I was dragging again today and it was a rainy day anyway. My mom suggested that I hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and go back to sleep. I figured I’d go walking the underground a while.

One of the first things I saw was people lining up in the basement of the Hanshin Department store to get the cheap cake. I forget why there’s cheap cake, whether it’s oddly shaped or if they just sell a bunch of them for cheap.

Anyway, I had no idea what I was doing so the first thing I did was head towards Hep Five. And what did I run into? Whity Umeda!

And the first things I saw in Whity Umeda? Beard Papa and Baskin Robbins! (Actually the first thing I saw was a store selling traditional Japanese sweets, but that doesn’t make for as good a story.)

I didn’t actually go INTO Hep Five, because, well, I’m an idiot. And I had more time to kill. While I was there, I thought I’d try looking for our favorite green tea sweets shop. But what I found were new restaurants with a new underground river! Turns out the store I was looking for is BEHIND this store. It’s still there.

So this is in the northeast of the underground and I thought I’d go to the southwest where I was two days ago and where it was all shuttered up.

But I started getting tired and stopped at Chococro, in the middle of everything (pretty much) and had a coffee. I had to ask the woman like a retard what the strongest coffee was and she just didn’t understand what I was asking. So, for the second day in a row, I felt like I was getting in an argument about something completely stupid. I just didn’t want a weak-ass cup of coffee (again). I was in a much better mood after the coffee (especially since the girl running the coffee machine gave me and the girl on the cash register some advice on coffee).

Turns out the area towards the southwest isn’t shuttered up during the week. Lots of businessmen and stores.

Hell, I don’t know where I’m taking pictures any more. I think this is where I decided that I was going to follow the road to the far northeast again.

Sometime in the middle of all of this, I went back to Hep Five and, stupidly, sent Facebook messages to co-workers and got some information about next years insurance changes. You have to do it now, and I don’t know how you’re supposed to get it done when you’re on sabbatical. I also heard about some customers and I shouldn’t have asked. Fortunately there are plenty of things to distract you in Japan. Like a giant red whale in Hep Five. And women trying to help direct you to the proper boutique while wearing ridiculous uniforms.

I thought I’d get some lunch and by the time I got closer to the hotel and found a place to get some lunch. The Wired Café sounded annoying, and of course, it was. My phone stopped connecting to the cellular data network and I couldn’t get onto the “free” internet.

Fortunately, the taco rice (not tako rice) was pretty tasty.

I got back to the hotel around 3 or so and decided to take a nap. In fact, I didn’t do a whole lot more today. But I did get into my head that I wasted to get some tonkatsu. I asked the front desk and they sent me from the west side of Umeda past the northeast corner of Umeda to Chayamachi. I could swear they said Katsukura was in the Apple Rose building. Turns out it’s in the APPLAUSE building.

It was a serious tonkatsu restaurant. They give you goma (sesame) in a mortar and you grind it.

Then you add two types of sauce. And no matter how hard I try, I take a fuzzy picture.

On the way here I was thinking I haven’t had much seafood. I won’t point out the baby octopus in one of my previous pictures, but that and some fried shrimp are probably the only seafood I’ve had.

I had this exact same combination in Tokyo but I think this was a little better.

Tomorrow I’m meeting some old co-workers. The company that Mitsubishi turned into through mergers of several different companies is finally cutting back on all the factories they own and a lot of them are quitting or getting laid off. This may be my last chance to see a lot of them! In any case, I don’t know what else I’m going to do. Maybe see the Ando instant ramen museum? Or see what my cousin’s kid’s new house looks like?

Apart from the arguing, I do like Osaka best.

I was tired this morning because it turns out the rail noise on the “view” side of this hotel is really loud. Makes sense, because there’s lots of rail switches right in front of the hotel. I had to get my room changed. Otherwise, I slept OK.

Today was a hot day in Osaka, though not as hot as weather.com was saying. It was hot enough. Oddly, the people here were still dressed for the season, not for the day. I was sweating in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt and there were people wearing sweatshirts and vests.

I really didn’t know what to do, but I did start the day by making some phone calls. Nothing really panned out for today but I do have a tour of the Suntory Yamazaki distillery scheduled for next Monday. My mom’s calendar won’t go on sale until next month.

I figured it was scotch day and went looking for Bar Satoh that Barry Eisler mentions in his John Rain novels. His address isn’t quite right but I figured out where it probably is. The street-view picture is a little odd, so I decided to go walk to it during the day to see if I could find it.

The first new thing I ran into was the new Hankyu Department store. This was all under construction last year and looks great.

I walked right by the HEP Five building that my sister and I have been talking about.

Down some shopping streets that weren’t really on the way. They were open, though, which is a good sign.

This is a picture of an urban temple. I didn’t go to many temples today because, well, I’m pretty temple’d out.

There were some interesting buildings on the way.

And more shopping streets than I was expecting.

The route goes across Okawa River to an area with lots of huge apartment buildings.

Oh, and there was a river boat on the river.

There was a large hospital, and across from the hospital was Miyakojima shrine.

This is looking back down one of the last turns I made.

Onto a street with even more huge apartment buildings.

Down to a quiet neighborhood.

First left turn after the runner.

The light blue fence is the same in the picture before and after.

This is the building that fixing Barry Eisler’s address led me to.

Sure enough, if you look closely, there’s a sign that says Bar Satoh. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere and I wonder how Barry Eisler found it. He did work for the CIA so I’m not really sure I want to know, but this looks like the kind of bar that’s a secret to everyone but the neighborhood.

I started walking south towards Osaka Castle. It wasn’t all that interesting. Kind of light industrial and residential with not many stores. I also kind of got lost trying to cross the Neyagawa River and what I think is the Daini Neyagawa River.

About the time I had to find a bathroom (for the usual reason and to wash some pigeon poop off my had), I saw a Mickey D’s. I was about resigned to eat at the Mickey D’s when I saw a Mr. Donut! I’ve been meaning to go see if they still had rice flour doughnuts (they didn’t) so I had one of their October pumpkin doughnuts. I even got a refill on my coffee! There were several pudgy white guys in suits there too. They just kind of stood out in an odd sort of way.

The Mr. Donut was in the Osaka Business Park, across from the Osaka Castle.

The park around Osaka Castle is pretty huge.

You go past two moats to the inner area and the area around the castle is pretty big as well, housing a museum and the castle.

Hōkoku Shrine is also on the grounds.

There’s a statue of an important Japanese guy who I don’t know on the grounds of the shrine.

I started heading towards Nipponbashi and the electric shops that were there when I lived in Japan (20 years ago!) The first thing I saw was Osaka Museum connected to NHK Osaka. The main display was gold statues from the Ukraine, so I kept going.

 On the way down Matsuyamachisuji there was a small shrine, Ikutama Jinja, in between buildings.

Then it was down the street, going over some large intersections on pedestrian bridges.

There were odd stores along the way. Nanshin Bussan is supposed to be an importer of jewelry, but it looked like a store full of cloth for suits.

Then the stores got weirder. This store has a guy riding a giant gold koi. It looked like a store of traditional Japanese dolls. I wondered if I should go buy one and have it sent directly to Goodwill since that’s where I’ve been taking all my traditional Japanese dolls.

Then there were lots of stores with toys and, oddly enough, Christmas decorations.

More decorations.

And more decorations.

A sign advertising Christmas decorations.

This store, like many of the others on this street, has a flag advertising fireworks but was mainly selling Christmas decorations. The sign says Japanese dolls, fireworks, and Christmas stuff.

Another thriving shopping street.

This is a view back up the street with all the Christmas decorations after seeing several more stores, one full of the kind of toys you can only get at festivals and two with Gundam models that said, “WHOLESALE ONLY,” I figured out this must be the wholesale toy neighborhood. i was careful to stay on this street because I didn’t want to get sidetracked by the Nakadera area where the map shows 22 temples. Probably more.

Here’s a picture I saw on the pedestrian bridge, right before Ikukunitama Shrine.

Going through this gate, by the way, is not the best way to get to the shrine.

I’ve taken a lot of pictures of gates, and sub shrines, but this shrine was something else. Here’s the main shrine.

This first panorama is the path to a couple of sub shrines but if you follow the path to the left…

You ned up in this park with six more shrines. It confused me.

After that I got really lost looking for what I remembered of Den-Den Town in Nipponbashi. I got really lost. I did go by the National Bunraku Theatre where I have to go get my mom’s calendar, but that’s not for several more weeks. I was wandering around looking for some electronics shops but they were mostly gone and replaced by the same sorts of crap that Akihabara is full of. Ah, well, I headed back towards the hotel, knowing I’d have to eventually take the subway.

I did see the giant mechanical crab on the way.

And some cops in front of a giant dragon.

Or is this the giant crab?

And what the hell is this?

A ferris wheel at Don Quixote, which I think is a discount store.

After that it was braving the crowds (which are not nearly as bad as Tokyo) to get back to the hotel. Dinner was back at Yodobashi Camera where I unsuccessfully searched for some Japan-only North Face stuff for my sister. I saw somewhere advertising REAL Kobe Beef hamburgers, so I had one. I’m not sure it was worth ¥1,370 ($17.17) since it was just OK.

And there you go. I’m not sure what I’m doing tomorrow, since it’s supposed to rain. Maybe explore all the underground some more. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

I got up early to get ready to go to Osaka today. I’m not sure why I bothered, since I did a lot of putzing around and then realized it’s less than an hour from Nagoya to Osaka on the Shinkansen. And the Shinkansen station at Nagoya is small and very, very close to the Toyoko Inn.

Well, fortunately, I’m feeling comfortable here in Osaka (since I did live here in my 20’s and even got engaged). Maybe a bit too comfortable. I’ve eaten too much and feel like passing out. Fortunately the intarwebs are a normal speed here and my pictures are uploading quickly so I won’t have to stay up late to wait for that.

There’s this tea I’ve seen the past two days that has the big characters describing what type of tea it is. Yesterday I had “SHIZU” or Shizuoka tea. Today is “KYO” or Kyoto green tea. I looked carefully and it’s special tea that they make for JR.

I got to the hotel at 11:30AM, way before the 2PM check-in time. I spent an hour in the hotel lobby (free wifi) and in the station near the tourist information bureau trying to figure out where to go today. I usually sit in front of my computer all morning trying to figure that out. I finally decided just to start walking south, towards the Bunraku Theatre since I promised my mom I’d get her a calendar there. I called and found out that the person who knows about that stuff isn’t working today, but I figured I’d go anyway.

On the way through the station, I saw a couple of Asian guys that looked a bit off and I just started talking to them in English. They were lost and North American and I actually knew where they needed to go. After helping them down into the weird subterranean world that is Umeda, I kept heading south. This whole area always seems shuttered up.

 

Up into the sunlight and down southward ho!

There were lots of sculptures of naked women on the route. I’m not sure what the deal with the sculptor is.

Across several rivers, too.

Past the sculpture of some old-timey Japanese dude.

And down the street with lots of empty office buildings. But oddly enough, every few buildings there’d be a store or series of stores open. I saw a bunch of people waiting to get into Butter Pancake and it was 1PM and I was hungry.

Here’s where I was waiting for my $20 pancake.

I can’t tell you how good this pancake was. The coffee was tasty too. That’s a block of creme brûlée on the pancake too.

Around the corner was a coffee shop that looks interesting as well. It seemed odd that there were all sorts of people going into building in an otherwise empty neighborhood.

These three guys came out of the coffee shop.

Then it was off to find Goryō Shrine, as the map said it was close by.

The main shrine.

Two sub-shrines.

Looks like this shrine is popular enough to have an electric sign.

Off in the distance I saw a huge old Japanese roof, so I had to go see what that was.

It was Osaka Kaikan, undergoing repairs.

Then I headed back to the hotel. On the way I saw these dragon boats, but they were being towed!

Big blocky government building.

Old-timey government building I’ve seen on the TV news.

I got back to the hotel using an underground route. Looks like the old convenience store that they tore down is back again.

I went to Yodobashi Camera for dinner. There’s used to be one-and-a-half dining floors and they were fixing them up the last time I was here. Now there’s only one floor. I picked the diner by picking a semi-long line for food that looked good. The place I picked also had all-you-can-eat bread which was a mistake.

I had something called a fondue hamburger or something. It was tasty. If I lost any weight with all my walking, I’m going to regain it in Osaka.

I found my favorite t-shirt shop and bought a couple more t-shirts (the weird Japanese ones I always wear) and then went to drool at the same watch I always drool over (a Grand Seiko). The price is down a couple of thousand dollars, but that still means it’s several thousand dollars. I’ll go drool on it a couple more times, I’m sure.

Tomorrow it’s supposed to be hotter than it was when I was in Tokyo! I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with that.

Oh, and finally, I’m a cheap bastard and I’ve been carrying two pain-in-the-ass umbrellas, each costing ¥105, from Tokyo. I FORGOT THEM ON THE TRAIN TODAY. Plus I carried my leftover laundry detergent from Tokyo and the washing machines at this hotel automatically dispense soap! (On the plus side, the washer and dryer are industrial-sized at this hotel and it only took 30 minutes to wash and 15 minutes to dry my clothes!)

I just realized why the intarwebs could be slow here. They have ¥500 video-on-demand and all the businessmen were probably watching pr0n as I tried to upload my pictures. I’m going to be up late again uploading all this again, I’m sure. I didn’t end up going to Nagoya Castle or to the shrine that seems to hold one of the three treasures of the Imperial Family. There’s lots more to see here than I saw.

The first place I went was the Toyota Museum. I got on the subway and bought a ¥600 all-day pass you can get on the weekends and started going the wrong way. I didn’t have much luck with the subways today. When I got off at the right station, the map set me off down in a direction that didn’t look museum-like.

The temple on the way was tiny, too.

I think I took this picture by accident, in front of the tiny temple.

The first thing you see in the Toyota museum is a huge circular loom. Toyota started out as a textile machinery company.

As you go in there are several cotton thread spinning demonstrations and the main loom Toyota designed and patented.

Then it goes into thread spinning throughout the ages and the display is huge.

There’s huge industrial machines for carding and spinning the thread.

The whole hall is huge. I swear I spent an hour looking at different shuttle technology for looms.

Some of the looms were huge.

This loom uses air instead of a shuttle to get the thread across. I didn’t take a picture of the loom that used water instead of a shuttle.

There whole factory is turned into a museum so there’s lots of space for the automobile museum as well. I didn’t spend as much time in the automobile museum because I’m familiar with lots of the automotive and metal working technology from high school.

I didn’t take pictures of the displays describing engines or gears or brakes or fuel injection or anything I already knew about.

There were kid areas as well and I took pictures of this set of gearboxes that you used to get the wheel connected to the kinetic ball machine.

The gears go on the floor between these two. This was in a side-building and there were even more kid attractions in the main building.

After that it was off to the MAGLEV and Railway Park at the end of a random train line.

The first room has dramatic lighting and has three trains, a locomotive and two maglev mock-ups. I was hoping this wasn’t the whole thing because the first room was just crap besides the locomotive.

Beyond the first room was another larger room full of real trains! Lots of models of bullet train as well as old trains. This is the original model Shinkansen and there’s a placard with the date so you can take a picture and remember when you were there (10/20/2012 for me).

Several styles of Shinkansen trains.

Older trains, a long-distance train on the left and a standard train on the right. The old model train would tilt and could go 80kph. The Shinkansen goes in the 200’s.

Some engines, some sleeper cars.

This is a special bullet train used to monitor track and wire conditions.

These are old long-distance trains.

Really old trains. I think the ED 11 2 is imported from England.

The looks similar to the Tokyo Chuo line trains.

I went out to the smoking lounge just to take a picture of the industrial wasteland that’s across the bay. I shouldn’t say wasteland; it’s probably just a steel or chemical plant.

And the bridge across the bay.

I had a bento at the train museum. They have the same bentos that they sell at the bullet train stations! I missed eating one on the way from Tokyo to Hamamatsu, so I got one today. It was even more awful when you eat it at 2PM at the train museum rather than noon on the train.

After the train museum I went back to Nagoya station and got back on the subway and got off at the wrong station again. I finally made it to Ōsu Kannon Temple. You can’t tell by this picture but the temple is busy. The building on the left is full off Buddhist statues of the Kannon or Goddess of Mercy. The building to the right is a library that houses ancient texts, including one about how the Japanese people came to be.

The side gate.

The main gate.

Right outside of the temple was a shop selling old Japanese treats. I missed a puppet show because I was buying and eating this.

This next picture is for Eric of a place I found while I was wandering around the area by Ōsu Kannon Temple.

This is a neighborhood shrine I saw.

A smaller shrine right next to the previous one.

This is the Hinode shrine. There were a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beers.

Turns out it was a festival and it was Nagoya day or something. I missed a parade at the station.

For dinner, I had tebasaki, or the famous Nagoya chicken wings. This is how I spent ¥4,240 ($53.47 USD). The flavoring was sweet and peppery and quite good.

I also had Tarzan-yaki.

I also had wing gyoza, where they split and stuffed the chicken wing with gyoza filling.

So that’s it. It took OVER FOUR HOURS to upload these pictures and I went to sleep instead of waiting on the upload. So sorry this is late!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.