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'

m

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!