I woke up at around 8 in the morning and did the usual stuff to get ready.
I decided to leave my big, fat guidebook in the hotel room and went down to the lobby of the hotel (東横 inn) and enjoyed a simple breakfast.
The day before, in the morning, I wanted to use the computer in the lobby to check my email and stuff and an American woman (probably in her 60s) was slightly in the way. After I asked whether I could use the computer, she said, “It’s tough to find a spot to read the newspaper,” since all the seats in the restaurant were taken, and the conversation started. She said that she came to Japan eons ago as a student and that she visits Japan every year. The conversation was mostly about Japan and our lives. The conversation lasted about ten minutes.
This morning, I saw her again and she said it would be her last day in Tokyo. She asked me whether I had time to go out for coffee and I said that, unfortunately, I had some plans to meet someone in the afternoon. I suppose I could’ve made time to meet her, but suddenly changing my plans would’ve gone against my priorities. Should I have had a coffee with her? I don’t feel too guilty about it but since I had only five days in Tokyo vs her two weeks, I think I made the right decision.
With lots of time to kill in the morning, I took off to Asakusa. Since my hotel was at Ootsuka area, I took the Yamanote train line to Ueno and then transferred by subway.
While in the subway station, I was checking out the sign for the fares and some strange middle-aged man approached me. He had glasses and was a bit chubby. His English wasn’t the greatest and he asked me, “Do you speak English,” and “Where you go?” I replied Asakusa, and he told me the price and quickly walked up to one of the ticket machines and indicated where to put the money in. At this point, I was getting rather annoyed. I took out a thousand yen bill from my wallet and as I was about to put it in the machine, this man took it from me and inserted it into the machine for me. After the change came out, he grabbed the change and put it in my hand. Then he asked for 200 yen.
At this point, I just rolled my eyes, gave him a dirty look and said, “Ah fuck,” and walked away. I glanced back and looked at him once more and he asked “だめ？ (No?)”, which I responded to by barking out, “だめ！” back at him.
Some people will do anything for money. After cooling down on the subway, I thought about what a miserable individual this person was, expecting a handout for his 20 seconds of work. Tokyo’s got a lot of desperate people, financially, so it’s best to be cautious with the strangers around you. I wonder how many people actually fall for this man’s “gallant” service and give him money. The subway attendants should be on high alert for men like this that cause a nuisance to travelers.
Asakusa was busy. There were lots of people from Asian countries and lots of high school students. I enjoyed the busy environment of a Saturday. I wasn’t interested in the touristy shops that sells “traditional” Japanese stuff and just walked past the long stalls area that continues for several blocks.
There are a few famous things to see at Asakusa. The giant lantern is quite popular to take photos of and there’s a huge bronze incense burner with smoke gushing out. People wave their hands to try to put the smoke on their bodies. It’s supposed to ward off illness. Then there’s the main hall, which has a nice looking ceiling, and a five-story pagoda. To the left of the temple is a pleasant garden.
From Asakusa, you can see the new super-tower, Skytree. It’s a pretty impressive hunk of steel.
After Asakusa, I decided to head to the Ryogoku area. Ryogoku has the sumo arena (no sumo events were scheduled when I was there -- just some hip hop dance event). I enjoyed chanko-nabe (food that sumo wrestlers enjoy) and visited the Edo-Tokyo museum. It’s a good museum if you’re interested in the history of Tokyo. It’s a massive museum with lots of pictures/models/graphs/items that help you imagine how Tokyo became Tokyo.
It must’ve been around three in the afternoon, so I went to Tokyo station and dropped by the Bridgestone Museum of Art. This museum has an impressive collection of paintings and sculptures. There’s one impressive painting by Picasso of a man sitting on a chair with his legs crossed. It’s one of his earlier painting, so he took his time with this one (unlike his later works).
Around five, I met an old friend, A. He’s currently teaching at a University in Chiba and we’ve known each other since I came to Sapporo. He used to work as an EC teacher and actually came back for several months to do research for his research paper at Hong Kong University.
I had seen him a couple of times in the previous year (one time in Sapporo and one time in Hong Kong), so I couldn’t really say “long time, no see.” It was good to meet up with him. We mostly blabbed about Japan’s current situation and its future. He also told me a bit about his new job. He seems to be handling things quite well, but I was surprised to hear that one of his courses has 70 students in it...
We met in a British pub (they seem to be all over the place in Tokyo), ate some grub at a popular curry shop and then went to the Pit Inn, Tokyo’s most famous jazz live house (actually, the BlueNote might be more famous, but who wants to dish out 10000 plus yen for half a set?).
The performance was lackluster at times because the pianist didn’t have the energy or power to match the drummer but I have a feeling that’s why the drummer (the leader of the group) may have picked that musician. It was a night that featured this drummer with his giant drum set. The group just randomly picked tunes all night long and the drummer would obnoxious start off the songs with some trite opening. The one good thing I could enjoy about this concert was the electric bass player. His sense of time was excellent and he had a good melodic sense, which he demonstated in a Jaco Pastorius (I believe) song .
I guess when you go to a live concert without knowing much about the musicians, you’re bound to experience some disappointment at times. Supposedly, the drummer is quite famous in the Japanese jazz world but I have to admit that he must’ve peaked many years ago.
Going home was a blast! Riding the Yamanote train at 11 p.m. is simply a must for anyone who wants to experience Tokyo. Jam packed and people pushing to get on.
I said goodnight to A as I got off the train at Ootsuka station and headed back to my hotel.
I survived another day in Tokyo.
