Day 12 - Part II - Tokyu Hands & Ito-Ya

What happens to Home Depot when it can’t spread out, is supported by a buying public with an appetite for both the “kawaii” and the crazy invention?  You get Tokyu Hands.

It is where you go to buy the mundane – the light-bulbs, screws, hammers, nails  (pretty much all individually over packaged) paint and bungee-cords.

But you can also buy inflatable mannequin portions....

Not selling the socks, just the AirQuin.

magic music monkeys

A version of these are being pushed as the hot new thing
next to this year's Elmo

random usb port plug-ins that do nothing but do sit-ups and, ummm, other things.

Buckyballs were all the rage when we went, both in the US, and in Japan, but the one thing I wish I had gotten was a planetarium nightlight/tub toy.

However, Tokyo has it’s formal side as well.  In contrast to all this wild and crazy colored silly cuteness is the nearly restrictive culture of stationary and invitations. 

Their use of paper – for decorative wrapping and as statement making when chosen for visiting cards, business cards, invitations, thank yous and cards accompanying gifts makes Martha Stewart and the DAR look like rank amateurs and untutored bumpkins.  If you are searching for a palace of such papers, Ito-Ya, of the giant red paper-clip is a wonderful glimpse into this world.

So for the pen-junkie that I am, it was almost torture to have to stroll through this store at a pace that meant we would leave before lunch time.  I did manage to find some beautiful wrapping paper though, so I could present the gifts that I brought to our “hostess for a day” (see Day 13) in a little bit of style.

Day 12 Part I – Hachiko & Kawaii

Back to the trains! 

Tavin and I hit the subways, feeling pretty comfortable getting around as long as we had a station to go to, and a surface map of the surrounding area.

The first journey turned out to be a trip down memory lane as we exited the Shibuya train station at the Hachiko exit.  I was read a picture book version of this incredibly faithful dog way back when I was in elementary school – and here I was at the actual train station where it all took place!

And the Japanese still love Hachiko.

I got to see the Hachiko wall

Plenty of directions to places refer to the "Hachiko Exit"
This sort of instruction is actually essential since
leaving a train station by the wrong exit can leave you
0.5 km, or more, from where you want to be.

the Hachiko statue,

and there is even a special shuttle around Shibuya, the Hachiko bus.

And for those Akita fans out there… yes, Hachiko was an Akita.

Now notice for a moment what they’ve done to Hachiko on his bus.  They’ve made him super round and fuzzy… really, really, unrealistically cute.  

The Japanese word for this extreme cuteness is “kawaii” (kuh-why).

This is a way of life for some Japanese, especially girls between the ages of about 11 and 18.  And some continue on with it for much, much longer.  It is usually accompanied by high-pitched giggling.

We headed for kawaii central – Kiddy Land – and were not disappointed.  They were remodeling the main store, and had a young woman dressed like a school girl, standing in front of the construction, handing out maps to the temporary store.

Here are a few things we found:

Yes, Hello Kitty in a pink leopard print suit.
She giggles, and that tail makes her roll around.
Yes, it is next to a monchichi display.

This just about undid me - Elmo in a Hello Kitty suit, and Hello Kitty...
I can't even say it.
And yes, just to the left, I now see there was also
 a Cookie Monster option I was blind to at the time.

And we even caved a bought a sushi thumb drive.  And Tavin scored a couple of stuffed animal Pokemon.

And yet, there were plenty of odd gag-gifts

A vending machine that would sell you
your own cringing middle-manager? 

Is this one a commemoration of President George H.W. Bush’s visit?

And we found kawaii in some odd spots in other places – road barriers, 

and souvenirs at the aquarium.  

Hello Kitty, out for a cruise on her pet manta ray.

Hello Kitty really is everywhere! 

Day 11 - Part III Dinner from the Basement

What do you do if you live in or around Tokyo, in a tiny little apartment without a kitchen?  You certainly have a hot water pot and a rice maker (this is equivalent of a coffee maker and a microwave), but for dinner you certainly can’t eat out all the time – that would break you financially.  

You can eat ramen from the Japanese equivalents of 7-11 or, if you want something more substantial, healthful, or downright delicious, you might pick up dinner in the basement of a “Depah-to” or department store.  That sounds depressing it you are thinking of the bedding displays or clearance tableware or end of season decorations one often finds in the basements of American department stores.  Not so in Tokyo. 

The basement level is what delis would look like if Willy Wonka had been into savory foods instead of sweet.  This is the depachika.

I almost drove my family crazy walking around the counters looking at the prepared foods of the world.  Not just Japanese, but French, Italian, Chinese, Korean and on and on.  The Japanese have no problem facing the fact that their meat comes from animals.  Even in this shiny setting there were whole pig haunches of prosciutto, trotter still attached, on display in glass-walled cool rooms.  Or roasted and bar-b-qued poultry with feet and heads still in place.  A guarantee of quality to be sure. 

Tavin and Alec were happy with a little sushi, or grilled chicken skewers.  I wanted to try everything – but knew I couldn’t, so had to choose something.  Agonizing and exciting – I could have just toured the food halls of Tokyo and been happy.  The highlight for Tavin was when he got to exercise his budding Japanese to the point of ordering his own dinner.  Hey, if you can speak food wherever you go, you’ll be OK.

The Japanese continued to prove themselves the master of over and precious packaging – all the way down to the tiny little blue-ice packs that come with your “self-catering” sushi.

We picked up drinks on the way home (purple Kagome for Tavin), spread out, and sat back to watch Japanese TV.  (The best on that is yet to come!)

Day 11 - Part II Going Somewhere

North is not up - it's north.

The park around the Tokyo National Museum introduced us to an idiosyncrasy of Japanese map use.  All the maps of the “You are Here” type in the transit stations, throughout the park, and later the city, are not “North Up” (What Americans are used to – north is always the “top” of the map).  Japanese maps are oriented to “what you can see when you are looking at this sign.”  If you look left, you will see what is to the left of the map, and what you see behind you is at the bottom of the map, and what is in front of you is at the top of the map.  Intuitive, sensible, BUT if it is not what you are used to, confusing until you figure it out.    

And to keep things interesting, in many places buildings on a block are not numbered in the order you find them, but rather in the order they were built.  Tokyo natives are not ashamed to admit they cannot help you find their way around, if it is not their part of the city.  And just about every business card you will ever get has a quick map of how to get to it from the nearest large cross street or transit station.

We did find finally find the Tokyo National Museum.  We got to follow the path of the Buddha into Japan.  On this blustery day, we definitely appreciated the meticulous conservator instincts of the Japanese, especially after the cavalier attitude of the Chinese.  The building was warm, nicely temperature and humidity controlled. We got to see Samurai armor,

Yes - that snail shell is a helmet.

beautifully painted scrolls

This was my favorite.

Yes - it really was a painting of a
tree pulling game.

and other esoterica of Japan.  Like their European counterparts, the paintings were interesting in their own right, but also a window into what (rich) people did at the time.  

The ocean theme was continued outside as we found the very large model of a blue whale.

See little Tavin way down there

  Despite the size it was not life size.  Those whales are almost unimaginably huge.

On our way out of the museum I got to see more of the oddities of the Japanese bathroom.  I know it seems odd to talk about toilets here, but it is hard to go to Japan and not mention them.  I mean heck, in the English language paper we got, there was even an article talking about how this year was the 30^th Anniversary of the Washlet. 

This is the seat that has all the buttons to control water jets.  The temperature, intensity and aim are all adjustable. Some models have a heated air dryer as well, colorful lights and even songs.  The Simpsons did not exaggerate.  They didn’t have to. 

Not all of it is so showy; there are practical aspects as well.  The bathroom also featured the “false flush” and the most complete sink ever.  The politeness of Japanese culture has many ways of dealing with being so close to each other all the time.  One method is using flushing sounds to cover up any other sounds you don’t want to share.  But being an island nation, the specter of water shortage is always there.  Instead of wasteful flushing, just wave your hand in front of this device, and it will make as many flush sounds as you want.

The sink wasn’t about politeness, it was just cool.  All in one sink unit, you had the no touch faucet, no touch soap, and in the surface of the sink closest to you was one of those high-speed hand dryers.  Very nifty.

And speaking of nifty, the bathroom mirror in our hotel had a little heater behind part of it, so even when the bathroom fogged up one little square of the mirror was still clear.

Now we were ready to try getting dinner again.

Day 11 - Part I - Learning How to Pay for the Tokyo Subway

What do you do when you barely speak the language, can’t read it to save your life, and the fares are obscure and ever changing depending on distance, time of day, and which rail line you used to get from point A to point B?

You get a reloadable transit card.  Charge it up, and let the computers figure out what you owe – like everyone who lives there does.  And these are good in trains, busses and some taxis.  

The subways... look like subways.

However the machines only take cash… and we were very low.  It was at the end of this day that we realized the only way to go was to just use the cash machine at Denny’s.  It didn’t care we were foreigners.  Every other cash machine we tried (in the subway stations, at banks… and the museum store we went to didn’t even have an ATM, who’s ever heard of that in the US?) required you to have an account in a bank IN Japan.  We didn’t.  So, we had to find a machine that only needed the reassurance of VISA.

Fun Fact: Most Japanese carry huge amounts of cash on them at all times.  Just weeks after we visited Japan, this fact was borne out by the huge number of home safes, full of cash, that washed up as debris from the tsunami that ravished the east coast of Japan after the magnitude 9+ earthquake that hit Japan March 11, 2011.  Paying with plastic has not really caught on.  The transit cards are beginning to work like debit cards – especially with the vending machines, but in general, Japan remains a cash society.

We finally got SUICA cards for all of us (getting a kid transit card was the hardest – they only give them to you if a kid is actually there – and make sure it matches the kid’s ID.) These are the nationwide transit/debit cards.  There are also city only cards, but being travellers we went for the wider option.  Phew, we could now pay without complication.  It was time to go exploring.  The Tokyo National Museum and the surrounding park seemed like a great place to start.  

Day 10 - Part II – Dinner & a Show

Yes… now that we are in Japan, we can have sushi.

And as I had come to suspect, one of the reasons for the worldwide success of sushi is that good sushi is a result of a nose for fresh ingredients (unique to location), the right rice (easily transportable) and technique.  The sushi we had in Tokyo was very good, the trimmings made it more Japanese than I had experienced,

There were certainly more different fish, and small fish to choose from, and the clam broth – with cute little clams in it was delicious and comforting.  Umami.

When we were all happy, relaxed and full, we got ready to go, and were presented with beautifully wrapped little “take home sushi” (of the pressed and cut variety, rather than rolled) was the cherry on top making it not like at home at all.

After we returned to our room, and realized no one was tired yet, we pulled out the Lonely Planet, and realized we were just down the road from Hakuhinkan – or – as the English writing on the outside says, “TOY PARK.”  This place looks like troop of 13 year olds were in charge of stocking it.  Everything you want is crammed cheek by jowl with everything else everyone else wants, in only a mildly haphazard fashion.  And there is the biggest slot car track I have ever seen on the 4^th floor.

Almost painfully authentic;
 the Japanese girls in coveralls
and pigtails... and all those boys.
Except for his gargantuan parent,
Tavin fits in a little too well

 Cars were driven and crashed. 

And then it was time for us to crash too.

Day 10 - Part I - Breakfast at Denny’s & Video Game Shopping

Alec was ready for less adventure in the morning – not more.

So we headed across the street.  The cigarette machine on the way in and the wine list at the table (Spanish, Italian & German – French is only at the fancy places) should have hinted that Denny’s here does not mean what you think it means.

They did have “western” breakfast.  It was just so small.  On the other hand, Tavin and I went for hot Japanese breakfast – and between the salmon filet, noodle soup, seaweed, and tea, we were all set for the day.

            What we should have noted was the ATM – near the cigarette machine – for that became our source of cash.  Most bank ATM’s in Japan only work with their own cards or network cards, not just some random Visa Debit card.  We only came to terms with this after fussing with several machines for many minutes – both in train stations and at several bank branches around the city. 

           

            Before we really got going in Tokyo – we had a mission – to find a Specific PS3 video game.  So Alec went to Akihabara – Electronics Town with Tavin on a hunt.  Success all around. 

This is the one time the pictures taken are pretty much indistinguishable from pictures taken at home… and are all of things Tavin thought were cool.

Since Alec had Lonely Planet – with maps & Japanese characters, he was able to get a Taxi there and back.  We saved “braving the Japanese rail system” for the next day.