More Tokyo Adventures
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2007
1
17
24
Trip End
Nov 14, 2007
Tokyo,
Japan
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
On Saturday, rain was forecast, and we decided to do a museum day. Well, we lucked out and it had cleared up; we had a dry, sunny, beautiful autumn day.
First we went to Meguro, an area not well known to tourists in the SW part of the city. The reason for this little excursion was to see the Meguro Parasitological Museum, something we read about in our guidebook. It was supposed to be totally gross and weird, and we're into that kind of off-beat thing. It ended up not being much to get excited about - a small place, very little signage in English, and no really gross exhibits
8 meter-long tapeworm
. If you like that kind of thing, we heartily recommend the Anatomisches Pathologisches Museum in Vienna ... now THAT's an amazing place! While in Meguro, we went to a small Buddhist temple called Daien-ji. It was a very pretty place set in a grove of trees, with Jizos and statues of 500 Buddha followers. We also saw 2 of the cutest little girls in their kimonos learning to walk in their wooden platform thongs. It was definitely worth walking around this different part of the city.
We went to the Imperial Palace gardens. It's a big, peaceful park in the middle of the city financial district. You can't see any of the current palace buildings. There's the old Edo castle moat and some remnants of walls and of the main keep.
Then it was on to Ueno Park and the Tokyo National Museum. The park is really pretty - and well used by residents. On a nice day like this, there were lots of people out, street musicians, vendors, etc. There are an amazing number of museums in Ueno Park, along with several temples and shrines. Tokyo National Museum is fantastic - I highly recommend it, and I'm not usually a big museum person. Its focus is Japanese art history, with religious articles, statues, tea sets, painted screens, calligraphy, armor, etc. It's a very nice collection, not overwhelming since they select only a few pieces to display, have nice explanations, and some of the best, well-lit displays I've seen.
The Ameyoko arcade outside the Ueno station is quite a place - lots of people, vendors, interesting merchandise of all types
Tiny Kimonos
. We had fun walking around there, and ended up eating tapas at a Spanish restaurant. They had menus in Spanish, English, and Japanese. We had fun trying to speak Spanish with the wait staff ... Gambas con ajillo? Hai! Domo arigato! Monday was another nice day. We took a river cruise to the Hama-rikyu detached garden, a former Tokugawa estate. Afterwards we walked through Tsukiji fish market ... an amazing place! Even though it was 11:00 and they were almost through cleaning up for the day, it was still an impressive sight. To really see it in action you have to get there at 5:30-6:00 AM. Bernd did that when he was staying in Tokyo earlier this year. Over 2,000 tons of fish are sold daily! Over $4 billion per year.
We visited Meiji-jingu (Meiji Shrine), a big, very important Shinto shrine located in a huge forested park. It has been reconstructed with authentic original huge cedar torii and unpainted buildings. It's very pretty and peaceful in the middle of the city. One thing that strikes me over and over is these beautiful big trees and huge parks surrounded by skyscrapers - interesting contrast. Because it was such a nice day, we walked to west Shinjuku - the heart of the skyscrapers - and went up to the observation deck on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Office Buildings. It's quite a sight to look out over the city.
Finally, we met up with 2 of the university students from our earlier visit for a dinner of shabu-shabu. You cook meat (pork in this case) and vegetables in broth at your table, and then dip them in various sauces. It was delicious! And wonderful to go with someone who speaks the language and suggests what to order. We had a great time with our new friends - fun conversation and delicious food.
