Silver Afro Guy
Giant Xbox Ad
Deltora Quest child's novel in Japanese
Taito-ku in the daytime
Taking a picture outside Ueno Station
The most fascinating things we saw today. We saw a Nike commercial being filmed. I was awed by garbage collection. One guy drives a miniature (by North American standards) garbage truck around, while two other guys in light blue uniforms chase after him, running down the side walk to each successive stack of trash bags, and throw them into the back of the compactor unit as the driver pulls up.
Lots of walking. Today we got our exercise. We eschewed the subway and walked around our near Ueno Park and the adjacent area of Akihabara. The hotel desk had a large map with the words "Useful Map" emblazoned across the top. Although at first this seemed like one of those slightly odd, too literal direct translations from Japanese, it turned out that it was truly a useful map. It listed major street names in English, and had many spots and stores marked with their English name. But even though we could use it to navigate to general areas, we weren't able to find a single specific store - which could easily be our failing and not the maps. With hundreds of stores crammed wall to wall with one another, and some of the signs only in Japanese, we might have missed the objects of our search. I saw one computer store that occupied a space of maybe 200 square feet.
We did we learn today? If a building has a really gaudy and colorful exterior, it's probably a Pachinko parlor. We learned what it must feel like to be illiterate, unable to read basic things like menus or shop names. The streets aren't, in general, as crowded as we expected (until we discovered the rabbit warren of small shops and narrow streets adjacent to the main train lines leaving Ueno Station.
Keep an eye on where you're going. It's a good thing it's not too crowded, as a lot of people ride bicycles here, on the sidewalk. This is supposed to happen, as some of the sidewalks have markings clearly indicating things about bike traffic. Possibly things like "if you are a stupid tourist, please try not to get schmucked by a bicycle rider". All the bikes are what I would call "cruiser" style - single or just a few speeds, with U-shaped handle bars parallel to the ground and the big silver fenders on both wheels. And they're all "girls" frames, to make mounting and dismounting easy, plus many of the women are riding them in skirts and high heels. My personal favorite was one it started to rain, and all the bike riders popped out umbrellas and rode around weaving pedestrians with one hand driving and one hand holding an umbrella. No one wears helmets, and moms often had kids in a front basket or back basket - the kids with no helmets, either.
The Japanese language in tatters. For a late afternoon lunch, we got a littler braver and went to a small restaurant near our hotel. Maybe seats for about 20 patrons, most of them counter-style. The kitchen was a walled-off inset in the restaurant, and you went to the kitchen window and gave your order directly to the cook (who was the only employee in the place). The menu and all signs were completely in Japanese.
I marched up to the window and announced, "Yasai o tabemasen" (I don't eat vegetables). Oh man, my first foray into Japanese, trying to get a vegetarian lunch and I completely blow it. The cook's probably thinking, "Yeah, I can't get my kids to eat vegetables, even without adults like you talking them down."
I corrected myself, saying "I eat vegetables. I don't eat meat. I don't eat fish", in Japanese. The amused cook looked at me and asked, "Udon?" All that fancy talking, and I could have ordered lunch with one word.
After we started eating, the cook came to the window and asked (in Japanese) where were we from? At least I assume that's what he asked. Our Japanese listening skills aren't the greatest yet, so I heard "blah blah where blah blah?"
"Kanada ni sunde imasu," I replied (We live in Canada).
From there we proceeded to have a kind of conversation. We talked about where we would go in Japan and how long we would stay, my broken Japanese helped along by the fact the the cook could understand and speak some English. I got completely stumped when he asked if Wesley was a high school student, and I had no idea how to explain home-schooling. "My wife . . . I . . . home . . . at . . . to teach . . ." I bumbled out. "Ahh, you are teacher?" the cook said in English, pointing at Wesley. I'm not sure if he understood completely, but the limits of my Japanese had been reached.
Tomorrow we go to Kanazawa. I hope we get on the right train.