Museums and Parfaits - Ueno and Shibuya

It's Sunday already! Only six days left!

Since Monday is the day that all the museums and such close, we decided to head out to the Nation Museum in Ueno today. They are holding a special exhibit of several hundred pieces from the Palace Museum in Beijing. Having seen the Palace Museum in Taiwan, I was looking forward to it. First, we took a stroll through Ueno Park for the first time since arriving.

Toshogu, a shrine for Ieyasu Tokugawa, first Shogun of the Tokugawa

A small Buddhist temple. There used to be a much larger temple with a Daibutsu (large statue of Buddha), but it was destroyed in the Boshin Civil War in 1868.

Two things of interest here: A real miko (A shrine maiden. Young women who work at the temple. Anime otaku go nuts for that kind of thing for some reason) and the temple in the background...is fake. It's just a cloth backdrop. Why? I don't know.

  After our walk, we headed to the National museum. Ueno Park houses many museums, including the National Science Museum

the Museum of Western Art

the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art

and so on. When we arrived at the National Museum, we got our tickets and were informed it would be a 40 minute wait to get into the special exhibit. We figured it just wasn't being opened to us yet. We didn't realize

that half of Tokyo was also going to the exhibit this morning

 We had to line up outside for close to an hour before being allowed in.

The Sky Tree. People around us were commenting about it, as well.

Once we were in, it was very crowded. It took use quite a while to get through the exhibit (close to two hours) mostly due to the incredibly slow pace most museum-goers were shuffling. I happen to enjoy taking my time at museums, reading the information and viewing most, if not all, of the exhibits, much to Sumi's dismay. These people were trying, I think, to glean some heretoforth unknown pearl of wisdom from a cracked three thousand year old stone pot. I've never seen such lack of motion. The exhibit was very interesting, however. Wonderful paintings and artifacts. Some scrolls that spanned over 100 feet with a single, continuous painting, in great detail, of an emperor's visit to a town. Well worth the trip and even the excruciating pace.

After escaping the special exhibit, we spent another hour at the main hall looking at the permanent exhibits before being all museumed out. It was two o'clock, and lunch was calling. After wandering through the station a bit, we decided to try a gyoza restaurant I had heard of from YUI's and Hishashi Kondo's blogs, called Oushou (the king piece in shougi, Japanese chess). We located one down the street and dug in

Gyoza, prok fried rice, ramen and pickled vegetables

The gyoza was as good as they said it was. Excellent with good sauce and not very greasy. The rest, not so much. Not bad, by any means, but no flavor. The ramen had spaghetti noodles and bean sprouts (?). Well, they only commented on the gyoza in their blogs, and I see why. Still, it was filling and worth the trip. I'd definitely return for a gyoza bento (10 gyoza and rice).

After the mediocre food, we needed some good dessert. Sumi's favorite cafe, The Wired Cafe, had changed their menu, and with it removed her favorite parfait . This was a serious problem that needed resolving. I wanted to visit Tower Records in Shibuya anyway, so we hopped the train to the opposite end of the city in search of some YUI albums I had been waiting to buy until we got here (one saves a lot of money on shipping if one is already in Japan) and a good parfait to ease her loss. Tower Records was a big success. I scored two limited edition CD+DVD sets, including her new album and Sumi bought what looks like a terrible collection of remixed older songs with a thumping beat perfect for running called Tokyo Marathon Music 002, implying both that there was already a 001 and that they are planning on 999 of them. Wonderful.

The search for the perfect parfait proved to be a bit more challenging. Shibuya is a mess of non-parallel streets, neon (now a lot of LCD screens), shops and people.

Trying to look at all the plastic food and menus while dodging the traffic was difficult, and it seemed no one had a parfait. There were many desserts, some that looked like fruit and whipped cream on top of a loaf of white bread. After almost twenty minutes of searching up and down the back streets of Shibuya I thought I had a good shop. It was called Strawberry Jam, and have a sign with strawberries adorning it and the word "sweet" in Japanese (amai). Unfortunately, there was also a sign saying "$75 per hour". Probably not the parfait we were looking for.

In yet another moment of irony (this trip has had it's share), we finally found the plastic parfait we had been scouring Shibuya for! In a chain family restaurant called Cafe Gusto, with what looks like a million locations in the Tokyo Metro area, including one about six buildings down from our hotel...and here we are on the polar opposite side of town, searching for half an hour. Ah, well, getting there is half the adventure, right?

There were no complaints

Cafe Gusto also sported a nice Drink Bar. In the States, many fast food places have a self-serve soda fountain, You buy a soda and can refill all you want. In Japan, they improve on this idea. You buy the Drink Bar, which gives you a tiny glass that you can refill with any drink at the bar, which includes soda, juice, tea, coffee and cocoa. So if you are the kind of person who likes juice or tea with your meal and a cup of coffee afterwards, you only need to buy the Drink Bar, and you are all set.

Full and happy, we took the long train ride back to Asakusa (about 35 minutes) then walked back through teh temple grounds, where people were tearing down all the stalls and tents that had been set up for the last week. Apparently there had been some festival going on, which explained the number of people. It was quieter than it had been all week, and was quite peaceful.

Tomorrow being Monday, I'm not sure what we'll be able to do, as much of the tourist things close down. We'll see what happens. For sure, though, the best Indian food in Tokyo is waiting for us in Meguro.