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May. 29th, 2003 09:27 amToday (Wed) I woke up at 7AM, had a look at my watch, rolled back over into bed and woke up again at 10AM :D In the moments of semi-awakedness, I felt two earth tremors.. of course I have alreaady documented this bit in another post, but I've put it in here for the sake of completedness. Tonight (Wed/Thurs) I've felt 2 more tremors, neither of them as big as the ones this morning. Still no problems with Godzilla or Mothra yet ;)
Speaking of "Sake", but the other kind.. you can buy it from vending machines in the street. It comes in little glass bottles. In theory I think you're meant to be 20 to buy it, but of course, the vending machines don't check ID. Same with beer. Japan seems to be very liberal like that.. buy it when you think you're 20.. but if not.. meh.
Ok, anyway.. wake up, quake, shower, and off to Ueno, two stops by subway. I had meant to go some other places, but that just didn't happen. Ueno is a lot bigger than I initially thought.. I got off the train from the aiport at Ueno JR and looked out and there seemed to be a bit of a regional hub, but nothing terribly big. Today however, I came out of the Ueon Subway.. and found that had I turned the corner when I came out of the subway, I would have found a LOT more. Ewps ;)
For example, a 7 story toy store :D Oh my goodness.. so so so much stuff. Everything from lego to "play weapons". Uh yeah, Japanese take their play pretty seriously it would seem. $30 will get you a VERY realistic looking hand grenade, complete with pin you can pull and handle that flies off.. and $110 will get you an all metal, real weight, Glock 17C, $200 will get you a H&K MP40 tactical SMG and about $300 for a M15 Machine Gun... these things are no toys either, they shoot 8MM BB pellets. In other news, I noticed quite a few people walking around with patches over one eye. Dunno why, but I saw about 5 or 6 people today wearing white gauze patches over one eye. Very weird coincidence. Maybe Japan has a "National LASIK Day" or something :P
After quite some time in the toy store, I went to the "American City" stores, which are a rabbit warren of stores selling Western clothes/shoes/sunglasses mainly. So nothing I couldn't buy at home.. the prices were about the same too. I had a look but couldn't find any half decent engrish :( Must try to get some.. sigh :)
American City was a nice shopping diversion.. had a bit more of a walk around Ueno and then had a Tofu Burger at McDonalds.. it was actually quite nice. "Tofu Setu" being the Japanese for "Tofu Burger, medium fries, medium coke". Note to self on that one. I haven't actually eaten any really Japanese stuff since I got here. I had a traditional Japanese breakfast on the plane, but nothing since then. I guess it's mainly because I'm afraid of the actual ordering bit, but I guess I could just point to pictures of stuff.. Tomorrow (Thursday) I have tentatively arranged to go sightseeing with some other gaijin devils, so we can make asses of ourselves together.
After McTofu (it wasn't actually called that :) I went to Ueno park, which is one of the two big parks in Tokyo.. quite a few people, and also the home to a lot of digiterants and several museums. I will probably go back there at some stage and see the "Treasures of the Romanov's" exhibit that's on at the museum of art, but today I just went to the Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo Museum of Western Art and the Tokyo Science Museum. The Tokyo Museum of Western Art was quite interesting. Japanese people like Western Art, the same way that we like japanese art, so they're willing to pay lots of money for stuff. This museum has about 5 Monets, 6 Picassos, 4 Van Goughs, 3 Cezzane's and work from other western artists of similar repute, in addition to its' outdoor display of Rodin's "The Gates of Hell", "The Buhgers of Calais" and "The Thinker".
Japan is slightly earthquake prone to say the least, and Tokyo is reasonably close to the sea, so in 1999 they went to quite some lengths to clean, preserve and stabalise these works against all of the above.. they have a display tucked away in a back room of how they did it.. quite interesting from a civil engineering point of view.. they have a little model.. you press a button to simulate and it shakes the "ground", while the structure on top only moves from side to side and back to front a bit. During the installation of these protective mounts, they replaced the supports for "The Gates of Hell", from old steel that had rusted, to new stainless steel, and replaced all the 1920s era bolts that hold the sections together with new brass ones which shouldn't cause bimetallic corrosion. Very nifty :)
The national museum is pretty cool too.. they have a display of samurai swords.. some of which are close to 800 years old.. and they still look like they could cut your head off with one stroke. Scary stuff, especially when you consider that these are real Samurai sword blades, not reproduction or collectable ones. These very blades on display were probably responsible for many deaths during japan's feudal period, a part of history in the flesh/steel.
On one of the paths in Ueno park, I saw a black Japanese bobtail cat stalking a raven.. I knelt down to talk to it, and it didn't pay any attention to me, not even when I said "uhh neko-san, that bird is bigger than you". Silly cat. Neko = Cat for those who haven't come across it before. Le purr, le purr purr. I've seen a few cats in this neighbourhood, usually after dark.. and most people with dogs seem to have either those tiny little rat ones, or the ones with the REALLY curly tail. So cute.. all of them.
Anyway, tomorrow (thursday) sightseeing elsewhere, probably Imperial Gardens and War Dead Shrine (Not actually a war memorial[tm]), or wherever the other gaijin devils want to go if it sounds good ;>
Speaking of "Sake", but the other kind.. you can buy it from vending machines in the street. It comes in little glass bottles. In theory I think you're meant to be 20 to buy it, but of course, the vending machines don't check ID. Same with beer. Japan seems to be very liberal like that.. buy it when you think you're 20.. but if not.. meh.
Ok, anyway.. wake up, quake, shower, and off to Ueno, two stops by subway. I had meant to go some other places, but that just didn't happen. Ueno is a lot bigger than I initially thought.. I got off the train from the aiport at Ueno JR and looked out and there seemed to be a bit of a regional hub, but nothing terribly big. Today however, I came out of the Ueon Subway.. and found that had I turned the corner when I came out of the subway, I would have found a LOT more. Ewps ;)
For example, a 7 story toy store :D Oh my goodness.. so so so much stuff. Everything from lego to "play weapons". Uh yeah, Japanese take their play pretty seriously it would seem. $30 will get you a VERY realistic looking hand grenade, complete with pin you can pull and handle that flies off.. and $110 will get you an all metal, real weight, Glock 17C, $200 will get you a H&K MP40 tactical SMG and about $300 for a M15 Machine Gun... these things are no toys either, they shoot 8MM BB pellets. In other news, I noticed quite a few people walking around with patches over one eye. Dunno why, but I saw about 5 or 6 people today wearing white gauze patches over one eye. Very weird coincidence. Maybe Japan has a "National LASIK Day" or something :P
After quite some time in the toy store, I went to the "American City" stores, which are a rabbit warren of stores selling Western clothes/shoes/sunglasses mainly. So nothing I couldn't buy at home.. the prices were about the same too. I had a look but couldn't find any half decent engrish :( Must try to get some.. sigh :)
American City was a nice shopping diversion.. had a bit more of a walk around Ueno and then had a Tofu Burger at McDonalds.. it was actually quite nice. "Tofu Setu" being the Japanese for "Tofu Burger, medium fries, medium coke". Note to self on that one. I haven't actually eaten any really Japanese stuff since I got here. I had a traditional Japanese breakfast on the plane, but nothing since then. I guess it's mainly because I'm afraid of the actual ordering bit, but I guess I could just point to pictures of stuff.. Tomorrow (Thursday) I have tentatively arranged to go sightseeing with some other gaijin devils, so we can make asses of ourselves together.
After McTofu (it wasn't actually called that :) I went to Ueno park, which is one of the two big parks in Tokyo.. quite a few people, and also the home to a lot of digiterants and several museums. I will probably go back there at some stage and see the "Treasures of the Romanov's" exhibit that's on at the museum of art, but today I just went to the Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo Museum of Western Art and the Tokyo Science Museum. The Tokyo Museum of Western Art was quite interesting. Japanese people like Western Art, the same way that we like japanese art, so they're willing to pay lots of money for stuff. This museum has about 5 Monets, 6 Picassos, 4 Van Goughs, 3 Cezzane's and work from other western artists of similar repute, in addition to its' outdoor display of Rodin's "The Gates of Hell", "The Buhgers of Calais" and "The Thinker".
Japan is slightly earthquake prone to say the least, and Tokyo is reasonably close to the sea, so in 1999 they went to quite some lengths to clean, preserve and stabalise these works against all of the above.. they have a display tucked away in a back room of how they did it.. quite interesting from a civil engineering point of view.. they have a little model.. you press a button to simulate and it shakes the "ground", while the structure on top only moves from side to side and back to front a bit. During the installation of these protective mounts, they replaced the supports for "The Gates of Hell", from old steel that had rusted, to new stainless steel, and replaced all the 1920s era bolts that hold the sections together with new brass ones which shouldn't cause bimetallic corrosion. Very nifty :)
The national museum is pretty cool too.. they have a display of samurai swords.. some of which are close to 800 years old.. and they still look like they could cut your head off with one stroke. Scary stuff, especially when you consider that these are real Samurai sword blades, not reproduction or collectable ones. These very blades on display were probably responsible for many deaths during japan's feudal period, a part of history in the flesh/steel.
On one of the paths in Ueno park, I saw a black Japanese bobtail cat stalking a raven.. I knelt down to talk to it, and it didn't pay any attention to me, not even when I said "uhh neko-san, that bird is bigger than you". Silly cat. Neko = Cat for those who haven't come across it before. Le purr, le purr purr. I've seen a few cats in this neighbourhood, usually after dark.. and most people with dogs seem to have either those tiny little rat ones, or the ones with the REALLY curly tail. So cute.. all of them.
Anyway, tomorrow (thursday) sightseeing elsewhere, probably Imperial Gardens and War Dead Shrine (Not actually a war memorial[tm]), or wherever the other gaijin devils want to go if it sounds good ;>
