Japan Day 30

Today started out too early. I had to get to the Toyota Kaikan for my tour of the factory by 10:30 and it was a weird series of trains I took from Hamamatsu to the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t eat the ‘free” breakfast at Toyoko Inn because it was too crowded (as they often are) and made do with an egg sandwich and awful coffee at a Starbucks. Then it was off schlepping my bags on “normal” trains for a couple of hours.

As I left Hamamatsu and tried to find the right train station, I saw a weird building. “May One” is something engraved on a stapler I have that came from a closed state home for the mentally challenged so I thought it was a weird coincidence.

This is what passes for a rush-hour train in Hamamatsu.

I had to transfer twice and this was the busiest train.

Seriously, Toyota’s headquarters is in the middle of nowhere. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the train traces from both sides of the station merge into one line.

The train itself wasn’t all that impressive. Two cars on this one.

The directions were pretty poor as well. The last step was “take a taxi or start walking”. I figured out which direction to go and first ducked into this building to ask where I was supposed to be.

Turns out it’s the supplier’s building, and the headquarters is the tall building.

This is the Toyota headquarters, in the middle of nowhere.

If I had followed the road instead of the walking paths, I would have seen this as the Toyota Museum.

I wasn’t able to take any pictures on the factory tour, but they let me take pictures inside the museum. I don’t have that many, besides the backwardness of the inside of this car.

I finally got to sit in a couple of Lexuses as well. The museum was full of guys in nice suits. Mostly Koreans and Indians and I’m not sure what the Indians were doing besides playing a lot of grab ass.

I didn’t take any pictures of the new cars or any of the race cars, but I do have a couple of pictures the classics.

The factory tour was pretty cool. I tried to go on one in Kentucky, but couldn’t schedule it due to several busloads of school kids showing up at the same time. This time the only problem was my sniping at some of the suited Indian guys who kept pushing past me for no reason other than, like I said, to play grab ass. They weren’t paying attention and just wanted to get ahead for some reason and kept shoving past me. The lack of sleep and food made me particularly testy and I just said, “What is wrong with you Indian people?”

Anyway, the factory trip was pretty cool.

I got back to the station and couldn’t find any restaurants. I finally realized one of the buildings right next to the station was a restaurant and they had a lunch special which I misread as “tenteki”. Tenteki means IV infusion or it means mortal enemy and I just about passed it up. It actually said TONteki, which means pork steak. It was tasty.

After that I headed back to Nagoya. I’ve been taking my train tickets out all day long and showing them to various conductors on the train and when I got back to Nagoya I realized I had my four-day ticket from Tokyo to Osaka, and I somehow had my ticket for the short train from Mikawatoyota to Okazaki, but I didn’t have Sunday’s shinkansen ticket from Nagoya to Osaka. I went back to the train station to replace the ticket which, fortunately, was only ¥2,920 ($36.86 today) and also got a huge page of explanation of what I was supposed to do about a missing ticket. I guess I’m supposed to get special validation on the replacement ticket so if I ever get the old ticket back, I can get a refund of most of my money. I think it’s going to take lots of special rubber stamping of my ticket.

I was hungry, but didn’t feel like eating dinner yet so I went to Cafe de Crié. The coffee was so-so and the cake was bland and it cost more than my lunch. 

When I finally made it out to dinner I had a Nagoya specialty, tonkatsu with miso sauce. Other guys sitting next to me at the crowded counter were getting it half-and-half, one half miso and the other half regular tonkatsu sauce, but I figured I might as well go for it. I wasn’t disappointed.

I wish I could say I’m getting to sleep early, but uploading these pictures took several hours. The internet connection at this Toyoko Inn is kind of slow. Ah well. Tomorrow I explore more of Nagoya and probably see yet another Toyota Museum and, of course, shrines and temples. Or maybe the maglev museum. I haven’t figure it all out quite yet.

Japan Day 29

My last night in Tokyo was pretty loud. I figured I could put up with it for one last night. I got up and had to make it to Tokyo Station to catch the Shinkansen for Hamamatsu. Man, was it crowded. I had to push my way onto the first train.

Part of the trip was through Shizuoka prefecture and I tried to take a picture of the hills. There’s tea in them that hills. Instead of fields of rice paddies, there are fields with tea 

Some of the stops were quick and I was expecting Hamamatsu to be the same, but there were lots of people getting off and it was a long stop.

And there goes the train.

Hamamatsu looked inviting.

I dropped off my bags at the hotel and started walking towards Hamamatsu castle. I saw a temple and the gate was closed.

It was a rainy day and there was almost no one on the streets. It was a lot different than the streets of Tokyo.

Here’s a temple I saw on the street. It looks like a shrine from someone’s house.

Holding the camera under the umbrella is going to make for a lot of crappy pictures today.

But there were larger temples on the way.

I finally made it to Hamamatsu Castle Park.

I couldn’t figure out where I was and the signs led me to believe I was supposed to go up these stairs.

Fortunately, the stairs lead to the tower of the castle.

I found out that the tower was rebuilt in the 1950’s and is the only part of the castle left other than the walls.

But there was a nice view from the top of the tower. Here’s the view back towards Hamamatsu station. I also saw a lot of jet fighters from the self-defense station in town.

Here’s another crappy picture of the statue of Tokugawa Ieyasu who was at this castle.

Then I went looking for some lunch, but there weren’t many stores to be found. In fact, all I saw were several Lawson convenience stores. I finally found a store and at 1PM it was pretty empty. I was also told that they were out of the daily special and only had the tonkatsu. Turns out the tonkatsu was pretty good.

I started back towards the station and the Hamamatsu City Museum of Musical Instrument. But I did see some large temples. This one, I think, is Shofukuji Temple.

Whatever it is, it’s new and big.

Across the street is Saint Christophers, which was odd looking enough that I took a picture.

I also saw Shinzoji Temple, which looked pretty large from the street. I had to go way around the neighborhood to find the entrance.

Next door was an even larger shrine, Gosha Shrine.

It was a huge temple.

I finally found my way to the Hamamatsu City Museum of Musical Instrument and it was pretty cool. I listened to the museum recording and there were EIGHTY stations. The pictures are especially shitty because, well, they’re shitty. The first display was of a gamelan.

There were also a lot of Korean instruments.

Of course there were traditional Japanese instruments as well.

 

When I got downstairs there were lots of western and African instruments and there was a demonstration of a giraffe piano (a type of upright).

It was in a hall full of pianos, clavichords, harpsichords, and other unique keyboards. There were also cutaways that showed how the keyboards worked.

The other half of the floor had lots of percussive instruments as well as string instruments and wind instruments.

I mean seriously, this is a European instrument from the 1800’s that is no longer played.

Or this valve trombone thingy?

This was amongst all the other trombone-like things.

Tucked away upstairs were the electronic instruments.

And hidden behind those was a large room of Japanese-made pianos, and then a play room with lots of instruments to try out (including a banjo!).

The third thing I wanted to try was the famous Hamamatsu eel. I went to a small shop where I was the only customer and the prices of the fresh unagi varied by size.

I had a medium one. The unagi had a fresh flavor and not just the cooked and flavored taste I’m used to. It was tasty.

So there’s Hamamatsu. I’m blaming the blurriness on the rain. Just pretend I did it on purpose with Instagram like I was a hipster.

Japan Day 28

This is my last day in Tokyo, at least until I come back on my way to Pusan, and on the way back home. I was a little tired because, once again, someone was making noise as I was trying to sleep. They switched my room again and the other room was a lot quieter.

I had to get out of the room early because today was the day I had tickets for the Ghibli Museum. They let people in twice a day, and you can stay in as long as you want. It’s a ways out of town and I got there in time.

There was a long line to get in. The one curves to the left. Right behind me is a fake ticket booth with Totoro in it, but you have to get tickets at a machine in any Lawson convenience store.

Almost in. The clock says 10:03 and my ticket is for 10AM.

You can’t take any pictures inside but you can outside. I took a picture of this guy on the roof who is from a movie I haven’t seen yet.

There’s three stories. The bottom story has a small movie theatre (you get to see the movie once per visit) and one display room. The second story has two. The third story has the cat bus and the store. I don’t think I’m forgetting anything.

There’s also a cafe that has a long wait to get in.

I spent two hours at the museum and I had to work at it. Turns out that some of the crowded rooms empty out if you wait, but I’m not sure if it was worth the build-up. I’ve seen more interesting things at real studios in Portland.  I wouldn’t talk anyone out of going, but it seems like it would be a lot more fun for kids.

I took the bus to the museum but on the way back I walked through the park again. I found even more wood chimes in the park, including ones you run by hand.

It was a lot nicer to walk than to be crammed in a bus.

I took a slightly different path back, and I saw the spring that feeds the lake. This is one of the historic water sources for Tokyo.

I also saw some people practicing some sort of dancing at the edge of the park.

On the way back to the hotel I changed my tickets for my trip from Hamamatsu to Nagoya to make a side-trip to the Toyota factory museum. I didn’t know it was in the middle of nowhere until I checked more carefully on the intarwebs.

It was starting to rain by the time I got back and I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for my laundry to finish. Lunch was from the Tesco and dinner was at Saizeria. I was looking at some of my pictures and I think I should have been more adventurous in my dining in Tokyo. Oh well.

Tomorrow I’m off to Hamamatsu. I’ll have to get some eel when I get there.

Japan Day 27

Today I was trying to decide what to do, besides drop off some guidebooks at the hotel my sister is staying at. Instead of hanging out in Tokyo with her (and Lim) I’m going to Toyama. I figure adding a few days in Tokyo didn’t make any sense. My mom is going to Toyama at the same time, and is also going to be there while the three of us go to Busan.

I was thinking of going to the Tobu Railway museum, but after looking at the museum on Google maps, I thought it might not be all that interesting since it looked so small. My mom mentioned old buildings that survived the fire bombings of World War II but I couldn’t figure out where that was. So I decided to go to Arakawa Ward since there’s a bridge they also call the train museum.

I didn’t stay long enough to see the Shinkansen trains. or anything beyond the Yamanote line and I think the Tobu line on the very right-hand side of this picture.

The map I had showed a 30-minute walk through the temples which I turned into another five hour trek. This area is temple central and I’m thinking many of the temples I saw were of the Nichiren sect. This is the gate of Hongyōji Temple.

This is the temple itself.

Around the corner is Kyōōji Temple.

According to the guide, “After losing at the Battle of Ueno in 1868, members of the Shōgitai (an elite corps of the shogunate) hid themselves at this temple where they were confronted by troops from the new government. Bullet marks form the fighting can still be seen on the main gate.”

The temple itself is undergoing repairs.

Keiunji Temple, which isn’t mentioned much in the guide.

This is the gate of of Yōfukuji Temple with two guardian statues carved by Unkei.

The temple itself is less impressive.

On the way is also Fujimisaki slope, where you can see Mt. Fuji on a clear day (not a hazy day like today). This slope is seen in a lot of wood block printings.

Next to each other are Jōkōji Temple and Suwa Jinja shrine.

The temple is newly rebuilt and is known for it’s good view.

The shrine is a little bit more traditional.

This is a stone owl at the back of an elementary school commemorating the school’s 100th anniversary. The placard next to it is engraved with the handwriting of Kōtarō Takamura, a poet and sculptor who graduated from the elementary school.

The path passed through Nishi-Nippori park where there was a statue. There was a sign describing the statue on the street, but it was in Japanese so I’m not sure of the significance.

The path continued around Kaisei Senior High School which is one of the best high schools in Japan. There’s a tiny shrine nearby that is used to pray for success in entrance examinations.

Then the path continues down to the area that’s at the bottom of the slope. Next is Seiunji Temple.

Next door is Shushōin Temple, that is supposed to have be in lots of Utagawa Hiroshige’s wood block prints and houses a statue of of one of the Seven Lucky gods. I didn’t see the statue but the parking lot was full of cars and bicycles and I could hear Nichiren chanting from inside.

Hōkoji Temple.

Nansenji Temple.

These are the Yūyake Dandan stairs. The tea shop to the left is where I had lunch.

Looking behind me from the stairs is an old shopping area.

Lunch was tea soba. The small teacup had umekombu tea (which I drank before I took the picture) and the other cup has hōjicha.

I noticed my friend Megan had good medical news and said to have a dessert in celebration, so I had a matcha cream puff.

This is Emmei-in Temple.

The guide book (and the placard) mainly talk about the chinquapin tree which is a national monument.

After that it was off in the direction of Ueno station to try to buy another (cheap) bag. I almost gave up because I looked at a map and saw the number of temples that overwhelmed me.

I wish I could remember anything about this Nichiren temple.

After this was the large graveyard of the Ieyasu clan.

After the cemetery was residential streets.

That didn’t slow down the number of temples.

This is the temple of a samurai who made the first waterworks in Edo.

A huge temple deserving of a civil engineer (I’m an infrastructure nerd).

I kept seeing signs for the Daimyo Clock museum, so I headed off in that direction. what did I find? More temples.

The signs led me to this overgrown garden.

This is the entrance to the museum. It was a single room full of old clocks. Not sure if it was worth ¥300, but that’s just because I couldn’t read any of the signs. Cool clocks, though.

Then it was off to try to find my way to Ueno Park. I found myself on a tiny path between houses.

This is what everyone was looking at, a hand pump.

The path got narrower, but it went through.

At the very end was another temple, then city streets.

And a rental bicycle store.

One of the things I missed on the my last trip to Ueno was the giant statue of Takamori Saigō. Of course I found a way to have to climb a bunch of stairs to get there.

I could tell it was popular because people kept getting their picture taken in front of it.

I bought another bag at Ameyoko, this time a gym bag for the huge price of ¥900.

Then I thought iI’d walk back to Nippori Station so I could see Zenshōji Temple.

I think I saw this the last time I was in Ueno.

Turns out I took the LONG WAY to get from Ueno Station to Nippori Station and it took me by hundreds of love hotels. I saw policemen patrolling the area in groups.

I finally made it to Zenshōji Temple, where the mother of the sixth Tokugawa shogun is buried.

Other than the history, it wasn’t that impressive.

It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and I have a ticket for the Ghibli museum. I have to get out early to get there. Then it’s time to pack for my trip to Hamamatsu, Nagoya, and then a week and a half in Osaka. I just got a ticket to visit the Toyota factory, so I have to change my train tickets from Hamamatsu to Nagoya. I guess I get to stand in line at the train station again as well. I don’t like it when my trip starts sounding like work. I guess I’m just lazy.

Japan Day 26

The party next door ended around 11PM and it was fairly quiet last night. I got up feeling pretty good besides my sore throat. But I still didn’t feel like doing anything. Both my sister and mom agreed, I don’t really have to do anything since I am on vacation. So, I did what I did the last time I didn’t want to leave the room: laundry.

About the time I started, my sister told me to buy the train tickets for our return train trip from Osaka to Tokyo. That’s right before we get on the plane to head home. I had enough time to walk to the train station, stand in one of the slowest lines I’ve been in, twice, since I thought I’d screwed up the tickets once. The laundry still wasn’t done when I got back.

It was a beautiful day. I’m not sure why, but there have been a lot of hot, sunny days right after cold rainy days. That make for some humid days as well.

I decided to eat lunch at Burger King just because I saw it on the way back and I wanted to be able to say that the last time I ate at Burger King was in Tokyo. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t make me feel very good. Another problem is that I like eating lunch at odd times. If you want to was lunch outside of the hours of 11AM – 2PM, nothing “normal” is open but hamburger joints are.

I did get to watch some guys throwing away the contents of an office of some sort from the window of the Burger King.

After that it was back to the hotel to try to figure out how to keep my Japanese data plan SIM running. The one I got only works for a month at a time without getting a “recharge”. It took way longer than I thought it would to figure it out on their web site because telephone companies aren’t known to be clear and it was all in Japanese. I’m not sure how I killed the afternoon but I’m sure that took a lot of the time.

Then it was time for me to be indecisive. I’ve been here 26 days and I needed a haircut but Tokyo has the worst men’s hairstyles that I’ve seen in a long time. Regular haircuts here come with a post-haircut wash, a shave, and a shoulder massage, and costs about ¥4,000. But there’s also a chain called QB House that just does the cut for ¥1,000 in 10 minutes. I couldn’t decide whether to let them try cutting my hair or just to get a buzz cut that they couldn’t screw up. I finally figured I should trust them and just let the guy at QB House cut my hair. It wasn’t so bad.

The indecisiveness carried over into dinner and I walked all over the neighborhood before I finally went to buy a bento from a shop that wasn’t that good.

One thing I’ve been looking for is some traditional Japanese sweets and I really haven’t seen anywhere. Well, it turns out that walking around the neighborhood I found a place right across the street.

And that’s it for today. Turns out the railway museum isn’t closed on Mondays like most museums. It’s closed on Tuesday so I probably won’t be able to see it on this trip. Oh, well, it’s not high on my list of regrets. I think going to Burger King for lunch is higher on my list of regrets at this point.

Japan Day 25

I slept in today (gave myself an extra half-hour on my alarm) and I was still tired. I think I just need to spend a day just sitting around. I keep saying that, and I keep heading out. I’m also kind of running out of places to go.

I’m not sure if I ever took a picture of my daily “free” breakfast, but this is it. The only thing that’s normal-sized in they picture is the tumbler with the orange juice. And the tea bag, but you can’t really see it. This used to get me through most of the day, but now that it’s no longer so hot, I’m getting my daytime appetite back.

Today I headed to Meguro for one reason. But as long as I was there, I figured I’d look around a bit. I was hoping I’d see some things because as soon as I left the station there was a steep hill.

But the hill lead to Daienji, and hundreds of stone Buddhas. Daienji Temple is pretty close to the train station.

One wall has atonement statues of the 500 followers of the Buddha to “appease the souls that departed in the great fire of 1772.”

At the bottom of the hill is a canal.

And across the canal is Ōtori Shrine. I think it’s the season to take pictures of your baby at the shrine because there were a lot of people at Ōtori Shrine taking pictures and I’ve seen others taking pictures at other famous shrines throughout Tokyo. There’s one group with a professional photographer below the stairs, and another couple with a tripod above the stairs.

Later I saw even more people in traditional clothing at the Mos Burger across the street. I’m sure they were coming back from taking pictures, too.

I took this picture on the way back out the neighborhood. I got lost and didn’t realize I was at the same shrine until I was leaving.

This was my main destination for the day.

I only have two pictures of the outside of the building because, well, it’s frigging preserved parasites inside. It’s a popular museum and people were coming in and out all day. I almost bought a t-shirt or pen but come on, it’s a PARASITE MUSEUM and it’s kind of icky.

One thing I did get at the parasite museum (besides confirmation that I should NEVER GO SOUTH OF CALIFORNIA) is a copy of Meguro Walk which sent me down the street next to the museum.

I found a large temple complex of Ryusenji.

The main gate leads to a courtyard.

In the courtyard is a carving of the god Fudō that you pour water on.

The main temple is pretty impressive.

Behind the temple is another garden with a large stone statue 

I headed back towards the train station and it started raining! I thought it might be temporary, so I ducked into a Mos Burger and had the chicken leg I saw on TV yesterday. It kept sprinkling though. Instead of heading straight back, I went to Tokyo Station because my mom always suggests the underground shopping area for when it’s raining. Man, the underground was crowded.

As you walk in the underground away from the actual station, the crowd does let up a little. But the department stores right next to the station are mobbed.

I headed back to the hotel and took a nap.

I asked the from desk if there was anywhere with monjayaki nearby and it turns out there’s a place right across the street. Unfortunately, it was one of those weird party places you find in Shinjuku where they nickel and dime you and my two beers and my monjayaki cost me ¥1,600. The beers themselves were $7.20 each.

Not only that, but I had to cook it myself.

It was good, but I’m not sure I did it correctly. It seemed to take forever to cook.

Of course, I got the heck out of dodge after I ate the monjayaki and headed to Lotteria to get the #7 hamburger and #1 dessert from the TV show last night. That only cost me ¥470.

Now there’s a really loud party going on next door. I sure hope it knocks off early, but I bet it won’t.

Japan Day 24

I’m pretty sure I have a bit of a cold. My throat is a bit sore on the left side and my nose is overly dry but plugged up on the left side. But it was a beautiful day and I don’t have that much time left in Tokyo.

But honestly, there’s only a few things I can think I want to see. I’m sure I’ll think of plenty after I leave, but for now I can’t think of anything I want to see in Tokyo. There are a few things I might do if I had more energy, like get tickets to see Shōten, or stand in line to get sushi at Sushi Saito. As it is I’m getting tired and I’ve always had a hard time deciding what to eat.

For some reason I thought going to see Tokyo Dome City would be a good idea. I’m not sure why I thought that, since I’m avoiding malls for the most part.

Passing through the first building I saw the Big Egg itself and a ferris wheel and a roller coaster.

I never saw the roller coaster running, but as I passed through. In fact, I don’t think I saw anyone riding the log flume, either but as I left I finally saw a guy riding it by himself. Since I thought riding the roller coaster by myself would look equally as pathetic and since I wasn’t feeling that well anyway, I just kept walking.

Right behind Tokyo Dome city was the Boy Scouts of Japan, and guess what else? That’s right, the Kodōkan International Jūdo Center, where John Rain (a fictional character well known in the US) trained. In fact, THMFIC at the gym asked me if I was going to the Kodōkan. I saw lots of round eyes going in.

But off I went in another direction. One of the things I use to decide where to go is to follow stairs. Why? I don’t know. But if they’re headed in the “right direction” I’ll go climb them.

Well I’m not sure if they went the right direction, because I’m not really sure where I was headed.

Where I ended up was Todai, or Tokyo University, the #1 school in Japan. I decided to be as smug as the people there and looked up the ranking of my alma mater to compare to the ranking of Todai. The list I found listed MIT #1, and Todai #50. Not that it did me all that much good.

This is the red gate which must be famous because everyone was having their picture taken in front of it.

I went looking for something to eat and must have looked at three or four dozen Japanese restaurants before I just went to Mos Burger again. This evening I saw a TV program that showed the top 20 Japanese hamburgers from a survey and Mos Burger had spots #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #11, #12, #14 and #17. I had a chili dog (#14), a chicken burger (not ranked), and the onion ring/potato (#3 in the sides ranking).

Another way I find things to to go see is just to follow weird signs around. I’ve never heard of the “Tokyo Waterworks Historical Museum” and I couldn’t find it on Google Maps but that didn’t stop me. It’s close to how I found the Tokyo Firefighter’s museum.

I started to wonder when I didn’t see signs as I got closer.

Sure enough, there was a museum.

There were two floors of displays, including multimedia displays like this one. The cutouts moved back and forth and there was a cartoon in a screen behind it.

I also carried an electronic recording. You typed in the location and pressed play. The explanations and videos were quite long.

They also had some four hundred year old wooden pipes that were dug out of the ground when construction was done. The waterworks of Tokyo are from the 1600’s and there were also pictures of dams built in the 1940’s. Quite a cool museum for engineer geeks like me.

I went wandering around and I really like it when there are signboards with maps. Especially when they call a hokadaigakuin (a school for lawyers) a Low School.

After that I went to Akihabara to waste more of my hard earned money on computer crap and then headed back to the hotel. On the way to Ochanomizu station I ran into Yushima Seido, a Confucian temple. I believe this is the school started in 1630.

This is the gate to the temple.

The temple had something going on with a stage and seats inside.

After that it was back to the hotel. In front of the hotel was another ad truck advertising a band. In this neighborhood, the ad vans are always advertising K-pop bands.

I was too tired to go very far for dinner and got dinner at the Tesco again. I should probably try sleeping in tomorrow.

Japan Day 23

In case anyone thought I was being a whiner (and I wonder if anyone even reads this stuff) I just counted the bites on my calf and there were sixteen on my left calf and six on my right calf. No wonder I bolted from the pond yesterday.

Today I decided to go to Shinagawa. Looking at the tourist guide, it looked like a lot of walking through the city. Most of it was just that.

Things weren’t looking good when the first shrine I saw was hemmed in by buildings. I didn’t see it on the map, either.

But it was a nice shrine.

The side building looked different.

And there was a portable shrine inside.

My first real stop was Sengakuji Temple, where the graves of the 47 Ronin and their master are.

It must be a popular temple, as it had a small set of temple shops.

The gate was fairly impressive.

The temple was impressive as well.

The graves of the 47 ronin have markers and a map.

The other spots of interest were all the way across the neighborhood. I stopped into a nameless restaurant because I saw a bunch of businessmen entering.

I had to pass through Shinagawa station again. There was a hallway with large screen TVs advertising Starbucks. I think I counted 44 monitors. If they’d only just give ME the monitors instead.

I tried to take a quick picture of a cop on a stand. I guess there’s something going on in town (G7 meeting?) and there’s a police presence in the major train stations.

There are a lot of office buildings in Shinagawa I wandered through, but I didn’t take any pictures. I even went into a small corporate museum for the Mitsubishi group.

The next “recommended spot” is listed as houseboats and fishing boats in Shinagawa-ura.

Nearby there was a small shrine for the fishermen.

The next stops Tennoz Isle, which is a long walk through industrial areas.

Tennoz Isle had some office buildings and a large park. This is a full-sized baseball field.

Oddly enough, there wasn’t anywhere for spectators.

While the park was large and new, it was also a bit sterile. It was time to head towards the old Shinagawa-juku, the first post on the old Tokaido road.

On the way there was a shrine with a plaque in English. This is one of the 100 interesting sites in Shinagawa.

They also had a portable shrine, but it was tiny. You can see umbrellas to the left of it for scale.

There were also other random shrines with nothing to tell me anything much about them.

I wasn’t sure where the Tokaido road was, but I did find the Ebinara Shrine.

The shrine itself was impressive.

The carvings in the eaves were especially impressive.

I finally realized that the Tokaido road was just the shopping street that I went past.

 There were several temples and shrines on the road.

This was a particularly colorful, though small, shrine.

There was also this costume shop. It’s hard to see into the shop to see some of the giant costumes, but there’s a giant tiger head outside.

I also headed to Shinagawa Jinja which also had several shrines around it.

There were quite a few stairs leading up, and the stone mound to the left of the stairs in the previous picture is also lined with small shrines to the seven gods of good fortune. The entrance is on the first “landing”.

Here’s the entrance to the path up the mound.

This is the second stop (right behind the left lantern). The statues were only about a couple of feet tall.

The stairs are fairly steep.

But the view from the top was pretty nice.

Huh, I’m missing pictures of the main shrine. There are pictures on Google for Shinagawa Jinja. It’s impressive, and there’s a stage for traditional Shinto dances. (Sorry Megan, I’ve failed you here.)

There were sub shrines, though I and I have some pictures of one.

And a bunch of gates leading to a smaller set of shrines to the right of the main shrine.

The smaller shrine had a tiny shrine with a kneeling pad in front of it. It was kind of dark and spooky back there with lots more mosquitoes.

This is just a gate on the road leading back to the Tokaido road from Shinagawa temple.

The last picture I took in Shinagawa is of the hotel my mom always stays in when she goes to Tokyo. At least I think it’s this one.

I guess I knew before, but had to see for myself, that the Yamanote line that circles central Tokyo is much more crowded than the Chuo line that crosses central Tokyo. I figured that out while I was pushing my way through the train to change lines at Yoyogi Station. I was afraid the Chuo line would be as crowded (and it was only about 3:45PM) but it wasn’t at all.

I got back to my hotel and had a drink and took a nap. I think I figured out that I’m a little sick again.

I was tired, so I went to Saizeria again.

I finally had something that wasn’t that great. This was sort of like a TV dinner. But it was pretty cheap and very close by. I still want to go to Bikkuri Donkey and have the hamburger steak there.

Japan Day 22

I didn’t do all that much today. Yesterday I moved rooms and things were going pretty well. There were noises from upstairs but not nearly as much as the last room. But I couldn’t tell too much since I started getting a stomach ache in the middle of the night and wasn’t thinking of much else.

I spent most of the morning in the room. It gave me time to do some more online banking and some laundry. I kept seeing the people from “Thriller” going to the laundry room as well. It was supposed to rain this morning and then get hot, so I think people adjusted their plans accordingly. It turned out to be mostly just a nice day.

One of the biggest sounds is the train going by, which is actually kind of calming.

Sometime in the afternoon I decided to take a walk to Otomeyama Park, which is only about a mile-and-a-half away. Right behind the hotel, in a direction I don’t ever go, was another smaller park on the way, Hyakunin-cho Fureai Park.

There was also a small post office where I got out another ¥20,000. I’ve been doing that every day since I wanted to get out ¥50,000 or ¥100,000 but ¥20,000 is all my bank allows. All the post offices have ATMs that allow overseas withdrawals and this one was the least busy of all the ones I’ve been to.

Somewhere on the way I found a shrine that’s not on my maps.

I got a sandwich at a Seven-Eleven, thinking I could eat in a park. The only park I found was closed for construction of some sort. So I just pushed on to Otomeyama Park which the map said was, “By far the best healing spot in Shinjuku City, surrounded by the tranquil residential areas.” I only found a tiny pond with a few turtles.

I sat on a bench and ate my sandwich but ended up cramming the second half into my mouth as fast as I could when I noticed a dozen mosquitoes on my leg.

The nearby Higashiyama Fuji Inari Jinja shrine was also tiny.

This is also part of the same shrine, crammed in between houses.

I was incredibly uncomfortable from the mosquito bites. I knew that not scratching the mosquito bites was the best way to get them to go away quickly, but man were they itchy. There were about a dozen bites on my calves and a few on my arms. I walked back feeling, well, just off.

The walk back took me past the neighborhood fire station where they were drilling again. Usually in Portland I see the firemen playing street hockey or soccer.

When I got back and checked the map I’d left in the room, I realized I was only seeing a small part of the park. Not that I was in any mood to do anything but walk back, forcing myself not to scratch.

Dinner was at the udon shop downstairs. The special today was tsukemen, where you dip the udon into the sauce

I got a picture of the udon noodle-making machine. The noodles are coming out between the two plates. It’s kind of hard to see, but if you look to the top of the green and red buttons, then to the left, you’ll see the noodles in the slot. I’m not sure how the machine works.

So, there was my day. Taking it easy, taking a nap, doing some laundry, and then getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. My theory appears to have been correct and the bites have gone away. Hooray for small victories!

Japan Day 21

I asked about the noise last night and they finally tried figuring out who it was who was moving around all night. They couldn’t, so they moved me to a room to sleep in and told me they’d be moving me to the 16th floor. The big room I slept in was really quiet but this new room on the 16th floor has someone stomping around upstairs. If I’m lucky, they won’t be stomping around all night.

I decided to head to Ueno today, and go wandering around the parks. On the way there I saw woman with a bag from a Eugene leather shop.

Another view of the Sky Tree.

In Ueno, there’s a giant park with a bunch of museums. Two of the largest exhibitions appear to be the last stop of the King Tut exhibit and one on chocolate. But I was just there to wander around outside.

There were quite a few people, but the park is huge. Lots and lots of foreigners (by that I mean round-eye foreigners) all over.

There was a large gate from one of the Tokugawa shoguns. I should have taken a picture of the plaque.

At the north end of the park is Kaneiji Temple.

There were a lot of people following some sort of path, and I saw a lot of them but just at the start of the day.

The temple itself.

This is probably not a good enough picture, but the cemetery was the biggest one I’ve seen here.

Somehow I found my way back to the mausoleum for one of the Tokugawa shoguns.

There’s a gate nearby with a better description.

But there’s also a mysterious sign about the mausoleums.

This is about where my plans started to unravel. My camera started giving me weird errors and my foot started to hurt, like I had a compression fracture from walking around so much. I found a friendly cab driver taking a break and I asked him to read the screen. We talked about how he wanted to see the Rockies and about how the level of research in Japanese Universities was high enough to get a guy a Nobel Prize. Anyway, he told me that the sign on my camera just said the memory card was full.

How do you fill a 8GB memory card? Take lots of bad pictures of temples around Tokyo.

I guess it’s a “thing” that drivers stop around the north end of the park for a rest. Lots of guys were asleep in these cars. Fortunately for me, some of them are friendly cab drivers.

On the way back to the park there was a line of smaller temples.

This second temple was right next door to the first.

Honestly I don’t know where I was as I was limping back towards the park. This temple was bigger than the last two.

The temple.

I got back to Ueno Station and decided I’d head to Akihabara to get a memory card.

I was starting to get hungry so I wandered around the area of Ueno Station looking for food. I decided I’d head towards Akihabara on the train and look for lunch there. Right outside the gate there’s a Donq bakery and I’d just seen them on a TV show. This is a coffee/croissant set plus an onion bun and a pumpkin sandwich.

The pumpkin sandwich had apple slices and was the best part of lunch. The coffee was pretty tasty as well.

I found a Class 10 8GB Toshiba memory card for sale on a back street for ¥730 (about $9.35 USD). Then I decided to walk back to Ueno though everyone thought it was too far. Back down some back streets.

I ran into the stores of Ameyoko where I bought a bag to take on my short trips in Japan so I won’t have to lug my suitcase around. The bag I got was only ¥1,050 so I’m not sure it’s going to last very long.

So, back to Ueno park. There were several temples and shrines I wanted to see because they were mentioned in the tourist guide books.

This is the gate for Toshogu shrine.

It’s known for the stone lanterns.

There’s also a pagoda by the shrine.

And one of the three largest stone lanterns in Japan.

But when I got to the shrine, it was being renovated.

There are gates to several side shrines.

One of two side shrines.

And a portable shrine as well.

After that it was onto the lake and a temple on the lake. The larger lake is filled with lotus plants.

And has Bentendo shrine.

The smaller boat lake has rowboats and paddle boats for rent.

So it was back out of the park to Yushima Tenmangu Shrine.

I guess I took the back way in, and this building is behind the main temple.

The side building

And the shrine, which is pretty big for being in the middle of Tokyo.

I even had a Chinese dude ask me to take his picture.

I was looking at some more iPhone gadgets so I decided to head back to Akihabara and take the train back from there.

I should have bought another SD card instead.

I got back to my new room with a completely different view towards the east and a nice view of the Sky Tree.

I was having a craving for tonkatsu, so I got it in a bento from the Tesco downstairs.

Looks like they turn off the Sky Tree at night.

I’m also hearing people stomping around upstairs in this new room. Hopefully they’ll stop by 11.

Japan Day 20 addendum

After complaining about the thumping upstairs, they decided they’re going to move me tomorrow from the 19th floor to the 16th. For now, they’ve told me to sleep in another room on my floor. I had to take pictures of the room and post them because the only time I’ve been in a bigger room is when I’ve stayed at a Residence Inn.

I’m out of here after trying to sleep tonight, but wow.

Japan Day 20

The elephants were active again last night, but I bought earplugs and I got more sleep. Or maybe I did, I’m not sure. I think I got up a lot less than the last few nights. I dragged my ass out of bed again and got to dealing with my banking. I knew I couldn’t call today. Even though it’s Tuesday here, it’s only Monday (and Columbus Day) in the US. At least my sister had a way I could FAX over the internet without having a phone line or a FAX machine.

Since I found an even cheaper way of calling home, I called my mom again as well (not that I haven’t been doing that every day). I talked about where I could go for the day and asked about Jindaiji Temple south of Kichijoji, where she’s been mentioning because of the lake there. She said Jindaiji wasn’t famous because of the TV show Gegege’s Wife but because of the soba. That was reason enough to go see the area.

Of course I wasn’t paying attention and two stops after I got on, the train reversed course. I got off at the next stop (one away from where I started) and got on the next train going towards Mitaka but that train did the same thing. Fortunately, I was paying attention this time.

According to Google Maps, Jindaiji Temple is over an hour south of Mitaka station if you’re walking, and I got a late enough start that I took a bus. Buses are harder because there are more stops and the announcements aren’t as clear. I was watching my iPhone and hoping that Google maps wouldn’t die like it usually does when I’m away from a major train station.

Once I got off the bus I was in the middle of nowhere and it was time to start walking towards the temple.

I figured I was headed the right way, or at least headed towards the countryside, when I saw a nursery.

Then I ran into a line of soba shops. I picked it the Japanese way, by finding the one the most people were going to.

It wasn’t the fanciest looking one, but it certainly had the most people going in.

It also had a window where they make their soba, though no one was making soba when I got there.

I had tenzaru soba which was pretty good. I can’t say it was a lot better than what I had in Ikebukuro, but it was good.

The women next to me were having yōkan for dessert and I had to have some as well. It was soba yōkan!

Jindaiji temple wasn’t very far away.

Here’s the first shrine at the edge of the old street.

And a nice pond near the first shrine.

There was a small temple street in front of Jindaiji Temple.

The gate of Jindaiji Temple.

The temple was much more impressive than the temples in the city.

There was an impressive shrine behind the temple as well.

And a pond on the temple grounds.

There was some sort of tower in the cemetery behind the temple that I can’t explain.

On the way back there’s a botanical garden, but the sign says “Closed Monday.” It’s Tuesday, but I know that some parks are closed on the day after a national holiday.

So it was off on the path through the park.

The path had lots of wood spiders and I even saw a giant Asian hornet.

After the park it was down a bunch of suburban roads.

The map showed a shrine on the way, so of course I took a detour. Even small shrines are impressive after getting out of town.

The gates out into suburbia.

I headed back towards Kichijoji and the park. Halfway there I saw an interesting kid’s park with the front of an airplane.

I thought that was odd, so Iooked to see where I was and saw a sign for Jaxa, which I think is the Japanese equivalent of NASA.

Right next door is the Maritime Research facility which is a heck of a long ways from the water.

So, back I went back down the roads towards town.

And I found the edge of the park!

Cosmos, like my mom grows.

And I’m not sure if this is cosmos as well.

I also came across the Ghibli museum, where I was about to ask how hard it was to get tickets.

But there was no one to answer my questions.

Turns out that you have to go to the Lawson convenience store, not Lawson 100 which turns out is a ¥100 shop, to find a machine called a Loppi. If you want to get in during the morning, the tickets are sold out right now for just over a week. I bought a ticket for the day before I leave for Tokyo, eight days away. Even if I don’t go, it was only ¥1,000.

Around the museum was some sort of art project that looked fun for kids.

Back to the park and I found a fairy ring.

Part of the park is quite wooded and someone had an interesting art installation with battery powered bamboo chimes. I didn’t take pictures of them all, and the batteries were dead in some of them. I saw a guy replacing some of the batteries.

This is a video of one of the chimes.

I finally got to the part of the park nearest the station and it was a bit much.

Here’s Daisei-ji temple outside of the park. It was closed up but it was HUGE. You can see outbuildings to the left that are as big as the main temple.

Back into the park and there’s a shrine in the park. The park itself is built on old ruins.

The shrine felt a bit crammed into the park, but it was pretty.

The park is also quite nice, though less natural than the forested area.

Part of the park even had paddle boats and row boats for rent.

There were the usual rest areas that are common to popular parks. The restaurant to the left has typical park foods including soft ice cream and odd-tasting Japanese hot dogs. There’s usually a line-up of vending machines.

RIght on the other side of the restaurants was a shopping street leading to the station.

I got back around 4PM and fell asleep for a bit, just like yesterday, making up for the sleep that the elephants seem intent on disturbing. I didn’t feel like eating for a while but wanted to go to Saizeria downstairs. The beer isn’t the only reason.

I’ve been avoiding Saizeria downstairs because it’s too easy, but the pizza was surprisingly good. And, as my cousin said, “it’s cheap!” I think I’m going back soon.