Ueno Park, the First Visit!

Ok so today I visited Ueno park to scout out the surroundings.  There are a large number of museums and things of that ilk to see, so I went to check it all out.  What I wasn't expecting was all the crazy street performances and a random zoo!  The whole park is also raised about 100 feet above ground level, and there are shops and train stations underneath it.  Tokyo always amazes me as to how much vertical space everything takes up.

It also amazes me how similar England and Japan are in desiring green spaces.  Everyone has potted plants here, and there are about five large parks in Tokyo.  Maybe it's that dull grey feeling you get when you spend weeks on end looking at concrete that sparks a sudden desire for greenery; a syndrome that must be particularly acute considering the dearth of gardens or allotments here.

The park is also full of couples.  They make me sick with their covorting and whatnot.  That should be made illegal.

Onto the pictures!

This is another example of random history dotted within the city.  This shrine could be five years old, or five hundred, but finding these adds so much to the feeling of Tokyo.  Paris has coffee bars and long lunches, London has the queen and lots of rain; Tokyo has more people than seems possible, and shrines wedged improbably between buildings.

A lot of the statues are also given clothes.  This fox has been given a bib, which I think is something to do with children.  Each shrine has its' own speciality, some are for health, some are for fertility etc.

And helpfully the modern shrines have English descriptions of what they actually do.  It would be nice if they included a little more information thought, like what appeasing this God will do... (My Shinto is a little hazy, but I think people can be deified and housed in shrines like this, so presumably by worshipping here you're actually worshipping the author mentioned, but it doesn't say what happens if you do pray here.)  Do you, for example, become able to touch-type if you pray here?  Or maybe  they still adhere to the traditional religious school of thought, whereby not praying here will mean you lose the ability to read?

Let's wedge as many buildings and people into the smallest area possible!

This is a typical view of the interior walls of a small religious area.  Sometimes the flags are even advertising the Japanese bid for the 2016 olympics!  I want to see a local church fly banners for the next rugby world cup, please.

And this is the view to the right.  (above is left)  These statues are everywhere and initially look the same, yet there are extremely subtle differences between them.  Some have extremely puffed out chests, some have short legs, big teeth, are laying down etc.  I would assume they're bespoke to the shrine that ordered them, and they do all give off slightly different vibes.  The large chested ones look quite prideful, whereas this one is all about guarding the main shrine.  The ones that are lying down look like they're supposed to be doing something, but are just thinking, 'meh, someone else will do it.'

Ok so the couple of shrines I bumped into during the walk to Ueno were a side-story to the main event.  I didn't realise looking at the map just how massive Ueno is.  No building is below 200 metres tall, and even this picture is taken 30 metres in the air, over an enormous walkway.  The park itself is raised above the train station, a road and a ton of shops!  Rather than show you how high it is with a side on comparative shot, you'll see the shot looking down from the park later.  The building philosophy here is astounding.  There's plenty of space in the air afterall.





More posts to follow!

So this is a typical Tokyo side-street.  Notice the signs, they all light up at night.  Also notice the pachinko sign.

Pachinko is a Japanese phenomenon; I will have to write an investigative piece all on its own at a later date investigating pachinko, because their parlours are everywhere.  Literally everywhere.  If you look at the other photos I've taken of Tokyo streets you'll see those signs all over the place; usually in English too.

I don't think this guy is a recognised character like rirakuma, the relaxing bear that was in akihabara; but he's just so ridiculous that I had to take a picture.  I wonder if the hole in his head is for the guy inside to breathe?  Or maybe his character is a dolphin/turtle hybrid born in a lab somewhere.  Who knows.  I certainly don't.

I've been around Tokyo and seen singers and street performers, but unlike the buskers in London they never asked directly for money-in-a-hat - instead they peddled  cd's and merchandise promoting their dance troupe, band or whatever.  In Ueno they do it the european way, and ask for money at the end of their performances.

This woman was some kind of clown/magician/mime artist conglomeration.  My favourite trick of hers was actually 'hat manipulation,' for want of a better term.  She rolled it down her arms, flicked it onto her feet and generally larked around in a very skilful way, with her hat!   Pretty awesome stuff if I'm honest.

So I remember this guy from a book I read, he may well have been the author.  He's dead (sic) famous anyway, enough that there were never fewer than five people taking pictures at his feet.  Being a foot taller than anyone I was able to snap this without including too many tourists.  This was a fact that did not go unnoticed, as several people approached me asking for a foreigners eye view of the statue.

So basically I can't really remember what he's famous for, but he is famous for something.

People were also taking a lot of picture of him from behind; maybe he has a famous ass or something...  Maybe they were just too short to get good photos from  the front?  This is mere speculation of course.

Ok the internet is breaking at the moment, so I'll finish this later.

Ok so this gargantuan department store is called 'yodobashi camera,' ヨドバシカメラ.  I think.  It has the camera I will buy if I get a job, it's fricking amazing.  Anyway, this is the premier shop for all electronics purchasing, not just cameras, and contains some cool stuff.

I've not yet visited don quixote, which is an 'everything under one roof,' kind of store; and is cutely abbreviated to 'donkey,' but I will try and get there in my travels!

So this is the view from the top of the park, looking down on Ueno.  It's really as high as this picture makes it feel, and the city is at least this crowded all the time.  Everywhere I've been  there are this many people, and this many things happening all the time, I'm beginning to see why this is the most populous city in the world.  There are maybe a couple of places that are like this in London, but there are literally dozens that follow this pattern in Tokyo.

The bagpipe playing Japanese man walks into the bar and says...

Yeah this is really a Japanese guy playing the bagpipes.  And then he does some awesome stuff with some diablo too, what's that all about?

Ok so this is the same guy that does the awesome juggling  and diablo in my youtube videos.  Frankly speaking, he has to be gay.  No straight man has the crazy moves he does.

I include this picture because the thought occurred to me, while he was performing this trick, that he must have nads of iron, or have lost them some time ago, possibly performing this trick...

So this is a shrine inside Ueno park.  They are literally everywhere in Japan, and are vital to the sense of being Japanese, even if they average person doesn't really visit them often, or think about it that much.  I'm currently looking at a survey that says 40+% of Japanese think these heritage sites are what defines Japan.  Having these spaces everywhere, housing gods, spirits and all manner of things between this world and the next is quintessentially Japanese.

The concrete lanterns for example, are Chinese, yet they're incorporated into most shrines here, and are considered to be Japanese.  They steal things and claim them as their own... Sound familiar?  The difference is their heritage is celebrated, for better or for worse, rather than admonishing their past like in England.  It also causes a lot of problems, the fact that things like nanjing are buried and not well known within these shores definitely contributes to the 'Japan is the America of Asia,' mentality most Asians have.  'Good' and 'Bad' aside though, all these different curiosities come together to make Japan what it is.

The giant pagoda are quite common here too, although not as common as the shrines themselves.

I couldn't get closer to this one unforunately, and the artsy kind of 'through the leaves' photo doesn't work because the growth is too damn dense!

So these designs are all over the giant chinese lanters.  They're pretty cool, and I've lots of pictures of them; don't worry, I'll only show you this one.

This site appeared to be really old, unlike most places here that have to be rebuilt every so often.  The bell was all rusted and mangled, and I don't think it's still used.

Even the rope looked old in this place.

They also keep a flame from the atomic bombings, just to the right in this picture.  Like the olympic torch, only a lot more morbid.

I was going for an artsy shot of the chinese shrines next to the Japanese style water-sould purification system that I've described previously.

It didn't work, but the other pictures I took were also quite poor, (I put the camera in sports mode so they're really grainy) so I'll put this one up.

This is the atomic flame.  It's been on quite a  journey, but the most interesting part for me was the description of why the first person kept the flame; it wasn't positive.

The first man kept this flame to show his resentment of the dropping of the bombs, yet over time this thing has come to symbolise the desire for peace.  How did that happen?

So yeah I was basically trying not to look american when I was looking at this.

Another view from Ueno park.  It's amazing the variety of things that are contained within this one, albeit large, area.  It's certainly an efficient use of space.

A view of Ueno by night.  It's taken me so long to figure out how to take night photographs!  You wouldn't believe how many of these are blurred...

And finally, the Hello Kitty bus!!!  Cute rules here, and Hello Kittty is the cutest of them all...

Still though, and entire bus?  Really now?  Incredible...


So that's it for Ueno day 1!!!  It's taken me nearly a week to get this single post up and finished, I thank the internet for its' patience in these matter.

Ciao for now!

Kamakura in the rain!

So it was raining this morning.  Me and a fellow traveller, whose name I will now get wrong: Hooshan, were sitting in the lobby wondering what to do.  So he googled 'tokyo in the rain and out popped a review of the ancient capital of Japan, long before Tokyo, and before Kyoto even, this place, 'Kamakura,' was where the seat of power was placed.  The review stated that Kamakura is a nice place to visit in the rain, and upon loudly debating this in the same lobby, a German piped in saying, 'I'm sorry to have eavesdropped, but I hear Kamakura is really nice in the rain.'  So almost entirely swayed we asked the receptionist to give us directions there.

In a bizarre twist it transpired that our receptionist was born there, and recommended that the previous reviews, both electronic and personal, were complete bubkus.

Undeterred we forged ahead into several fascinating areas.  Generally the two most impressive features, a giant bodhivista (Spelling?) and another giant buddha thing were indoors, while the gardens took some (hopefull) great photographs, because the lighting wasn't too harsh to become overpowering, or too dull to render photography impossible.  Therefore, two plucky tourists gambled on the weather machine, and ended up winning.

It did however rain buckets on my way back, after I had parted from my travel companion.  As an interesting side-note, the raindrops  here are fingernail sized, and carry an improbable force, dissipated in a violent fashion upon anything that may dare stand in its way.  I was drenched after ten seconds, and despite wearing a waterproof jacket, my trousers and bag contents were soaked.  Maybe some waterproof trousers and a waterproof bag container are in order at some later stage.

My favourite part of the day was a 10 metre tall wooden statue of a goddess.  It's the biggest in Japan and is absolutely amazingly decorated in gold leaf, with extra sprinklings of vanity all over the place.  It's made from a single tree, the name of which eludes me at the moment, although it's quite a well known tree.  It must have been monumental as well, because this thing was about 2 metres wide, as well as being 10 metres tall.  Unfortunately no photographs were allowed.

Onto the pictures:

The Japanese style full English breakfast contains many odd accoutrements.  Cucumber and what is possibly mashed potatoe, with (offscreen) oddly cut toast.  As usual, portions are quite mean.  Free coffee/tea refills are a nice american style touch though.

Cool looking bus with supporting pole type things on the front.  I'm not sure if that would pass a pedestrian impact safety test in Europe though...

It was a little gloomy at this stage in proceedings, but this temple marker was huge and well deserving of a picture.

At certain religious festivals people wish upon a rock, and try to throw it on top of these markers.  I'm not sure if they get what they wished for, but I'm certain that a lot of people get headaches.

As I understand it, these structures mark the beginning of temples or shrines, but this one led onto a big shopping street.  God is in the dollar I guess.

Perfect lighting!  I hope the rest come out this well.

The submerged plants in the picture to the right looked like some kind of lilly, but they stood up to a metre out of the water with no support.  May any horticulturalist know what these are?

There are also 15 pound (estimated) carp swimming around in there.  They looked pretty common to me.

This place proved to be the first of a number of traditional looking Japanese gardens, the likes of which is universally reckoned within the hostel, to exist only in the movies and an extremely small percentage of upper class, private Japan.  I guess it's not surprising to understand that what we know of another country, may turn out to be misrepresentative of the truth!

Terribly blurred picture of the carp.  Doesn't really do justice to it's size.  Although I guess the old joke goes that it was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big.

Looking out of the lily type plants, onto the mountains that permeate this town.  The mountains are as much a feature of the land as the plants that grow on them.

More of the same view.

The younger brother of the one that got away.

The path leading towards the main temple area.  Line of sight is difficult  to recreate with a photograph, but it was impressive to see the temple in the distance, it's a lot bigger than it looks here!

This all looks traditional and quite nice, until you see the bloody kid, on his bloody scooter!

Sans bloody kid, unfortunately still with bloody scooter.

This is on the steps leading up to the main temple.  It's kind of like the scroll containing area in asakusa.

The design of the eaves alone is intricate, before you take into account the paintings on the roof of most of these structures, or the construction of the roof itself.

I guessed that this raised platform was for some kind of performance.  No English speakers were on hand to prove or disprove this theory, so it stands as a tentative reasoning behind this structure.

One guard dog stands with his mouth open, the other closed.  One represents life, the other death.  Their proximity defines the co-existence and intimate nature of both aspects of our existence.  Plus they look mean.














I've sifted through some 150 photos so far, and there are about 200 more to go, so I'll finish the rest up tomorrow.

These must take a long time to paint...  I wonder why all the end parts are yellow?

This is the kind of classic design feature I always associate with Japan, it's nice to see it actually exists over here, albeit in a tourist form.

That's a damn big drum.  I think they're called taiko, but I'm not sure.  This type of drum is the same kind that reach house sized proportions during the big festivals, and I assure you, having experienced the noise from a variety only four or so feet wider than this, the experience is physical.

This is the facade of the main shrine, no pictures were allowed inside so I tactfully took this shot of the outside.

This is a little way off to the right, and is a modest shrine to (presumably) a separate deity.  It has its' own water dispenser/human soul purifying unit, but I didn't manage to get a decent shot of that.  In this one area there were lots of these separate shrines.

This is a different shot of the same thing.

I've no idea what these are, or what their purpose is, but you see a number of  them around the place, and they look pretty cool.  Incense can be burned around the area, or inside the two taller structures, but I've also seen figures inside them instead.  So, basically, they could be anything.

  There were a number of these elongated paths with a single focal point in the far distance.  On the one hand they looked quite spectacular to the eye, but not to the camera...

Sometimes these gates have golden suns on their faces - this represents a royal tie, and usually means the shrines' upkeep is handled by the royal family.

A common problem?

There were a thousand photo opportunities a minute in this particular area.

These things also appeared to be markers of some kind, as they were everywhere in this particular area, and can often be seen in other shrine areas.

The old trees seem to define what makes a shrine area, and what makes these areas different from other areas.  Although it may sound ridiculous, they look to me like full sized bonsai trees, all gnarled and ugly, but perfectly shaped.

These shoes are actually for fully grown adults...

This impressive structure marked the entrance to shrine number two!

A close up view of the detailing in the supporting beams.  That big roof was supported, as you can see from the picture above, on a frame that all bore the detailing on the left.  Again, it must have taken quite some time to construct this.

This is one of several bells around the area.  This one is not used anymore, it's too old.  The sign even says, do not touch, this is a national treasure!  It looked so old that a stiff breeze might disintegrate it.

Another temple structure, bearing many similarities to those found all around this area.  It feels like the same designer worked on all the structures around here!

Inside was another ornate, gods abound festival of sobriety.  The gods on display looked buddhist, but I can't say for certain.

I'm sure Tokyo-ites visit temples and shrines as much for the greenery as the religious aspects.

This view looked pretty so I took a picture... There's nothing more to be said really.

These sites are still actively used for devout worship, and this area is for private prayer.  It also houses a gift shop of sorts, for all your praying needs; including: paper to write wishes on, that can then be tied to a special rope, in a certain knot, that will therein grant the wish; a wooden slate that ambitions can be written upon.  Once tied to a special rack, these dreams will come true.  And of course, incense; for all your smelling needs.

This is a comparative shot.  The people also give it a sense of scale, albeit a skewed one, because native Japanese really are that small!

Welcome to the third site!  This one has some particularly nice gardens, for all the horticulture buffs out there.

This is the first example (I think) of a proper Japanese style garden, and came at the foot of a peculiar shrine.  It's interesting to see how few of these there are around Japan.

The water contains a number of goldfish, and a massive number of coins, many copper based.  How are the fish not poisened?  Or maybe that's why they're such a bright orange...

There's an awful lot happening in this picture, and I included it to show everyone that the 'style' they have over here isn't always minimalistic!

Lots of these little statues arrange all over the place.  The patience to set these up in orderly rows like this is something only a monk could have.

That's going to make a hell of a noise when it's struck...

The view on a cloudy day, across the bay, where we did stay, hooray!

A slightly different take on the same view.

One hundred pounds to anyone who can identify this bird of prey.  There were waarning signs up saying these things eat your stuff, so be careful, and we got a really good look at it, but not with the camera so we're certain it's a bird of prey.  Which kind, however, remains a mystery.

This building is at the top of the gardens as seen before, and houses an incredible 10 metre statue of a deity.  The largest in Japan, and made from camfer (sp?).  It must have been a hell of an undertaking to create that statue from a single piece of wood.

Close up of the little figures, placed all over any non-walking area in the shrine.

A really evil looking guy with a cool sword and flames behind him.  Message:  Don't annoy this guy.

Normally these gateways are well above head height, something that is not always the case as I found to my detriment.  The headache inducing height of this example is aptly demonstrated by my colleague in this picture.  He is roughly 5 foot 8, so I was perfectly placed to tackle this particular obstacle head on.

This cave was carved into the mountain, and was a shrine of sorts.  This tunnel is actually around four feet high, and is quite claustraphobic, and also quite a strain on the back!!!

These small figures were placed all around, on any surface that would hold them.

More of these cleverly placed figures.  They even put them on the power cables supplying lighting to the cave!







At this stage my camera ran out of juice, but we did see a number of other things, so when my travel buddy gets back home and uploads his photos, I'll put them on here.