Edo-Tokyo Museum field-trip and Ueno Adentures!
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2008
1
15
22
Trip End
Dec 21, 2008
Tokyo,
Kanto,
Japan
Monday, October 20, 2008
Last Saturday was the first of many culture courses, entitled Psychology of Japanese People. Despite it's start time of 9 am, the cultural expectations, societal problems, and theories were all very interesting. However, it was most fascinating to apply the contents of the lecture to my experience both living in a homestay and at ARI. May connections were made about people I had met and confusion I had felt as apart of my culture schock. Afterwards, all 30 English-speaking students took the subway to the Edo Tokyo museum in Ryogoku (about 40 minutes from Shinjuku). Here we walked around an exhibit for a few hours learning about the historical city of Edo- now Tokyo. My favorite part was the wood block printing because they are so beautiful! To make an original print, artists carved a new image into the block after every stamp on the paper. There is one picture that I took of a series of wood blocks all used for one image! Also, the early beginnings of manga... Another cool part of the exhibit was that they had pieces of the wood pipe sewer system! It was interesting to learn that there were fires very often in Edo because everything was made out of wood (even the water pipes) and so they had to be extremely careful with fire. There were devastating fires at least every year in the 1700's! This explains a lot about why the city looks the way it does today, I think. Everything is very close together and there is so little room for what is there. After touring the museum, many people returned to their homestays or dorms, and some went book shopping, but I chose to go with some people to Ueno park. It was a very comfortable evening, and we weren't the only ones taking advantage of the nice weather in the park. We saw Temples, statues, lots of foreigners, and street food (yum). Then, at sunset, we were in the middle of the three ponds in Ueno near a huge red temple. The lights of the city were visible beyond the park's perimeter and as the sun descended and the sky turned to night these lights became brighter and thus, Saturday night was born. (haha.) From the park, we found Ameyoko Arcade, which a long street running parallel to the train tracks and FULL of shops, restaraunts, arcades, fruit stands, and bars. It was so busy and it took us a while to digest our surroundings before making a decision about dinner. Directly under the Yamanote train line is where we finally decided to eat, or so we thought... After sitting down at a table, the waitress came and asked us if we wanted some grilled meat. Three of us explained we were vegetarians and she suggested tofu and daikon.After ordering, we were unsure what we ordered but excitedly awaited whatever we thought it was we would recieve. It turned out to just be an appetizer place, with boiled daikon (bitter root that Japanese people eat almost as much as rice), raw slab of tofu with green onions and ginger on top, and grilled motsu (which I later found out was giblets). I did not eat the meat, and this encounter alone is not the only time that my quest to be a vegetarian has saved me from comsuming mystery meat. Boiled daikon was delicious, and with some soy sauce on the tofu... well I it cooked. :)
After this little snack, I bought canteloupe soft-serve ice cream (wasabi flavor was tempting though..) and we continued to explore the narrow streets and alleys of Ameyoko. People were still hungry after raw tofu and grilled giblets so we stopped at a soba house and had some "real food." Bellies full, and the night getting late, we thought it best to top off our Ueno adventure with a solid hour of Karaoke at one of the hundred or so karaoke bars in the area (really, there are about 5 per city block!). It was about 1200 yen ($12)/one person/one hour at the place we chose- which ended up being a good deal. Some other people in our school did karaoke that night in Shibuya and spend over $25 per person- their bill was $300! ouch. Our group had a lot of fun and recieved free beverages the whole hour! Only songs sung were in English, but the Japanese was written above, so a few times we attmpted at singing the Japanese version. All in all, it was a crazy fun adventure and I look forward to taking advantage of the night life more while I'm here. Karaoke is probably the most popular pastime because anyone can do it, but I've heard about music shows and dancing places too. I'll definetely be keeping my ears open for good reviews of safe places however. No foreigner really knows what the streets of Tokyo hold...
Today was Monday and school is back in swing for the third week of classes! I'm enjoying the material which is all review so far but I forgot all of it pretty much so it's well worth studying it. It's also helpful living with native speakers that are always willing to help me go over the answers! Reiko and Koichi are doing well, and today they showed me the information for our trip to Nikko in two weeks! We're going to go see the autumn leaves in a nationally protected, traditional area. There is a very famous temple and is a site along what is called the Romantic Road, among Kyoto, Nara, and others.
Well it's about midnight, so I should probably go suggle up in my cozy futon. Miss you all!
Love, Meaghan
Comments
Karaoke
sing a few Madonna songs for me baby! Do you do the Karaoke too? Or do you just watch? the food sounds interesting and fun. the leaves here are totally amazing having a very very colorful fall. The leaves are really starting to fall off the trees. Rainy here today but we have had a beautiful October. Very sunny......cool at times. Some rain. You have a great blog here baby cakes.
lou lou