Blog 8: Fantasy, Spiritual, Technological and Ridiculous Experiences

Fantasy, Spiritual, Technological and Ridiculous Experiences All in One Day

Wednesday January 10, 2018

Ghibli Museum: We start our day early to get to the Ghibli museum showcasing the work of the Japanese animator, Hayao Miyazaki, creator of anime classics. The building is also designed by Hayao Miyazaki and combines a kind of children’s fantasy museum and technology museum showing how animation developed.  







Hundreds of drawings show how detailed and laborious the work is to make these animation films.  The building itself is like being in fairy land with spiraling staircases, bridges and dead ends. (no picture taking is allowed in this place) I feel like Alice in Wonderland and expect a rabbit to arrive at any moment.  I love the idea that it is okay to get lost in this museum and there is no prescribed or logical direction ~ somehow this makes me feel more normal as I frequently find I am lost. We watch a wonderful short film about a crab-like creature in love with a water spider which is very touching. By the end of this experience I feel we all have expanded our imagination neurons and are fascinated by the complexity and creativity of the film technology designed to develop these amazing films.

Japanese Curry Lunch: We go to a restaurant specializing in Japanese curry for lunch. I am surprised to learn that Japanese curry is the 2^nd most common Japanese food after Ramen. It was introduced when India was under colonial British rule and became so popular it can now be called a national dish.  I decide to order a tofu salad and wonder if the impact of Japan on me is to take up tofu cooking (rather than sushi!). The others go for Curry, a change from their usual lust for sushi. 

Electronic Town ~ Akarabara 

Next we head for Akarabara a quirky neighborhood with neon light electronic stores, vending machines and arcades. Perhaps it was the Ghibli experience but we engage in circus like games where the goal is to capture some ridiculous stuffed animal or toy.  Many of the stores are selling anime DVD games and Laura and I are shocked when we suddenly realize these are anime porn flicks! 

John playing for a prize

Senso-Ji Temple & Asakusa-Ji Shrine and Nakamise Shopping Street 

Next we grab a train for the Buddhist Temple. Again I am impressed by the cleanness and punctuality of the trains/subways.

Incredible Trains

At this temple we engage in spiritual cleansing we have learned in the Meiji Temple and walk about this gorgeous temple, again rebuilt due to the WWII bombing. I am feeling very spiritually cleansed. 

Also on the same grounds we go to a smaller shrine which luckily has no been bombed and is over 400 years old. It is very peaceful there.

Asakusa-Ji Shrine 

Entrance to Asakusa-Ji Shrine

Entrance to Senso-Ji Temple

Shrine Cleansing Station

Carolyn cleansing before temple station

Many people are here including international tourists and some dressed as Geisha girls but it still has a community feel of connecting people. Outside the temples are hundreds of small tourist stores selling everything you can imagine. 

Dinner at Memory Lane (skewers): Seth and Laura pick our restaurant for dinner this evening and take us to a street called Memory Lane or commonly known as Piss Alley.

This small, narrow, smoky street without cars has multiple, teeny, wooden stalls selling chicken, beef and vegetable skewers. Most people sit up at a counter to eat these but we find one place where there is a small table squeezed in the back of the room.  I order red wine and get a large beer size glass of wine poured over ice cubes. 

Despite the watered down wine and the seedy nature of the place I am attracted to this place and its authenticity.  Never in America would a restaurant like this pass any health board certification.  However, I am not worried about this as I have seen how fastidious the Japanese are about cleanliness. Even here we get towelettes to clean our hands before eating. 

Robot Restaurant: 

 We rush through our skewers to make it in time for the reservations Seth and Laura have gotten at Robot Restaurant, where they say the food is too bad to eat but the show is the thing. They warn us this will be a crazy experience and seem worried we might not enjoy it. I’m actually kind of excited to see what these robots will do and imagine what nude robots will look like.  By this point after viewing the anime earlier I have a rather vivid imagination. 







The décor is absolutely over the top with guilded plastic and glitter and I have visions of Trump. The entertainment is equally wild and bizarre with massive robots operated by bikini-clad, gorgeous women, loud music, violence and death of a woman eaten by a dinosaur plus plenty of neon lights. (I won't show that picture but do have it!) 

I have another glass of tacky wine which seems appropriate to the situation.  The 99% non-Japanese audience seems enraptured. When I ask Seth for his assessment he says, “it was ridiculous”.  I feel it was a suitable ending to the day of fantasy, electronics, anime, arcades, spiritual cleansing and temples.  

Last Day and Sushi Dinner

Thursday January 11

While Laura and Seth take the bullet train out to view Mount Fuji and go to a hot springs, we have a lazy day starting with Ramen breakfast on Ramen Street and taking in the Tokyo National Museum and its history of Japanese art. On this beautiful day we walk through the park enjoying people watching. 

Japanese Warrier Mask 

Japanese Warrier Armor 

More Sushi!  That evening we all meet for an amazing Sushi dinner. Seth, Laura and John are in heaven with their many courses of Sushi and are eager for me to learn to love sushi. 

 I am a novice at sushi eating and unfortunately don’t quite reach their level of nirvana, although I try.  One dish called Tomago is a Japanese omelette and Seth tells me it consists of many levels of preparation and is the highest level of cooking.  This is my favorite course.   

Omlette 

Our last day we go to Harajuku recommended for its designer boutiques. We explore some of the back streets to see the latest fashions in the tiny shops. Unfortunately we don’t have enough time to do this in any depth and Laura and I wish we were staying a day longer. We rush back to check out of the hotel but Laura and I manage to run over to the Kitte department store to cram in a bit more shopping. This is unlike any kind of department store I have ever experienced. It is a huge storied atrium with many small shops each with its own specialty quality brands such as paper, jewelry, designer clothes, hats, shoes and so forth. This clearly is the kind of store both of us love and we wish we had discovered this gem just across the street from the Tokyo Station Hotel much earlier. 

A marriage proposal we view

Although we have seen most of Tokyo’s Top Sites I feel we have barely touched the surface of the internal life of Tokyo. Much more time could have been spent exploring in the fish market, walking the mazes of back streets, researching the designer boutiques and pop culture and sampling the many other recipe honed Japanese foods. Moreover, since we are visiting in January I can imagine how beautiful Tokyo must be in the spring when the gardens and cherry blossoms are in bloom. But what impressed me the most about Tokyo was its magical quality.

View from Hotel

Station Hotel

17 of Tokyo's Magical Qualities

• Clean streets with no litter anywhere, despite the fact that garbage bins are almost impossible to find

• Incredibly helpful people who volunteer unsolicited to help when they notice you seem confused about where you are going

• An amazing transportation system where immaculate subways cars come every 4 minutes, trains are not late and are very fast 

• Professional well dressed taxi drivers who wear white gloves, have white lace covers on their seats and check the back seat to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything when you get out; moreover, taxi doors open and close on their own!

• Toilets with warm seats that open, close and flush on their own; moreover, they provide various bidet options

• Restaurants and hotels that provide slippers and ask you take off your shoes 

• Shopkeepers who welcome you and when you buy something see you off at their door handing you your purchase

• A plethora of shops selling pastries, butter cookies, coffee and tea

• Organized bento boxes 

• Designer prepared food dishes whether it is ramen, sushi, curry, hot pots, tofu, or sukiyaki, all are worth a picture

• Well dressed men in black fitted suits and ties

• Beautiful women with tiny angle socks and high heels

• Greetings from shop, restaurant and hotel owners with bowed heads and smiles to acknowledge your arrival or departure

• A feeling of honesty and safety where you can’t imagine anyone stealing

• A sense of cultural tradition passed down for generations

• Peaceful quiet atmosphere without car horns, too much loud talking,  or much city noise despite a population of 13 million

• A lovely mix of tradition, old culture and modernity 

I do feel like Alice from Alice in Wonderland who went down the rabbit hole to a world that is entirely the opposite of where I came from.