsleigh thingy. And if you know how much of a control freak I am about motion that I am not in control of you'll know that this was a Very Big Deal.  So here are some nutzoid photos and let's just put it down to the weather...

Clearly Japan's answer to One Direction. Now what's the question?

These are those grabby machines - the things they have on offer are insane

Yep, totally insane. This box is about a foot long

And these are just the weirdest characters I've seen I think

Charlie just fascinated by this weird.....game?

Anyway, tonight, our last in Tokyo on this 'outward' leg, sees us gracing the sushi restaurant in the hotel. I'm feeling rather skinned already but I just KNOW that AJ wants us to enjoy ourselves.  And then, early tomorrow morning after breakfast, we head south west to our ryokan for the night (thank god it's just ONE night, I have visions of tatami matting and futons. And snakes ears on toast...) before then going down to Hiroshima for a couple of days. And it'll be our first ride on the Shikansen. At least one that moves, unlike the carriage in the National Railway Museum in York.  I'm heading off for a chocolate martini now to get the evening's proceedings off to a good start, and have just had a fabulous massage after having sat in the jacuzzi looking out from the 37th floor over a very very damp and grey Tokyo. Let's hope there's a little more sun in the south. No breath being held here though, to be brutally honest.

Day Two - Museums and models

A rainy day and still Mt Fuji remains elusive - invisible through the foggy murk.  Breakfast windowside, apparently overlooking said feature, but I'm beginning to wonder whether it's there at all.  Not insanely jet lagged - Carlos slept like a baby and I had a restless bit between 2am and 5am, but we were up and at 'em for brealfast at about 7am.  We decided (largely because the tea was so damned good and we just kept drinking it...) that we were too late to get the main action at the Tsukiji fish market, and instead headed for a 9:30 opening of the National Museum at Ueno Park.  Our first ride on the subway and our first encounter with PASMO cards, their loading and usage at entrance gates. I did not cover us in glory. However the staff on the subway (well the ones that we dealt with!) were so polite it was as if it was their stupidity and not mine that put the card in the wrong hole. Once explained, we were off. Charlie got it in one. I am feeling slightly old and more than a little weary.

The National Museum is sort of spread out around Ueno Park, and although the queue for the showing of the Hokkusai exhibition on loan (British Museum eat your heart out...) from Boston Museum of Fine Arts, wasn't too bad, I didn't fancy standing in the dank weather to see something that I'm pretty certain I saw in Boston anyway. Plus the white colonial apologist inside felt ever so slightly guilty about this. Stupid I know but still.... There HAD to be kimonos and ceramics (me) and weapons and armoury (Charlie) to see without the queuing on a Monday morning didn't there?  Sure enough we ventured quite by chance in to the Honkan Building and hit paydirt. For me this was the perfect size for a museum - enough content to be interesting and yet not so large as to make one feel daunted. Plus, lockers (it is very very muggy here and I'm constantly hot) that we dumped everything into, and free entry for the under 18s! And here are just some of the treasures that I liked and was able to photograph - the only rules for photography in the museum are you can't if the owner doesn't want you to - and the signs against the exhibits make it perfectly clear. Unless you are French and they don't seem to apply. The Japanese share my desire for rectitude in these matters (not counting the cycling on the pavement thing...) and it pained me a very lot.  Anyway, I have taken notes of the owner's names and the badly behaved French people and will be marrying them up pretty soon. That's a joke, but you know what I mean. Anyway, shortly before my iPhone wigged out on me, I took these pics, but believe me, there were an awful lot more that I not only wanted to take pictures of, but wanted to repatriate to Berkely Towers. We'd definitely need a bigger house then, just to hang the kimonos and screens...

Please note that I have no idea how to create a gallery in Blogger. This may or may not become apparent throughout the trip....

One of '32 studies of womens' faces'

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Anyway after that rather amateurish photo show and tell....

We headed down to Shimbashi after the museum for Charlie to pay homage to the Tamiya Models motherlode.  Via the cake shop...

 Where we were invited to 'choose our own animal bread'. I prefer mine made of flour and yeast to be honest...

Ended up in Shibuya - and most people have a mental image of the Shibuya 'scramble' the four way crossing that is heaving with people racing in five or six directions across this busy junction. In any other country I've ever been to (including Nottingham) it would be a life or death gamble. Here in Tokyo? They wait for the green man... 

I wasn't that struck on the little bit of Shibuya we saw - it was like the tacky side of Piccadilly or the like and extremely noisy with pop music blaring out in disharmony along the streets lined with tacky touristy things. But it's very post modern... We did SEE Burget King and McDs both advertising black buns (yes, really) but we felt that was more of a challenge than some of the food we had queried due to our lack of any Japanese character recognition, and we 'braved' it and ended up in a strange 'restaurant' (that's an overstatement) where you paid for your food in the machine outside, and chose your dishes from a pictorial button. And then picked up the ticket, went in, got shouted at (but in  good way) from all the chefs behind the counter as you were pointed to your seat at the 'bar'. And then your food comes up and you realise that you've hopelessly over ordered but hell. Soup noodles and gyoza (and the best ones I've ever eaten - Yo! had better up their game!) are the food of the gods, and like Bovril and Heinz tomato soup should be available on the NHS. Lovely.

Finally giving in to the sheer agony of my injury - and the relentless steps on the subway - we wended our weary way back to our room and almost managed to make my big camera work taking a bulb shot of the view. But, being me, not quite. But from 43 floors up you kind of get the picture...

Loving it here - manic yet calm, crazy yet cultured. I know we'll never even scratch the surface, but Tokyo suits me. Apart from the cyclists - did I mention that - but then it's hard to find anywhere without that particular blight on society I imagine :)

Tomorrow brings I don't know what. The fish market? The museum of the future? The sky tree? Who knows? It'll be fun and will probably involve soup noodles!