Tokyo Aquarium.

So this day was absolutely fantastic. It began with a long journey up through Tokyo to the Tokyo Aquarium. We took a quick walk around the area, taking in the sights and snapping a few on the way. We then saw an unbelievable family of wadaiko drummers. I don't really know what the difference between Taiko and Wadaiko is, but they're both incredibly awesome. I love both of them, the noise they make shakes your bones, it must be amazing to be able to play those instruments. I can vaguely see the appeal of learning something like the guitar, or violin, or something of that nature; but I can absolutely see the attraction of playing with Wadaiko, it's like playing with thunder. Fantastic.

We then went into the aquarium and had a nose around there. It was pretty good, but here we felt the sting of the Japanese population. It was packed. Absolutely full to the brim. We had to go on a weekend because of my schedule, so I should have expected the crowded nature of things.

Again I'm posed with something of a dichotomy of opinion about the packed nature of certain attractions during the day. Firstly, I can't speak Japanese, so all the shouting and general high level of noise is just that, noise. It holds no meaning to me and therefore cannot be annoying. Secondly, a few smaller attractions aside, I stand nearly a head taller than everyone; so seeing things is not a problem for me. I can see everything, even when there are thirty people in front of a single tank. Of course the downsides are the same no matter where you're from or you're visiting. Lots of people.

These aspects are entirely selfish of course, because my companion was a little over five feet, and couldn't see a thing. I offered to lift her for a better view, but she declined...

So after the aquarium I readied myself for dinner. I have wanted to try yakiniku since I've been here, but it's really expensive; so today I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. If you don't know what yakiniku is, wait for the pictures.

Unfortunately this meal, coupled with the shinkansen ride the following day has pretty much wiped a few zero's off my budget, which is unfortunate...

So now we move onto the pictures, and today we have an awful lot.

  So I saw these guys driving around the street, right outside my hostel at the beginning of the day.  They're pushing a crazy gear that basically means their feet go round a hundred times, and the wheels go round once.

It pretty much set my day up  with a smile to see these guys driving around in their  stupid vehicles, bought a smile to my face from the very beginning.

This is the view from the aquarium complex.  There's a great big park with all kinds of amusements, and one of the attractions is this beach/seafront area.  Lots of kites and frollicking happens here, by the looks of things.

It was a pretty hot day too; I've no idea how many celsius, but I would imagine a fair number more than in England.

So the glassdome/planetarium kind of structure is actually the aquarium.  Nothing is housed in that dome, literally nothing, it's just an empty shell.

I suppose it looks quite nice, but all that just to house a few escalators?  Overkill methinks.

This is from the top of a small (glass again) structure overlooking the entire area.  All things considered, it's a very nice place.

So this is the big ol' drum.  I think the big one is wadaiko, and the smaller ones are taiko, but I'm not sure about that.

It makes an absolutely fantastic sound.  It really is thunderous, and sounds amazing to say the least.

I want to learn how to play taiko and wadaiko, but I also like the flute, (you can hear it in almost all of my taiko videos) in the earlier matsuri the players were all able to play everything, again, a fantastic breadth of skill involved there!

Maybe I can study somewhere back home?  I wonder...  Anyone reading this who lives near the Letchworth/Stevenage/Hitchin area and can teach Taiko?  No, I didn't think so...  Oh well, I'll have to wait until I come back here I guess.

The stand seen here didn't look particularly solid when I was watching it, but they all pounded the absolute hell out of that thing, and it didn't even wobble, so they obviously know what they're doing.

I badly wanted to hit this drum when they weren't looking.  It's just begging to have the hell beaten out of it.

I'll say again, it sounds like rolling thunder.  The kind of sound a hyper car makes in a tunnel, the guttural sensation that makes the hairs all over your body stand on end.

Ok so these are some more  shots of the traditional dress.  I've not shown you many; the view of the traditional Japanese wedding was an extremely lucky and privileged one and I've just left it at that really.  So here's another close-up, even if it's from a rather obscure angle.

The trio, man, woman and girl, are actually a family.  From what I understand they travel around performing their amazing act, provide tuition and generally provide taiko based products for Japan.


They're cool!

So here's a stills shot of the same performance as one of my videos.  As I may (or may not) have said before, my camera had a fit and lost a lot of information; namely a number of videos I made, and a few pictures.  This really is a crying shame, but it gives me a greater incentive to find some more performances around the place.

So here's the patriarch.  He really looks the part doesn't he?  That's a rhetorical question by the way, I'm telling you he does.

What you can't see in this picture is the vocal accompaniment he gives while drumming, namely shouts and jeers; (presumably in time with the music) if you've ever seen the shaolin monks live or on the tele, you'll hear them make similar kinds of noises to psyche themselves up.  It's all very macho and masculine, and frankly very cool.

So this is macho mans' wife.  I put the ownership over 'mans', even though I'm sure a few feminists would object.

So his wife is also fantastic.

They move so quickly between drums, and they move over the face of the drum to create different sounds so easily; practice makes perfect I guess.

The fact it's a family troupe would also help in their timing and whatnot I suppose.

So another shot of the head honcho.

He's pulling quite an interesting face too!

Ok there are a lot more wadaiko photos because I like them so much, but I'll try and limit them!


Sorry!

The whole family unit.

Taking the plaudits for their great performance.

I want one of those drums...


You can see the traditional dress in this picture as well, amazing stuff.

So when the main performance had finished they pulled the smaller taiko around and did a little pair drumming.  These make a completely different sound to the big drum, and the smaller black ones.

Sorry for another taiko picture...

So the girl really laid into the drum with all she had, and the sound was really something else.

How many times can I say fantastic without it getting boring?  How many has it been now?

Hammerhead sharks in a tank.  Yummy!  I've never seen hammer heads in a tank before, so it's pretty cool.

Coming to think of it I don't think I've seen these guys in the flesh before.


They sense electrical currents between the two eye protrusions, and feed on creatures hiding in the sand.  All creatures give off a slight eletrical current, so it's a handy combination I think you'll agree.

Stingray.

Steve Irwin look away now.

They were all in the same tank, so  they don't eat each other.

There were a couple of cool looking fish hanging around the bottom of the tank.  かわいい！ (Cute)  Well I think they are anyway...

Cute in an ugly kind of way, not in a rirakuma kind of way.

Taking pictures of seaweed is pretty bo... Wait a second, is it an animal?

Who knows.

Good camouflauge though.

So I also like this picture.

There's not a lot else  to say really, without telling you what it is, but that would be no fun.

A random picture of Japanese people?

Yes.

This is basically to illustrate how full it was.  This is overlooking a large tank full of tuna, so you're thinking right now, ah, tuna, there would obviously be a large number of hungry Japanese congregating at this part.  This may be true, but there were a lot of people everywhere, not just here.

So these slimy critters are fish that survive in rock pools.  Their enclosure periodically simluates this, by throwing a lot of water on them.  They climb up the sides of the rocks inbetween the drenchings and nibble on the algae.

Strange things.  I don't know how they breathe.  With difficulty, or they hold their breath for a really long time.  It's kind of weird to think they might hold their breath when out of the water...

Some red spiny lobster.

It reminded me of seeing the lobster when diving, and how scary they actually look in the deep dark ocean.

I think they look kind of delicious behind glass though...

Flying fish!  I have to say, of all the creatures in this aquarium these looked the least impressed.  Not being able to 'fly' must be quite depressing I suppose.

Even if you can only remember the last three seconds, they're three seconds of not gliding over the waves.  I can see why that'd make any creature sad.

The last picture is a blurred shot of one of these guys.  He changed colours and everything, but my video is also lost!

Damned camera.

They also move around extremely quickly which is why this picture is awful.  Sorry about that...

Okk so now we move onto the expensive feast.  Yakiniku just means barbecued meat, or something like that.

It does make you happy though...

Wait for the next few photos!

I had an unbelievable craving for some real meat, everything here is fish or wafer thin slices of some unindentifiable meat, that may have once been a cow...

So this was on the bottom of that title page; the menu is worth a thousand yen by itself!  (The  meal cost considerably more...)

Read this all the way through a couple of times for full impace.  Amazing...

So you grill the food on this little barbecue in the middle of the table.

It's cool stuff, for sure.

And here's the platter we ordered!!!

Those are hot dog sausages in case you were wondering; interesting decision on that front...

But yeah the meal was amazing.


Once a month I will make it my mission to eat yakiniku if I get a job over here.

Here's then beginning.

Halfway through grilling the first batch, and hardly a dent made upon the foodstuffs.

And look at the mound of rice that cost 150円.  Cool.

Everything about this setup is cool.

Halfway through, maybe two thirds of the way through.

It's all in a tare sauce, I've no idea what it is in English, kind of like a barbecue sauce I think.

It was tasty either way.






And that was pretty much my day.  It was all really good, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Some videos now:



So this is the first of half a dozen videos I took of the family; however only two survived...  Oh well.  Turn the sound up for these; despite the terrible sound quality you can still get a feel for the noise these things make.  Unfortunately my videos of the guy hitting the  big drum have been lost; take my word for it.  It's impressive.





So this is the other video of the family.  This has them only playing drums; and you get more of a feel for the sound.





And here are some random jellyfish...  I like watching them; they're like a living lava lamp.



I finally took some video of the drum game I like so much!  They're all over the arcades in Tokyo, and there are none in Kyoto that I've seen.  I'm going to miss these guys while I'm away from Tokyo.

Ok so that's all the video from my trip to the aquarium.  Another strange place to visit, just like the zoo.  I'm just a sucker for delicious looking animals I guess.