Ueno

July 9
3PM

I’m in Ueno in the northern part of Tokyo. There’s a huge park here where there are lots of shrines and a famous zoo. As I write this entry, I’m sitting in a fast-food noodle shop. After wandering around for about 20 minutes, and two failed attempts, I was able to communicate with the girl in this shop to help me order my lunch. Many of the fast food shops here have ticket machines, sort of like the automats in New York in the 50’s. You figure out what you want, buy a ticket from the vending machine, and then hand it over to the waitress. In general, it’s very easy to pay for meals here. There’s no tipping, and even if you are with a large party, they give everyone separate checks (bettsu bettsu ni).

When I got to Ueno I headed straight into Ueno Park. I knew it from my Japanese lessons: “Ueno Ko-en wa doko desu ka?” (Where is Ueno Park?) It’s a lot like Central Park in NYC, only with more crows and wild cats roaming around. Read about crows here I stopped at the first shrine I came to and took a look around. It was the first of many I visited, but I somehow managed to miss the really famous one, Toshogu.


It was at this first shrine that I met Hideka-san (see picture, he’s the one talking softly and carrying a big stick).

When he first approached me, I thought he was sort of a volunteer tour guide. Turns out, he was a homeless person who loves to talk to people. His English was fantastic and he had lots of opinions on current events and the state of affairs in Japan. We talked for 20 minutes and he gave me advice about where to go while I’m in Japan and how to manage the language barrier: “You have to have a patter. Maybe baseball. Learn something to say about baseball.”

Getting back to the shrine: it was very peaceful and quiet. There were swarms of tourists there, but no gaijin. I tried to have my journal stamped at the shrine, but for some reason they wouldn’t do it. Later, I visited the Shitamachi Museum and got a stamp there.

After lunch, I walked around the lotus pond. Lovely (see photo).


I did a whirlwind tour of the Ueno Park Zoo to see the Giant Pandas before the park closed and the rains came. I just made it. Ling Ling and Shuan Shuan were chilling out in their indoor environment, which was really dark. Most of my pictures are too dark to post, but thanks to Doug for doctoring up this one of Shuan Shuan.


LATER:
One last story: I headed out to find a place to eat dinner and found a great sushi restaurant in my neighborhood that looked very upscale. I figured I’d splurge a little because it was bright and welcoming and the people inside looked happy. It was a great decision. The place had an English menu and everyone was really friendly. The couple sitting next to me chatted with me the whole time I was there (by “chatted”, of course I mean gestured and used random vocab words). They kept making comments about my eyebrows. Not sure what they were saying. What’s the Japanese word for straggly? I thought I was going to spend about $30 USD, but when I paid the check it was less than $6! I think maybe when I ordered my meal, I must have pointed to a huge platter of sushi (which was priced at about $12 USD) and the chef just corrected the order. Either that or I ripped off those nice people! Well, it all comes back around.

By the way, for more blog fun check out this guy’s blog. He’s a travel writer for Lonely Planet (and a friend of my friend, Josh) and he’s taking the train across Siberia this summer. It’s funny and fascinating stuff:
Robert's Blog
http://lonelyplanet.mytripjournal.com/GIW/WebObjects/MyTripJournal.woa/1/wo/ftVteFQonmdkm2WtVNlVTg/7.3.0.18.1.0.0