My legs were shot on the second after walking around Tokyo so much on the first day. After stretching my legs for a good ten minutes, I headed out for the Ueno area.
Ueno is the place to go if you interested in absorbing the arts. There are lots of museums in this park along with a zoo.
Last year, Tokyo borrowed a couple of panda bears from China. They are on loan and they cost something like a million dollars per year (this is for one panda). They have typical panda bear names... kind of like the way Japanese people name their birds, Chi-chi or Po-po.
I paid the 600 yen admission fee and the panda enclosure is next to the entrance. The pandas (one is female, the other is a, surprise surprise, male) were in separate enclosures. One was sitting on its bottom eating bamboo, the other was lying on its back. What an easy life!
I think the news said that they “got it on” about a month ago. Who knows, whether a baby’ll ever pop out but I heard male pandas just aren’t that keen on doing the “dirty deed”. Just like male humans, male pandas might need some guidance with some racy adult panda videos (I heard this was attempted in China -- who knows whether the male pandas paid attention).
I guess I was surprised at the size of the male panda. Quite big and I wouldn’t want to encounter one in the wild.
The rest of the zoo (I actually only walked walked around half of the place -- I had my priorities) was just like a typical zoo. Bored animals, sitting around or pacing back and forth. Someone should really do research on whether these animals go senile earlier than animals in the wild.
After this, I dropped by a shrine that was under construction. This is always disappointing but I suppose it has to be done.
Then I went to the Tokyo National Museum to see Japanese works (paintings, scrolls, etc) from Boston! I’m just wondering why they have to borrow stuff from Boston when this kind of stuff is all over Japan. I paid the 1500 yen admission fee to check the stuff out. Some of it was quite impressive such as the six folding screens with a large drawing of a dragon. But after going to countless amounts of museums in Japan, I have to admit it’s the same ol’ stuff.
At around 12 p.m. I decided to go back to the station area and watch a rakugo performance. Rakugo is a traditional form of comedy in Japan. There’s a stage with a pillow and the comedian kneels down on his knees and starts talking. I have to admit it but I could understand from 30 - 50% of what these people were saying. The tempo can be incredibly fast and they’re using puns... this might be tough even for some Japanese to figure out. I guess they were blabbing about various situations about life. I found it impressive how they would act out two people talking, using different voices for each character. And, how do they memorize such long monologues?
The show lasted four hours (each performance lasted about twenty minutes) and to change the tempo of things, there were a few other types of performances. One was a man who took requests from the audience, cut paper and put it on the overhead -- some of the things that he cut were typical Japanese things, like castles or situations from famous stories -- I heard he does wedding parties if you’re interested in spicing up things for that “important” event. Then there was a performance by two older manzai actors talking at a blistering speed. Also there was a juggling performance with three men... I was impressed at the variety of things that they could do such as rolling many types of things on “traditional” Japanese umbrellas.
I wonder why there weren’t many women performing in the program (there was only one woman and she was the first performer, performing while many people were eating their bentos). Maybe women aren’t as interested in taking the stage as men are... or is there discrimination even in the rakugo world?
I had a bit of time, after rakugo, to kill so I dropped by Akihabara, the “electric” city that is haunted by geeky otaku types. There are tons of shops that sell electronic goods, anime related stuff (a lot of this is pretty... raunchy) and maid maid maids. I walked around and found the place to be dull. I walked into a couple of used electronic goods shops hoping to get a good deal on a camera but the prices weren’t cheap. Ah well, life goes on.
I rested in my hotel room and then I ventured off to jazz concert number two. This time I went to see Hara Dairiki, one of Japan’s top drummers. The jazz bar was located ten minutes away from the center of Tokyo. The bar was easy enough to find thanks to my google-maps printout.
The place’s name is Cochi. this could be one of the smallest jazz bars that I’ve been to. It has seat for about fourteen people. It seems to be owned by a husband and wife team and I felt like I was in someone’s living room. I enjoyed the atmosphere... small and cozy. The walls are stained with tobacco smoke and the bar counter has been worn out over the years by the elbows of people.
The tunes of the concert were mostly by the pianist. Lots of weird stuff and the pianist seems to have his own style. Being such a small bar, the drummer adjusted his sound to the bassist’s sound, ensuring that he didn’t drown him out. Each solo was free enough that each musician had just the right amount to say. The musicians really worked well with each other in this concert and the audience members seemed to enjoy the performance.
I talked a bit to the musicians after the concert and then returned to my hotel.
Another day full of wonderful experiences came to an end
