Day 10: Let's try this Museum thing again

Day 10: Let's try this museum thing again.

Dan and I are still a little on West Coast time, I think. We still get up around 5:00am. And since the city attractions don't really open until 10:00 or later, that gives us significant time in the morning to hang out. Perhaps play some Starcraft. It is Day11 as I type this and I have walked down the street to a (you guessed it) Starbucks for a cup of coffee and to watch the Meguro citizens walk by on their way to work. There was a brief flurry of running school girls around 8:10. There is a highschool right next door, school must start at 8:15. but it is 8:42 now and things have calmed down.

But let me teleport back to yesterday:

Dan and I decided that we want to do a real museum. So we picked the biggest best sounding museum we could find in our tour book. The Tokyo National Museum. Turns out this is one of the places that our tour guide on our first day told us about and even drove the bus past, in Ueno Park. Just a 30 minute ride on the JR Yamanote line. The train was a bit more crowded than it has been on some of our past trips. We got pushed around a lot. I had to guarantee Daniel that this wasn't really crowded. I mean, there wasn't anyone actually pushing people in the cars. Maybe they don't do that anymore.

Today was our first (and hopefully only) rainy day in Japan. We were the only people in the entire city wearing raincoats (well, some policemen). Everyone else has an umbrella. EVERYONE ELSE has an umbrella. This is a very Umbrella centric culture. So, you have your umbrella. You are waling down the street with thousands of people, they all have their umbrellas. There are bunches of Umbrellas for sale for 500yen at every little street store or newsstand. If you duck into the 7-11 for a coffee, there is an umbrella stand at the door. You don't want a bunch of wet umbrellas in your store making the floor slippery. If you go into a public bathroom, there is an umbrella hook by the unrinal, so you can free up your hands. The bicycles have Umbrella holders (instead of holders for like a hand pump or a water bottle). And the Museum had signs up: “NO UMBRELLAS PAST THIS POINT”.

Didn't say nothing about wet rain jackets.

So, Ueno Park, much walking. There are a lot of things goin on at Ueno park. There are a few museums (including the Tokyo National Museum) and a Zoo, and of course, many shrines.

The Tokyo National Museum was having a special exhibition. It was incredibly mobbed by Japanese persons. And what was this exhibit? Oriental exhibits from the Boston Museum. There was a long line (in the rain) for that, so Daniel and I skipped that and went to the “regular exhibit”. This was a lot of fun. Some pictures:

 

 

This flame was lit from the flames of Nagasaki and kept burring ever since.

huge, very simple, very wonderful set of screens. Mt. Fuji through clouds.

 

little tiny horse sculpture.

 

This is the 12 Generals. The dog general, the cat, the ox, the dragon. etc.

what is he doing?

 

lots of long scrolls

 

 

Detail of screens on left

And what did we find in the first gallery we entered? A map of the museum especially formulated for blind patrons. Each exhibit area was represented with a different texture or object. For instance, the old paintings exhibit was prepresented with canvas squares. Little earing danglies for the human decoration gallery. It was very neat and very in tune with the entire complete inclusion of the blind that we find in Japan. Some of the other things that I have noticed:

Most sidewalks have a yellow textured 1 foot wide strip that runs down the middle of the walk way. I couldn't figure out what they were and then I realized it was to make it easier for blind people to negotiate the sidewalk. When you come to a place your should stop and wait, there is a larger sideways plate to let you know. Hey, there is even a brail marking on the top of the beer can. I wonder if it is in japanese. But getting back to the museum, who are they kidding? What is a blind person supposed to do in from or pictures, statues, and works of antiquity that they can't touch? Enjoy the smell?

Since Daniel's current favorite place is Electric City, and we were right next to it, we walked on in and did some more sight seeing/ shopping. He wanted to back to this one anime store and get more t-shirts and stuff. But we also found the little shops district and walked around there some.

 

 

 

Then Dan saw one side street all lit up and he was sure that was an anime Cosplay area. So we went over there. There were lots of bars. And lots of pictures of young women. A nicely dressed young japanese man came up to me and said “Hey Joe, you want sext Massage?” I told him no.

He was insistent. “All Japan girl. Real Sexy Massage. You like a lot”.

So I said, “Look fella, this isn't going to work, you picked a guy walking down the street with his Son for gosh sakes. Try again some other time”.

He went away. And the next guy down the road walked up, “You want sexy Massage?”.

Daniel was ver emabarrased. This is the second time this trip he has convinced me to walk into a sex area looking for anime. He is beginning to suspect a connection.

Also, what exactly is a sexy massage? I mean, I get massages all of the time at my gym, and since I am naked and they are young women, I consider it a sexy massage. (they probably don't but what the hey). So is that what these guys were selling? Or are we talking “happy ending” here? I need more specifics before I go waltzing off into some strange building. I will say that these were the nicest, most polite, and best dressed pimps I have ever met. Spoke better english too.

By now we had been walking a long time and my knee and my neck were killing me. I really needed some iBprofin. I saw what looked like a pharmecy and we went in and asked. The guy had some, they were 2200 yen for 24 capsules. That is over $1 a pill. If I could find my bottle of them back in my room I could finance my trip selling the damn things on the street.

We finally found the train again and got our asses home. We were hoping to have a nice new room waiting for us. Oh yeah, the room Saga. When we first arrived they had put us in a smoking room (look, an ashtray). So I asked for a different room. They put us in a non-smoking room on a largely smoking floor. The place isn't vented well and the floor stank. So I asked for non-smoking floor. They fought that idea but finally gave in. And now I know why. The room they put is in is much bigger and nice that our old rooms. Ha. So I guess we finally complained enough.