Rainy season finally arrives in Tokyo

"He's got to make his own mistakes
And learn to mend the mess he makes
He's old enough to know what's right
But young enough not to choose it
He's noble enough to win the world
But weak enough to lose it"

So, the good news is, the rain held off for our entire cycling trip, and the weather was beautiful, if a bit hot. Well, the rains have come to Japan. An inch today, a possible two inches tonight and another inch tomorrow for Tokyo. For us, that just meant we brought an umbrella and didn't go walking in parks.

We started the day by visiting Taikokan, the taiko drum museum in Asakusa, about a mile or so from our hotel. We'd been there before, but this time actually knew something about taiko and were able to look around the store and understand what we were seeing. Upstairs, we were the only visitors at 10AM on a rainy Friday, so we took advantage of the quiet by banging on lots of drums!

Hundreds of drums from around the world

Many of them you can play!

Even this enormous daihiraoodaiko 

Ceremonial Chinese drum set

Sumi was so embarrassed about making such a huge sound

I was too. It was so resonant, you barely had to tap it to fill the room

I feel sorry for the poor attendant in the other room.
Can you imagine a middle school field trip in here?

Afterwards, we hopped on the Yamanote line to the other side of town and my annual pilgrimage to Rasoi!

In the station, new ultra high tech vending machines with touchscreen and animated beverages.
These weren't here last year.

Their signature salad with wasabi sesame dressing 

And heaven! The curry is so good, you could eat it as a soup. The naan is not
too oily, but soft and chewy. 

After enjoying some of the best food in the world, we grabbed another train to Ikebukuro and went for a walk in Sunshine City. It was really starting to rain, at this point, and we were glad most of the way was underground. We stopped at the Sanrio store and the Ghibli store in the very appropriately-named section called "Moe Garden"

Pronounced "Mow-ay", no direct translation to English, but "cute beyond belief"
gives a general idea.

We didn't really buy anything, as most of the things we would have liked we had no way to take back with us, but enjoyed the window-shopping. On our way back, we saw the performance area was buzzing. In Atre, a section of Sunshine City, there is a stage on the first floor that they hold some form of performance on a weekly, and often daily, basis. We've seen idol groups, children's song performers, once there was a hands-on crafts demonstration. This month they are celebrating Okinawan culture in the mall, and so all the performances were Okinawan. Today was a guitar and wooden box duo.

OK, he also had a cymbal and wind chimes.

They played some apparently well-known Okinawan songs, and were good. The songs were rather basic and, at times, silly, but the crowd was clapping along, singing along and when the singer missed a few words, laughed and pointed at him. It was all in fun, and a good time.

After watching them for a while, Sumi went on her pilgrimage to Tokyu Hands. They really do have useful stuff, as well as silly things. I stocked up on notebook paper, replaced my wonderful pencil that I lost near the end of the semester and got eraser refills. I am totally the life of the party. Sumi raided the stationary and cute section. That's probably not what it's called, but that's what I call it.

Finally, we headed back towards the station, stopping at a Book Off on the way and scoring some more cheap books and a not-so-cheap taiko DVD. When we got to Ueno, we checked out one of our old favorites, the Wired Cafe, to see what was new on their ever-changing menu. They had brought back their parfaits!

Its a good thing we don't live in Tokyo, we'd weigh 300 pounds.

 We decided to walk back to the hotel from Ueno Station, as we had done that many times when we last stayed in Asakusa, and it was a nice way to relax after a meal. Of course, it wasn't pouring the last time we made the walk. We took mostly back streets, thanks to the security of good GPS on our phone, and got to see more of Tokyo that we hadn't seen before, which was nice.

Getting back to the hotel only a little wet, we checked out the new pile of swag we had obtained.

I did not expect to find all of these for less than $5 each!

Hello Kitty, taiko and Hello Kitty playing a taiko. Sumi was in heaven! 

Sumi stationary and little stickers that you put on your iPhone/iPad start button
to make it not concave. Apparently this is a thing that out of touch people like us
had never seen, until our rental phone had one.

Instructional books for taiko and shinobue.
And a used DVD of Kõdõ, a famous taiko group.

I think I had said in my last blog entry that we were done buying stuff for ourselves. Yeah, I lied. But we're really done now. We can't fit anything else in our bags!

Tomorrow, we're off to Kansai to see Himeji castle, if it's not raining too much, and then meet up with a friend who was one of our first Japanese teachers, Suzuki Junko-san in Nishinomiya!

楽しみ！

Suwakougei and Playstation Goodness

"Under the gaze of the angels
A spectacle like he's never seen
Spinning lights and faces
Demon music and gypsy queens"

We awoke after a very good night's sleep(the longest since we arrived) and got ready to head out to Saitama. It was then that I was reminded how spoiled we were with enormous rooms and facilities during our trip. Our room was fine, clean and nice, but the bathtub is so narrow I have to shower sideways or my shoulders don't fit. There is a wireless remote for the toilet out of necessity, as there's no room to attach one to the actual toilet. None of this is bad, just a reminder of life in Tokyo.

Our first stop was good old Ueno Station for breakfast at Andersen's Bakery

Construction meant we couldn't eat in the store, but the bread and
pastries were delicious, as usual!

then we boarded the JR Takasaki line for an hour long ride out to suburban Saitama

The "mean streets" of Saitama

where we were looking for Suwakougei, a taiko manufacturing company that sells taiko instruments and accessories at a lower price than you usually see, but the quality is still quite good (at least for us untrained amateurs!). Both Apple and Google maps gave us the wrong place, but we wandered in the general area until Sumi saw their storefront.

The poor salesman who was assigned to us did a good job in showing us what we were looking for and helping get everything taken care of, including shipping to the airport. We are now the proud owners of a shimedaiko and a shinobue! As they were preparing the paperwork and such, we were led to a nice reception area and served tea (how very Japanese!) Afterwards, as we were making our way back to the station (about a 2km walk), the salesman caught up to us in a company van and gave us a ride back to the station. Talk about great service! While we certainly didn't need a ride, it was very appreciated!

Getting back to Ueno, we were hungry and ready for lunch. I had read about a Thai restaurant that we had never seen in Ameyoko (Ueno's "American Alley"), despite having been there many times. We walked past it a few times before finally, with a little GPS help from our phone, spotted the tiny restaurant located on the second floor of one of the buildings under the train tracks.

Very gaudy entrance that looks more like some seedy bar than a restaurant

Upstairs, the ceiling was barely 7' at it's higher points, but the atmosphere was nice and cozy

The sign says "Watch your head", where the AC unit hangs down almost to my chest level

The lunch menu was small, but had a Basil Chicken Lunch Set

Soup, salad, rice, fried egg, chicken and veggie stir-fry and some tapioca-like
ambrosia.

It was quite good, though different from the Thai food we have in Milwaukee, which I actually think is more authentic. I got the feeling they changed the taste a little for their local audience, especially the soup, which had a good dose of bonito flakes, because that's what you ALWAYS use to ruin Japanese soup.

After filling up, it was shopping time! After prying Sumi away from Ameyoko's ultra cheap, counterfeit bags, sunglasses and what have you, we hopped the train to Akihabara. It had been under construction for several years, building a new Yodobashi Camera Co. attached to the station, so we got a bit lost, but managed to find the shops we were looking for, including Book-Off, Hobby-Off, Traderz and Lamutarra, where we made quite a killing!

The entranceway to Hobby-Off, Display cases filled with thousands of figurines and other
collectibles. They change this display regularly!

The back streets of Akiba, where the deals are.
Also where the maids are out advertising their cafes are

I had to get a shot of this classic otaku. Late teens and ten bags FILLED with anime, manga
and video game stuff. He must have spent over a thousand dollars today, and from the
way he and his friends were talking, this wasn't an unusual occurrence.

The REAL back streets of Akiba, where Denki Town got its name, before the otaku culture took over.
This alley goes for almost a quarter mile and is filled with tiny specialty stalls with electronic
supplies of all types. I love this part of Akiba.

After a long day of shopping and walking, we headed back to our hotel as the rain that had been threatening for the last few days finally came in, but not before retracing our steps after going to the wrong hotel yesterday, because as we were searching for our hotel, we had come across a cafe with some good looking parfaits. Luckily, it wasn't hard to find

A display like this is hard to miss

and the real desserts looked just as good as the plastic ones out front!

Getting back to the hotel we surveyed our loot

Some Japanese PS3 games, a PS Vita game, an actual pink PS Vita, all used,
a bag of Rilakkuma charms, a handmade black and red lacquered shinobue (bamboo flute) and
cloth case, some ultra light pine bachi (taiko sticks) and a complementary JTA towel

Missing from the shot is the shimedaiko and stand (and travel cases), a nice Vita case and some cheap sunglasses that actually fit an asian woman's face. Quite a haul today, and most of it second-hand! I still want to visit a few more used book/game stores before we leave, and we will need to make our annual pilgrimage to Tokyu Hands so Sumi can worship the stationary gods, but I think we're pretty much done buying stuff for ourselves this trip.

Tomorrow is looking like more rain, so a perfect day to wander Sunshine City and Ikebukuro, plus MY annual pilgrimage to the Indian curry gods at Rasoi!

Inari-taisha and the Golden Poo

"High on the scared mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air"

Okay, it was June, not autumn, but today, after packing the bikes away and shipping them back to the airport (four bags, all over 35 lbs., for $80!), we went to Kyoto station to get out JR Pass and reserve some seats on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, then headed to the famous Inari-taisha in Fushimi.

Biwako Canal, the first waterway to supply the first hydroelectric power to Japan,
now a national monument and tourist attraction during hanami. It was our
route to the train station from our hotel.

An ancient shrine, dating back to the eighth century and the most visited shrine in Japan, it is mostly known for its thousands of torii, traditional wooden gates painted vermillion. Inari is the god of rice, and the shrine is said to give good fortune to businesses, merchants, manufacturers, etc. So each torii is inscribed with the names of the businesses and people that donated the money for the gate.

The main gate, dating back to the late 1400's

The first inner gate framing the main shrine

Plaque on the first inner gate reads:
Fushimi Inari Taisha

Beautiful painted carvings on the main shrine

One of the fox statue guardians of the main shrine. He holds the key to the
grain shed in his mouth (Inari is the god of rice)

A few more fox guardians. This one has some rice in its mouth

While this little foxy has none

These two are holding a barrel open on both sides. Legend
has it if you throw a pebble in the barrel, it is good luck.
The barrel is full of little pebbles.

The first round of gates!

Many other western tourists were here, as well

They say there are over 10,000 gates in the shrine. I believe it.

The front of the gates just have Inari Taisha written on them

While the back has all the names of the donors

The torii wind through a forest...

...and up a mountain

with many smaller shrines along the way

most have fox fountains to cleanse yourself before praying

except the sword shrine near the top

There is a 4km course that takes you up the mountain and back down.
There were less and less people the higher we went.

After hiking Inari-san and visiting all the shrines, including the inner shrine that dates back to 711, we walked back to the station, took a local train to Kyoto station and boarded the Shinkansen. Three hours later (it was a slow Shinkansen!), we arrived in Tokyo Station! After a short detour to the wrong hotel, because Sumi didn't see the difference between Asakusa and Asakusa-bashi last night when planning this out, we found ourselves walking through Asakusa at night.

The Tokyo Sky Tree, which is actually in Asakusa, and the Asahi Flame, better known as The Golden Poo.

We arrived at our correct hotel and collapsed after a long day of hiking and traveling. Tomorrow we brave the mean streets of Saitama in search of drums and the meaner streets of Akihabara in search of... well, whatever electronic coolness and cute stuff we find!