Edo-Tokyo & Sumo museums

Hit up two museums yesterday, Edo-Tokyo museum ticket price of 600 yen and just next door at the stadium we also went to the Sumo Museum - free!

The permanent exhibits at Edo-Tokyo are spread across 2 floors and are more than enough to give you a thorough overview of what life was like during the Edo period 1600 - 1868. Edo is the former name for Tokyo. It was renamed Tokyo in 1868 when it became the imperial capital.

If you are not into reading bucket loads of dry historical information, this museum is probably a good choice for you. They have heaps of interactive areas and photo opportunities if you don't mind posing like a dork. Obviously I have no such problem.

That's me in a palanquin.

And me again, holding up the 15kg banner the fireman used to march around with.

Strangely Chris did not want to participate in posing for any photos in the museum....

The museum has some really impressive models of the different buildings that existed back in ye old Edo.

And some life size replicas of the Nihonbashi bridge and a kabuki theatre. They have people doing performances in front of the theatre, we saw one kimono clad lady doing some pretty nifty things with a pair of scissors and an old guy demonstrating how to get the most out of your spinning top.
Yep, clearly aimed at the kiddies.

 

These are some of the typical characters that appear in the kabuki theatre shows.

 Fun fact about kabuki, the performers are all male, including all the female roles.

I thought the hairstyle section was pretty interesting too. I would never be able to manage those hairdos!

The Sumo Museum is only tiny but it is worth a look. Not open during Sumo tournaments and no photos are allowed but it has a good collection of the ceremonial aprons from past sumos and photos of all the Grand Champions (Yokozuna).

To be crowned a Yokozuna you have to win 2 major tournaments in a row. Apparently this is quite a difficult task, and only 1 in 1,000 sumo will make it the level of Yokozuna. Sumo has been going for around 2,000 years and they have only had 71 Grand Champions is that time.

Around the train station area there are lots of statues and hand prints from past champions. You can't help but want to put your hand up and compare or you could give one a high five like Chris.

We bought a poster of the current sumo line up. Chris wants to follow the Brazilian guy, 2nd row, 4th from the right. But I like the guy who has Charlie Chaplin on his mawashi or maybe the guy with the big rainbow butterfly....

We also bought a tea towel with some of the classic sumo moves.

Wish I had known some of these moves when I was younger, it may have helped me retrieve some of my belongings from my sisters.

Volunteering road trip with my new mate Iwao-san

Last Friday I got asked to fill in as a driver's assistant for the pick up of food donations from Costco for Second Harvest Japan. I was a bit concerned about being able to communicate with the driver as it is usually older guys who are the volunteer drivers and I figured they wouldn't have much English and my Japanese is very basic. I spent my train ride to Akihabara practising my best Japanese for 'I'm sorry, I don't understand', 'slower please' 'can you please repeat one more time'.....

I should have known better! The driver introduced himself and immediately apologised that he didn't know much English. He then talked to me for the next 3 hours in  nearly perfect English and even taught me a few Japanese words along the way. (osampo = to walk or stroll, eiga = movies, seiza = sitting on the floor Japanese style).

I keep discovering that many Japanese people speak English really well but they are too shy to speak it in front of a group. However, when you are talking one on one they are much more confident and are happy to talk with you.

Iwao-san told me all about his life growing up as the youngest of 3 brothers and 2 sisters and how he is now a carer for his elderly father. He was a chef until his wife died a few years ago and he decided to retire. He also helps with the cooking of the meals that Second Harvest supply to the homeless in Ueno Park on the weekend. He says they usually serve up around 400 hot meals every Saturday.

I really enjoyed hanging out with a local and while I was embarrassed about my lack of ability to speak much Japanese, Iwao-san was very enthusiastic about telling me all about his favourite places to ski and drink sake in Japan. He is also very keen  on cars and motorbikes and we spotted some great cars while we were stuck in traffic on the motorway. We saw a car yard full of American muscle cars, including a sweet Pontiac GTO and a '67 Mustang Fastback. A couple of Porsches flew by us too.

Iwao-san also found a radio station that had an American DJ and two Japanese guys translating in between his commentary. It was pretty cool that we could both listen and understand all the jokes. Iwao-san thought it was pretty hilarious that the DJ announced it was 'Hug an Australian Day' on April 26th. I don't think he was up for a hug seeing as we had just met but we posed for photos for each other. He went for a thumbs up for my photo and I went for the peace sign for his. Take that cultural stereotyping!

Nom nom nom...trays of croissants, doughnuts, muffins. And boxes and boxes of vegetables. And many, many loaves of bread. Again, I had to remind myself not to sample the sweet, sweet donations. I may have been drooling Homer Simpson style. Just a bit.

PS: I found out during my volunteering session today, that Iwao-san had told everyone that I play rugby! I had a few people asking my questions about women's rugby before I realised there had been a mix up. I'm guessing when he asked me about sports and I said I like watching rugby he thought I was saying I like playing rugby. Whoops!

Useful apps and websites for Japan visits

These are the apps and websites that are saving my life at the moment.

 Japanese Pro
Japanese Pro by Codegent, free version available called Learn Japanese Phrasebook but I went for the upgrade version which cost $4.99.For the Pro version you get extra topic areas and more phrases under each topic area. There are 20 topics in all.

I have found the general conversation and menu options the most useful but the dating and tongue twister sections are the funniest.

Here is a sample from the dating section:

You click on the phrase you want to say and it will play it for you in Japanese.

I have played a few of the phrases to people at volunteering and at restaurants. It seems to work well but I'm not sure about dating someone via a language app or proposing marriage, apparently you ask someone to marry you by saying "Kekkon shitekuremasenka" handily listed above "Denwa shitekonaide" which means "Stop calling me".

Japan Travel

As I spend a lot of time wandering around by myself or trying to find Chris in tiny craft beer bars, this app has been a lifesaver.

 Also very helpful to find free wif-fi spots, nearby tourist attractions and the like.

If you click on 'Free Wi-Fi Spots' it will show you a list of locations and how far away they are. (There is also free wi-fi at the metro and JR train stations but you will need to register on their site with an email address.)

 If you click on 'Must See' it will show you interesting places nearby and when you select one it will drop a pin on the map to show you where they area.

Or if you are looking for a particular store, click on 'Search Around Me' and boom it will show you the closest convenience stores, train stations, ATM's etc. (Note that only 7 11 stores and Citibank will accept western style bank cards. Japanese banks and ATM's can't process them.)

If you click on 'Transit search' on the blue box on the homepage and enter the stations you want to travel to and from, it will show you the different options, including number of line changes, how long it will take and the cost of the train ticket.

When you click on your preferred option it will also tell you the weather. (I think the umbrella with a sun, means sunny with some showers?)

And if you need to change train lines it will tell you the best carriage to get on to be closest to the correct exit when you need to change lines. For the option below, you should get on carriage 6 on the Hibiya line to be closest to the exit for the JR line you need to switch to at Ebisu station.

All these options are available on the free version. The upgrade version gets you voice navigation, service status notifications and a current station list which tracks which station you are at but it will cost you $7.99 for 7 days, $16.99 for 30 days or $59.99 for a year. The upgrade cost seems a bit of a ripoff considering you can use google maps for voice navigation if you really need it, I guess the catch is you need wifi for google maps whereas you don't need internet connection to use this app, you only need  the GPS switched on through your phone.

Japan-Guide.com

www.japan-guide.com 

Excellent website that has information about everything you could possibly wish to know about travelling & living in Japan. Has been a very helpful reference tool for us when buying sumo tickets, looking up train timetables,festival calenders etc.

Japan - the official guide

http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/

This website is the Japan National Tourism website, so lots of advertising as you would expect.
But it also has lots of gorgeous photos which I can spend hours pouring over and the suggested itineraries are helpful when planning trips outside of Tokyo.

Time Out Tokyo

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo

This website is great if you want to check out what is happening on any given week in Tokyo.
I particularly like the 'Things to do this week' section. Very helpful if you have spare time on your hands and want to see something different like an exhibition or a festival. 

Boating, shrines, flowers and a double lunch

It was an early morning start for yesterday's day trip with Tokyo Snow club. We met the bus at 7am at Shinjuku and headed out to Nagatoro, about 90km north of Tokyo. Kit Kats and cookies were handed out by our tour leader, Sam, a nod to it being Easter Sunday in the western world.Traffic was light and there was no queue for wooden boating so we were off ahead of schedule.

The boating was a bit underwhelming to be honest. It was only about half an hour long and there wasn't a whole lot to see. The guide said a few things in Japanese about the local area, which the girl next to me translated but he spent most of his time doing a sales pitch for the group photo another guide took from up on the rocks when we floated past. At $14 per photo, I'm not surprised no-one bought one.

 It was amusing when we went over a few tiny rapids and the guides got us to pull up the protective plastic wrap around us so we wouldn't get wet. A couple of people were splashed and the squeals equalled what you would hear on an intense roller coaster back at home. One American tourist refused to join his wife for the boating, he stayed on the bus and met us at the final destination. Not sure what he was expecting but it certainly wasn't white water rafting!

Next we wandered around the Hodosan shrine area, a short walk from Nagatoro train station. It was really beautiful with lots of maples trees and some blossoms still around. But it was pretty chilly! A couple of girls in our group were wearing summer dresses and sandals. Not the best choice for a day out in the mountians.

We also had lunch part 1 while we were here, tempura vegetables and hot soba noodles. Soba noodles are usually served cold but we wanted something to warm us up!

Once we were back on the bus, some of the guys decided to go for some extra warming up with a hit from a giant whiskey bottle. The owner of said whiskey is in Tokyo for a buck's weekend. I would be interested to see the rest of his t-shit collection....

Next stop - flowers, whiskey tasting and more food! The flowers are called Shibazakura which translates roughly to lawn cherry blossoms. They have a similar festival at the base of Mt Fuji which would also be spectacular.

Unfortunately, there had been a cold snap recently which prevented some of the flowers from blooming in time to cover all the patchwork design flower bed areas.  You can see some of the bare sections in the photos. It still looked amazing though, I think I am becoming a bit of a flower nut!

Close up of the Shibazakura.

Some of the flower variety names were pretty funny. Below are the Chichibu Heart Beat. There was also a flock of sheep for the kids to check out, I guess sheep are a novelty in Japan?

As you can imagine the boys were not that interested in the flowers and I found Chris heading straight for the whiskey tasting area. Note the posture of the back, the coiled neck, the head tilted forward and the intensity of the stare...do not attempt to step between this predator and his intended prey.

Time for lunch part 2.... takoyaki (octopus)

BBQ fish

Okonomiyaki (savoury pancake)

 And burdock chips.

There was also lots of market stalls selling everything from kids toys to wooden bowls to honey with a bonus bee enclosed.

To finish off a fantastic day out we met up with some of Chris' workmates in the bar area, Golden Gai in Shinjuku. We went to a tiny, elbow room only bar called Ace's where we had overpriced beers but excellent company. We even met a couple on holidays from our home town of Footscray who gave us recommendations for good Japanese and yum cha when we eventually move home.