Running and Planning!

 I woke up around 6 this morning, which is exceptionally late for our first morning in Japan. The jet lag usually makes it hard to sleep through the night, but the exhaustion from the past week apparently had one good side effect, in that I slept almost the whole night through. Still, I was late getting out for a run (6:30) in 80ºF heat (26.7ºC) and 80% humidity. Tomorrow I'm going to talk about the really nice running route that I do every time we stay in Asakusa, with pictures, but suffice it to say it is a great path in the middle of such a big city. 

At the end of the run, I...forgot how close the ryoukan was and kept running down Kappa Bashi Hondori, one of the main roads through Asakusa and where the Shitamachi Tanabata Festival parade will be this Saturday. They already have the decorations up

The end of the route. The sign reads "Shitamachi Tanabata Festival"

The entire street is lined with decorations for 1.2 miles

Tanabata is baed on an ancient Chinese celebration known as the Qixi festival that dates back about 2600 years. The original Qixi festival is a celebration of romantic love and the mythological tale of The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, two star-crossed lovers who only can meet on "The 7th day of the 7th month (Qixi)". The Japanese started celebrating Tanabata ("The seventh night") around 800AD, mixing some of the Chinese lore in with Shinto lore and the Obon Festival, which was then celebrated on the 15th of the seventh month. The result was Obon was moved to August 15th for most of the country once Japan moved away from the lunar calendar in favor of the Gregorian calendar during the Meiji era and Tanabata became the big July festival, celebrated on July 7th (7-7) and includes Obon dances as well as parades and other traditions.

One of those traditions is tying a piece of colored paper with a wish written on it (a tanzaka) to a bamboo tree. Well, there are no bamboo trees in the middle of Tokyo, so what the city has done is tie some bamboo branches to light poles as makeshift bamboo trees. Seriously.

A fake Tanzaku tree

I'll write more about Tanabata when the celebration begins, but it's a neat story and we're lucky enough to be right in the heart of Shitamachi when it's going on this year. The Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri is one of the largest in the country and lasts a few days, with parades, dances, and taiko perforances in the streets. 

Anyway, I was enjoying the scenery so much I kept going and realized about half a mile down the road that the ryoukan was back at the banner I had taken a picture of, so I ended up with a 7 mile run. After getting back I hit the shower. The showers at the ryoukan only have two settings: Cold and Hot. It is either not heated at all, or at least 37ºC (~100ºF). So being as overheated as I was from the run, it was a cold shower before we were ready to head our for the day.

We started by going to Sumi's favorite bakery, Anderson's. Again no pictures because despite being awake, our brains had not yet adjusted to Japan time. They had some very good seasonal apple tarts and one of my favorites, a walnut bun. We sat in Anderson's for a while and began planning what we're going to do the rest of the trip. Normally we would have the entire trip planned before we arrived, but this time we only had two major activities planned: The Osaka Expo and a shopping trip to Suwa Crafts (Suwakoegei) a taiko manufacturer that has a shop at their factory and has very good prices, but they do not ship internationally, so we can only purchase from them in Japan and bring them back ourselves.

We found a handful of interesting things to do in Tokyo that we have not done before, including teamLab, a permanent art installation in Tokyo (actually they have two separate, unique installations now in Tokyo). I added the link because it's kind of difficult to describe, but it's digital experiential art that surrounds you as you walk through the exhibit. There is also a road right off the Ochanomizu train station that is nothing but musical instrument shops. How I have missed that for the last 15 years of visiting Tokyo I don't know, but I'm definitely going to check it out this time around. And finally, in Osaka while we are there for the Expo, Drum Tao has a series of performances on their "The Wadaiko" tour. They will also be in Tokyo, but those show are already sold out. So we grabbed two tickets to next Thursday's evening show.

Buying tickets in Japan is not like in the US. The venues themselves do not necessarily sell the tickets, but a number of third party vendors do, each with their own specific rules and restrictions. None of them take foreign credit cards or payment services, so the only way you can purchase tickets as a foreigner is to buy them through a Lawson convenience store. Basically you put an order in for the tickets through the ticket vendor and they hold the tickets for you for a few days. You then go to a Lawson store and use their kiosk (called Loppi) to claim the tickets. Then you go to the counter where you can use your foreign credit card to pay for the tickets. While there were some "English" instructions (on-demand machine translated from the Japanese instructions), good luck doing this if you have no knowledge of Japanese and/or are not familiar with convenience stores over here.

We also took a trip out to Nakano Broadway, a shopping center with a ton of anime/game stores. We had never been there and it wasn't all that great if you're not heavy into miniatures or manga, but there were some neat collectibles and used stuff on display. There was also a very familiar ramen shop just down the street by the station.

Ichiran has ruined American ramen for me

I've written about it before, but Ichiran is tonkotsu ramen with the gimmick that you never have to interact with anyone your entire time there. You pay for your initial order at a vending machine and get tickets. You then sit at a counter that has dividers between all the seats, so you have privacy. You write down how you want your ramen prepared on a form provided at the counter. Then, the server, who sees you via a video feed in the kitchen, comes and takes your order. You only ever see their hands when they take the order and bring the food. The bamboo curtain is lowered the rest of the time, so it's like a private noodle cubicle. In our picture above, you can see that Sumi and I opened our divider up so we could eat "together", which is a option at some of the Ichiran locations. It is the best ramen I've ever eaten outside of Kyuushuu, where this type of ramen comes from. Big caveat though, most ramen uses a miso or fish base and often includes seafood. Tonkotsu is a pork broth, so they are completely different kinds of meals. If you like your ramen to taste like the ocean, this may not be for you.

After a fruitless search at Yodobashi to find a cute (read: Hello Kitty) personal electric fan for Sumi, we headed back to Sensouji for dessert, where in the temple shopping road there is a stand that makes daifuku and soft cream (ice cream) using fresh strawberries. In 90ºF (32ºC) heat, this was the best possible dessert.

Prepping for the festival this weekend, the temple had put, of all things, astroturf down where there is usually raked pebbles, probably to reduce the dust kicked up by tourists, and an additional mister on the west side of the temple. They have a large, permanent mister on the east side that looks like a gazebo. This one looked....a little less elegant

Even the Buddhists have corporate sponsors these days

But it felt quite good after a day of walking around. After dessert, we walked back to the ryoukan via Orange Road, a historic area that was one of the biggest theater districts in all of Edo. Because this is Japan, no cultural landmark would be complete without it's own mascot. We've posted about Orante-kun before, but he is turning up more and more.

Orante-kun helping with the mail

Back at the ryoukan, we struggled to stay awake as the weight of the jet lag hit us. Tomorrow is our day to head up to Saitama and meet up with fellow Hibiki members Manami-san and Maika-san and go taiko shopping at Suwakougei!

Kappabashi mascot glamour shot. What's with the mailboxes around here?

And suddenly, we're back in Asakusa!

The title says it all! The summer has been a whirlwind of work and gigs and before I knew it, I was driving back from our gig in Cleveland on Saturday night with less than two days to get everything ready for the trip. Luckily we've done this a few times so we quickly had everything packed and ready by Monday night.

Unlike previous years, we didn't drive to Chicago and fly direct because, somewhat incomprehensibly, a flight from Milwaukee with a transfer through Chicago was significantly cheaper. That being the case, the trip to the airport was trivial, the transfer was as easy as walking to the next terminal, and the flight was mostly uneventful. I say mostly because when we got there our names were on a "Please come to the check-in counter" list. We went to the counter, like students who just got a "See me" on their last test, and were told we were assigned seats in the exit row, so they have to verify that we can be in the exit row before boarding.

On balance, since the plane didn't crash, being in the exit row was mostly positive, as I had leg room for the first time ever. The only downside is that there is nowhere to stow things like tablets and phones if you aren't actively using them, so we were basically sitting with a lap full of electronics the entire flight. One added bonus is that small children are not allowed in the exit row, so it was a pretty quiet flight as well.

ANA has partnered with Pokémon to get people to watch their safety videos. This was the first time I think I've seen Sumi actually watch the pre-flight safety video to the end. It's a smart way to keep people engaged, I think.

Arrival and customs went very smoothly, partially because it was a Wednesday afternoon and there weren't many people there, and partially because Japan has a new online declaration form that gives you a QR code. Scan the code, they scan your face and fingerprints, and you are through in a matter of minutes. In fact, most everything went that way. Getting the SIM card for our pocket WiFi was fast, it worked immediately with good speeds, getting tickets for the Skyliner into Ueno was fast. The only hiccup we had was something happened with the Suica app (the train payment app). Mine disappeared and Sumi's didn't scan properly. But we managed to get it working for the short subway ride to Tawaramachi station, which is about 800m from our hostel, the Taito Ryoukan.

Taito Ryoukan is a true hostel, not like Toukaisou, with only shared bath and showers and the building feels about 100 years old. The doorways are all about as tall as my chin, the bathrooms are so small I can barely turn around, But it's clean, it's right in the middle of Asakusa, and most importantly the room has good AC. 

We stayed awake long enough to trudge down the block to the FamilyMart and grab a konbini shokuji, a convenience store meal, and feast on yogurt, white bread, ham, and a small Chip Star. No pictures because....I was so tired I forgot. Finally the days of no sleep caught up to us and we crashed hard.