Ueno Park & Crazy Electric Town

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Saturday, January 26, 2008

Culture time.. or the way I see it essential shopping research. Onward to Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park. On a Saturday families, and spooning couples meandered amongst the stalls in the market. Streen vendors sold phallic looking chocolate/strawberry coated bananas and octopus balls (or at least that's what I think they were). Entertainers made children and parents laugh.

Ueno Park is home to many museums. If you fancy European art there it's the the National Museum for Western Art for you. Prefer things further east well then the Orient Museum should meet your needs. Geek out at the National Science Museum. For afters there's always the shrine, pond or zoo.

The Tokyo National Museum is itself is a large compound with 5 large exhibiton halls with a research centre and garden. Realising the futility of attempting to get around all the halls we reduced our expectations to just the one, the Honkan (Japanese Gallery). Hx of Buddhism, examples of fine lacquerware (lacqureware could be more expensive than gold), ukiyo-e (Japanese block printing), weaving and kimono as well as armour and blades.

Akihabara aka Electric Town known for the high density of electronic goods purveyors. There was an exceptionally high density of people. Fluorescent lights and displays to rival Time Square, perhaps not as well organised.

Probably where a particular breen chikan (not the edible kind) hang out. These are the men who get a kick out of groping women. I escaped.

Vending Machines: everywhere. Mochi ice cream and hot sweet tea at the Museum. Judged to have a vending machine every 100 yards or less in cities. Very affordable drinks, alcohol, ciggies, pot noodles. Not seen the ones dispensing underwear yet. Never in UK. Vandalism would be a problem. Certainly around the beer machines there would be the local street drinking population and broken machine. Individualism vs community.
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