UENO AND AKIHABARA
UENO AND AKIHABARA, JAPAN. MAY 17th
Well, I let a few days pass since the last time I updated and I’m sort of kicking myself for that. I had to wait that long to be ABLE to kick myself about it because a few days of not walking around everywhere reminded my legs that they were supposed to be in horrible, cramping agony. While I was thinking “Now that I’m home, what should I do? Oh, I know. Sleep all the time” my legs were thinking “Well, now that WE’RE home what do we do? Oh, I know. Hurt all the time!” So thank you for that, legs.
When I was awake I spent time hanging out with friends and telling them all the things that I already told this journal and giving them journal spoilers. ^_^; That was a mistake if I want them to read this long wall of text, I think.
Also, for some reason, I've having difficulty getting pictures off my phone. I'll try to fix that. Until then you mostly get a high res picture of monkey balls. LUCKY YOU.
PART 1- X IS “HARDER THAN I THOUGHT”
Before I went to bed that night I came out of the bathroom at one point (after using another one of the bidet options because while I was in Japan I was going to try out every button on every damn thing I could- it never stopped freaking me out and making me laugh nervously simultaneously) and Tracy and Eel were collapsed on the bed. Tracy was facing the wrong way on the bed, her feet propped up by pillows and her head propped up by her arm. Eel was sprawled out entirely over the tiny (but incredibly comfortable) bed that we shared. I guess their Japanese culture and language integration had been more speedy and successful than my own because they were watching a show on the television on how to speak English. I assume they forgot how and needed a reminder. An insane man who I think was supposed to be a representative of America and who was wearing very heavy, dark black eye makeup and a tiny, constantly grinning Japanese woman were teaching us the phrases “~Harder than I thought” and “~Easier than I thought”. I wish I could denote exactly how they were saying this so that it could get stuck in your head, like it got stuck in mine, like an infectious Katy Perry song. Oh. Actually I could try- since I’m a linguist and all… but I’m not sure anyone would appreciate it much.
At any rate the girl got on a horse and pouted dramatically and over-enthusiastically as she told us that “Riding a horse is HARDER than I THOUGHT”. I think she was lying though because the energy she put into telling us that and flailing wildly on the horse to express her inability to ride it should have made her fall off the horse. But she stayed on like a champ! Later in the lesson she got better as she told the horse to “Now go RIGHT” and “Now go LEFT” and it did so. At that point she alerted us that “Riding a horse is EASIER than I THOUGHT”. They learn to ride horses differently in Japan. I remember taking lessons and begging my horse to go right or left and it just stubbornly standing there. Apparently my fail horse wanted me to do something with the reins. Hers was just all “Oh. You told me to move? K”. Japanese programs on learning English are fantastic. Even horses can learn!
After that I pushed and punched Eel to get him to make enough room for me on the bed. It was harder than I thought.
PART 2- SUICA SUCKERS
There is one train line in Tokyo that I love above all others. That is because it is really simple. It goes in a loop around some of the most famous places in Tokyo. Also, a villain causes an earthquake to destroy it entirely in one of my favorite manga series ever! SWEET. It’s called the Yamanote line (“Yah-mah-noh-tay” not “Yeah-muh-noht” no matter how much fun it is to say that in a fake hickish accent and say “On o’er thatta way by ye ole yamanote”). Here’s a picture of the Tokyo transportation system that we had to figure out.
HAHAHAHA. Isn’t that amazing? Don’t your eyes go like this: O_O;;? If they don’t, don’t tell me. My eyes did that the whole time I was in Tokyo. I’m pretty sure that’s why Japanese cartoon characters look that way. They have all had to gaze upon the Tokyo train maps.
Anyway, that nifty green line in the middle there that makes a wobbly diamond/ squishy square (technical terms) is the Yamanote line. Theoretically, you just hop on that all easy peasy one two threesy (…I am using that phrase again. What is going on?) and you get to those awesome places you want to go. Ikebukoro, Shibuya, Ueno, Akihabara- these are all famous places you can travel to on the Yamanote line. And as an added bonus if you want to get to Tokyo Tower you just….
I have no unearthly clue how you get to Tokyo Tower. It’s a cruel joke! All the famous places are on the Yamanote Line except for THE famous place which is waaaaay off it and seems to require taking multiple trains and buses by my reckoning. Or a specific subway train that we couldn’t figure out because taking a REGULAR train was already far too hard for our simple American minds. So we never went to Tokyo Tower on this trip because it was too hard to get there. I think it must have been on the Yamanote line at one point but then some brilliant Japanese scientist said “Do you realize that in every form of media featuring Tokyo this tower gets blown up? Maybe let’s not put it on the Yamanote line? It’s too easy for villains to get to then. And anyway I just read this really rad manga where this one dude with spiky hair caused an earthquake to destroy the entire Yamanote line so… maybe no. No, thank you. No. Thank you.” So we visited after that and didn’t get to see Tokyo Tower. I did see post cards of it though so that’s something (that’s right. Going to a country to see a postcard of their famous landmark is totally the same thing).
At any rate, it seemed to me that it would be easy enough to get to Ueno and Akihabara with our limited time by just taking that one train. One. Train. EASY. EAAAASY.
It was harder than I thought.
We got to Shinjuku Station and pointed at the big train map and said “There. The Yamanote Line.” and then we stood there. Then we said it again as though we expected that to have a different result. “The Yamanote Line!”, we declared with enthusiasm, “There it is! Right there on the wall!” Strangely, the result was the same. We continued to be standing in the middle of an incredibly busy train station- a line of ticket machines before us that we couldn’t quite understand. Bravely, we walked forward to one and pushed the English option. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t American English because it didn’t make any sense. I could clearly see that there were words on the screen that came from my language’s dictionary- but trying to figure out what it was telling us to do was nearly impossible. We wanted to get on the Yamanote line! To Ueno! Come ooooooooon.
Then we realized it wanted us to put in our ticket or card.
“…We don’t have one! Isn’t that what you do!?” we demanded of the machine.
“No. No, thank you.” It said back.
The train stations in Japan are really really really big and they require a bit of explanation to realize how stupidly hard it was to navigate for us (and how easy it is to navigate for brighter folk). In a Japanese train station you buy a ticket (NO WAAAY) and you feed that ticket to a toll booth (that may or may not also eat your small, delicate hands) to get INTO the station to ride a train and then you feed it to another toll booth to get OUT. There are also loads and loads of gates and entrances to get into the station- sprawling across all sides of the road. So you feel lost getting there and when you get there you think “Am I in the wrong side?” and then you look at the Tokyo train map on the wall and you realize there will never in your life, from this point on, be a time that you don’t feel lost again.
So we wasted about half an hour trying to figure out how to use a ticket machine that wouldn’t give us tickets without us already having a ticket. Then we made this face some more: O_O;
Eventually I saw some blond haired guys that looked like they might speak English because I judge that way. “Excuse me”, I said slowly in a foreigner speaking English like a Japanese person might on a show teaching you English, “Do you speak English?”
They did! They were from Sweden and they explained that that the smart thing to do would be to go back in time and buy the JR Pass from America before going to Japan (>.< we learned this a lot). But since we didn’t do that they said that our next best option would be to get “The Suica Card”. Once we had that we could feed it to the ticket machine and then go to places rather than looking at places on the map, or on postcards, and pretend like we went there.
Of course the part of the station to buy the Suica card was across the street, up a thousand stairs, down some more stairs and across another street. That’s OK. All places in Japan have those same exact coordinates.
We had to buy them from actual, living, breathing, Japanese people in a ticket office which I was not prepared for. “WHAT NO. I was promised machines! MACHINES”. Really. I thought that Japan was a million times more technologically advanced than we are in the States and that by now they’d have been able to create some sort of program that simulates human interaction without actually making a nervous, introverted, fat American girl actually engage in it for real. Alas.
The ladies in the ticket office were very nice and spoke very limited English. I speak very limited Japanese. Actually, it was fun for all of us. I told them that I wanted to purchase a Suica card so that I could ride the Yamanote trains. At least that’s what I assume I told them. Maybe I told them “I butterfly dog giant ride train giddyup” and they just successfully took that to mean “Oh. They want to cause an earthquake to destroy the Yamanote line. Give them the Suica card for $15 each”. I don’t know. But we each paid our $15 and got our cards loaded up ($5.00 for the card- $10 put on the card) and then we walked across the street, up a thousand stairs, down some more stairs and across another street because we’d learned correctly that that is exactly how you get to any place in Japan. We swiped our Suica cards for the toll, RAN REALLY FAST TO GET TO A TRAIN THAT WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE, got on the train and then wondered:
“Did we do this, right?”
It seemed that there should be something else to the process. In Japan there are 4 different kinds of trains (this excludes all the varieties of buses and subways and what not). There are Local trains which stop at every single stop. There are Express trains which stop only at the big stops. There are Rapid Express trains which stop at only the BIGGEST stops. And there are Shinkansens (bullet trains) which make you feel like you’re going to throw up and never seem to stop at all. On these trains are Reserved and Non Reserved seats. That probably makes sense to you. There are also Green Seats which, I guess, is like First Class and cost a butt ton more money that I didn’t feel like spending on not knowing exactly what it was. But once we got our Suica cards we just sorta moseyed onto any ole train, sitting when we could and standing otherwise. On our way to Ueno we had a real feeling that “We have done this all wrong. We really are international criminals. We paid $15 to stand or sit on whatever train we want and be confused about it the whole time.” Go us!
The mascot for the Suica card is a penguin that looks as lost as we felt. So that was evidence to me that we were doing the trip correctly. I assume that little penguin was born in Japan and wanted to one day go to his homelands to see his penguin family, but never got there because he was too busy getting lost on various Japanese trains. Or just riding the Yamanote line forever and ever because it seemed easier than transferring to another confusing train line. He’s probably only ever seen Tokyo Tower on tv and in postcards too.
Right or wrong, we got off the train at Ueno Station, looked at our Ueno map and sighed. “We’d like to go to Ueno Park zoo, but it looks like we’ll have to walk for a thousand years. Probably up some stairs”.
So imagine our surprise when we rounded a corner out of the station past a bunch of children in school uniforms who appeared to be on a school trip to see Ueno Zoo RIGHT FREAKING THERE. On the map it is forever away. It’s like -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------à that far away. But really you step outside, yawn, make some comment about how you are glad to no longer be on a train and POOF! Ueno Zoo appears.
PART 2- LESSONS IN ANIMAL ANATONY
We were really excited about seeing a panda at the zoo. SUPER excited. We got to the ticket counter where we had to interact with a human being again (who was an incredibly sweet and smiley Japanese woman who made me think of a Japanese Sally Fields and should definitely be featured in some feel good, family movie about the strange people who visit the zoo). Then we walked in, asked “I wonder where the panda will be?” and POOF! The Pandas were RIGHT THERE. Right to our right. Signs everywhere screaming “PANDA!!! HEY, GUYS. PANDA!!!” This was amazing to us. Japan had hidden Tokyo Tower from us, certain that we’d destroy it, but tried to make it up for us by distracting us by putting everything we wanted in Ueno park RIGHT THERE when we wanted it.
There were a bunch of really cute animals. We saw the pandas, a bunch of monkeys, a tapir (who was hanging out with capybaras), elephants, leopards, tigers, polar bears, on and on. We also saw adorable Japanese children. This was a delight for all parties. As we thought “Awww! Look! Cute children” (all of them wearing adorable cloth hats) they were obviously thinking “Woooow! Scary, large foreigners!”. The zoo was a great place for cultures to collide!
Some of the children seemed to be tagged and released into the wild. They wore labels on the back of their shirt that I think identified them by name and also by what grade school they attended. Then they just walked around wherever they wanted to. I saw two little girls who looked like they might have been 7 or so years old holding hands. One of them was a tiny, pretty doll of a girl with her long, dark hair loose with a little bow in it. One of her hands was up to her face where she nervously chewed on the nails. The other hand was held by a skinny, short-haired, tomboyish girl. The long haired girl told the tomboy “I’m scared” and the tomboy girl said “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you!” and courageously took the lead. I was both cuted out and mildly disturbed. “Oh my god”, I realized, “That is a scene I would see in a Japanese manga. And it just happened in real life”. Somehow it broke my mind to realize that such a thing could possibly ACTUALLY happen.
At one point Eel’s blood sugar got low so he had to take a quick rest next to one of the enclosures to eat some snacks. A little boy and his sister came by to look at whatever the animal was in there (I don’t recall) and squeal, LOUDLY, anytime they saw the animal do something. Eventually the little boy locked eyes with Eel and just stared at him, stunned, for a moment…. Before patting Eel happily on the knee and the leaping over him. He walked away, came by a second later, looked at Eel the exact same way, tapped Eel’s knee again, and then happily jumped over him again. We’re not sure what the deal was with that- but it was super cute and I’ve decided that it just meant “Welcome to Japan, beardly creature!”.
A lot of the enclosures at the zoo were multi-tiered. For instance you could see the seals from up above, down below and they even had a tube where they could swim over your head when you were down below so that you could see them up above AND down below. This allowed for multiple opportunities to watch animals poop which appears to be the entire function of a zoo. We got to watch a panda poop when we first walked in- then we got to go to another enclosure to watch another panda poop! We also got to watch them clean their butts in their water- so that was something. Then we saw a musk ox poop and then a bunch of monkeys poop. I saw the polar bear poop from up above and then we went to another place where we could see the polar bear from below, sitting on glass, so that we could have a close up of its butt. Thanks, Japan! Also Japan is very serious about educating visitors about the anatomy of their creatures. One of the first things we saw was a sign that taught us about a monkey- drawing circles around notable features we couldn’t read- including its balls. They’re so thorough!
Aside from animals, Ueno Zoo also has 5,000 vending machines. This isn’t unique to Ueno Zoo. This is how Japan is. Every few feet that you walk you have another opportunity to purchase orange juice, tea, coffee or Coke if you missed out on your earlier opportunity. There are very very few sugar free drink options in Japanese vending machines so on the rare chance you are diabetic and come across a Coke Zero in one of the vending machines you need to take that chance. You might not get it again for another 10 feet.
I had an orange juice, a hot milk tea (which burned my tongue and tasted way less yummy than cold milk tea) and then a more different orange juice out of different machines (Japan really loves its fruit juices). Tracy had a water drink infused with peach that tasted so delicious that we had to make the obligatory comment about how much better Japanese things taste than American things. Eel had a Coke Zero because he didn’t know if he could make it five more vending machines later to find another one.
At one point we sat down with our beverage collection (given that there are 5000 vending machines and no trash cans because I assume that Japanese people believe so much in recycling that they just eat their trash) and watched as a man all in black walked casually before the cranes, raised his hands AND BEGAN TO CONDUCT THEM. They all started going ape-shit crazy in so far as a crane can go “ape” shit. They started hooting and hollering and flapping around like mad. I’m pretty sure the Man in Black was an arch-villain to the cranes. When he lowered his hands and walked away they all stopped! We then watched as a few school girls, also in awe of what they had seen, went up and tried to emulate them. They raised their arms to conduct the cranes, but the cranes weren’t impressed. As they had done before the Man in Black’s arrival they just stood there. And pooped. Because they were in a zoo.
Near the cranes was a creature we’d never seen before called “The Secretary Bird”. Here’s a picture since I can’t describe how absurd and fantastic this creature was. While the other cranes were content to stand around pooping, this one knew no life other than vogueing. It came up close to us, tilted its head in a bunch of fascinating ways, and blinked its eyes at us. It knew it had something special. Not even the Man in Black could take that away from it.
PART 3- IT LOOKS LIKE A PAINTING…. Because it is a painting
There is a temple in Ueno Park that we really wanted to go to. By Ueno’s map’s reckoning it was about a two week journey east so we knew that it would be about a five minute walk. We were right. It was BEAUTIFUL. I exclaimed upon seeing it “It’s like a PAINTING” and Eel said “That’s because it is” and he was right. It was under construction. Whatever. I saw a postcard of Tokyo Tower in Tokyo and I saw scaffolding and a sheet with a painting of a temple on it when I went to Ueno Park.
But there were some really cool things there. There were 50 copper lanterns that had been donated to the temple long long long ago by famous shoguns! There were also a toooon of wooden planks, prayers, that people left behind. Also a poignant commentary on nuclear bombs and a flame they had kept going from after the bomb had been dropped to remind people of it. I don’t think anything I have to say will give any of this credit, so I’ll do it with pictures.
Some time. When pictures get off my phone.
PART 4- “SHE WANTS ME TO BUY HER!??”
Then we walked back to the train station, RAN TO THE NEXT TRAIN THAT WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE, and headed on to Akihabara: Electric City. That is what the station is called. I assume that is just the full name of the prefecture. Akihbara is famous for having all kinds of electronics and generally WEIRD crap.
As soon as we got there we went into the Sega building which was a 7 or 8 story arcade. There were more chances to win cute UFO catcher dolls and also win smiling penis plushies. But there were fighting games on one floor and RPGs on another and… no, seriously, 7 or 8 flights of stairs for you to walk up in case you had somehow missed having stairs in Ueno.
Every building in Akihabara was like that. There was no building that didn’t have at least 7 flights of stairs for you to climb and there were often even far more than that. Also there was no air conditioning. Some floors had fans, but most just had humidity and heat. The idea is that you sweat so much in these buildings from climbing the stairs in the heat that when you need to go back down it’s really easy because the sweat pouring out of your skin turns the stairs into a slide! Those clever Japanese scientists!
We visited more arcades, incredibly strange souvenir stores (I got out of a vending machine a spoon holding an egg toy incased in a plastic ball. WOW!) and a pachinko parlor. It was loud and terrifying and I wanted to run away. So we went up all 8 flights of stairs first.
One of the very first things we noticed was that there were girls in maid costumes waving at and flirting with people as they went by. I don’t have a picture of that because they also had badges on that said in big English letters “NO PICTURES PLEASE THANK YOU”. One of them winked at Tracy and put a flyer in her hand that had a picture of the maid in question on it.
“What is this?” Tracy asked, mildly horrified.
“Oh”, I explained, “She wants you to buy her”
“She wants me to BUY HER!?” she asked and then quickly pocketed the flyer (since there are no trash cans in Japan). “WHAT?”
The maids work at maid cafes. There you can purchase time with a pretty maid who will play games with you, flirt with you, make drinks with you and eat with you! The more regular customers get more time with the maids of their choice and are called out by name- but the maids will hang out with anyone who pays for them. This absolutely disturbed Tracy until she realized it: “Wait. They’re like geisha??”
YES!
Quick lesson- geisha and prostitutes are not the same thing. You pay a prostitute money to have sex with you- but she’ll of course probably also listen to you talk and play games with you if you want. But you’re buying a prostitute for sex. You buy a geisha for the quality of her entertainment. She plays music for you, escorts you to big events, talks with you… she’s actually just a companion of sorts. Over time if you purchase her time enough you can probably get around to having sex with her- but that’s not actually her schtick and she DOESN’T have sex with people more often than she does. So these maids are JUST LIKE that- I assume. You pay money to have a cute girl spend time with you while wearing a maid costume.
My favorite part was watching some of the maids get off duty. They suddenly lost their childish mannerisms and high pitched voices and kinda trudged off towards the train station while talking on their cell phones and ignoring the people who tried to interact with them. Classic “It’s a living” kinda stuff. It was also fun watching ones GO to work because they started off looking tired, got to their spot of Akihbara and then were suddenly outlandishly alive and enthusiastic as they started handing out flyers.
Toys are cheap in Japan. It’s not fair. All the things I always end up having to pay $100 for in the United States (statues and what not) were like $30-$50 in Japan. If we weren’t so incredibly limited by having only carry-on luggage I’d have gone crazy buying that stuff. I guess it’s a blessing and a curse that I couldn’t.
We really didn’t have a lot of time to look around Akihabara after having gone to Ueno- so we never got to find the cat café that I wanted to go to. A cat café is a place where you buy to get food and drinks and be surrounded by 20 or more cats who you can also feed. IDEAL.
That day we ate at KFC in Japan (which was way better than in America) and at McDonalds in Japan (which was exactly, and disappointingly, the same as in America complete with orders getting screwed up). Those were rare places in that they HAD trashcans… but the trashcans were weird and we didn’t understand them. There were four or five of them because Japan really IS big on recycling. Looked like one for plastic stuff. One for plastic bottles specifically. A paper one. One that you dump your liquids into before throwing your cup away. Some marked “combustibles” and “incombustibles”. Man, I dunno. It was thorough and intimidating… which is the Japanese way, I guess.
We also tried another public bathroom and were all shocked to discover that it featured no towels or dryers and no soap. Also you had your choice of Western toilets or Eastern squatting toilets. Japanese people all grow up learning to be Sumo Wrestlers and it is like a sumo wrestler that you must stand if you want to use a Japanese style squatting toilet (please note my sarcasm. Not ALL Japanese people are Sumo Wrestlers. Some take the Ninja or Business Man option instead). We watched as people used their own soap and then dried their hands with their own handkerchiefs that they brought with them. We just kinda grossly poured water on our hands and then wiped them on our pants as we had not been warned that we would need to bring our own soap and towels.
After that we boarded another train, got back home and watched a really, really , really random Japanese movie that I’ll tell you about NEXT TIME.
..NEXT TIME: I don’t feel like giving you snippets here because then I have to READ this again to write my post and then what if I don’t FEEL like writing about that? And then what if I’m just a disappointment to you because you don’t get to learn about bathrooms again because I forgot? Too much pressure, man. Learn to love what you’ve got. Geez. ^_^
Well, I let a few days pass since the last time I updated and I’m sort of kicking myself for that. I had to wait that long to be ABLE to kick myself about it because a few days of not walking around everywhere reminded my legs that they were supposed to be in horrible, cramping agony. While I was thinking “Now that I’m home, what should I do? Oh, I know. Sleep all the time” my legs were thinking “Well, now that WE’RE home what do we do? Oh, I know. Hurt all the time!” So thank you for that, legs.
When I was awake I spent time hanging out with friends and telling them all the things that I already told this journal and giving them journal spoilers. ^_^; That was a mistake if I want them to read this long wall of text, I think.
Also, for some reason, I've having difficulty getting pictures off my phone. I'll try to fix that. Until then you mostly get a high res picture of monkey balls. LUCKY YOU.
PART 1- X IS “HARDER THAN I THOUGHT”
Before I went to bed that night I came out of the bathroom at one point (after using another one of the bidet options because while I was in Japan I was going to try out every button on every damn thing I could- it never stopped freaking me out and making me laugh nervously simultaneously) and Tracy and Eel were collapsed on the bed. Tracy was facing the wrong way on the bed, her feet propped up by pillows and her head propped up by her arm. Eel was sprawled out entirely over the tiny (but incredibly comfortable) bed that we shared. I guess their Japanese culture and language integration had been more speedy and successful than my own because they were watching a show on the television on how to speak English. I assume they forgot how and needed a reminder. An insane man who I think was supposed to be a representative of America and who was wearing very heavy, dark black eye makeup and a tiny, constantly grinning Japanese woman were teaching us the phrases “~Harder than I thought” and “~Easier than I thought”. I wish I could denote exactly how they were saying this so that it could get stuck in your head, like it got stuck in mine, like an infectious Katy Perry song. Oh. Actually I could try- since I’m a linguist and all… but I’m not sure anyone would appreciate it much.
At any rate the girl got on a horse and pouted dramatically and over-enthusiastically as she told us that “Riding a horse is HARDER than I THOUGHT”. I think she was lying though because the energy she put into telling us that and flailing wildly on the horse to express her inability to ride it should have made her fall off the horse. But she stayed on like a champ! Later in the lesson she got better as she told the horse to “Now go RIGHT” and “Now go LEFT” and it did so. At that point she alerted us that “Riding a horse is EASIER than I THOUGHT”. They learn to ride horses differently in Japan. I remember taking lessons and begging my horse to go right or left and it just stubbornly standing there. Apparently my fail horse wanted me to do something with the reins. Hers was just all “Oh. You told me to move? K”. Japanese programs on learning English are fantastic. Even horses can learn!
After that I pushed and punched Eel to get him to make enough room for me on the bed. It was harder than I thought.
PART 2- SUICA SUCKERS
There is one train line in Tokyo that I love above all others. That is because it is really simple. It goes in a loop around some of the most famous places in Tokyo. Also, a villain causes an earthquake to destroy it entirely in one of my favorite manga series ever! SWEET. It’s called the Yamanote line (“Yah-mah-noh-tay” not “Yeah-muh-noht” no matter how much fun it is to say that in a fake hickish accent and say “On o’er thatta way by ye ole yamanote”). Here’s a picture of the Tokyo transportation system that we had to figure out.
HAHAHAHA. Isn’t that amazing? Don’t your eyes go like this: O_O;;? If they don’t, don’t tell me. My eyes did that the whole time I was in Tokyo. I’m pretty sure that’s why Japanese cartoon characters look that way. They have all had to gaze upon the Tokyo train maps.
Anyway, that nifty green line in the middle there that makes a wobbly diamond/ squishy square (technical terms) is the Yamanote line. Theoretically, you just hop on that all easy peasy one two threesy (…I am using that phrase again. What is going on?) and you get to those awesome places you want to go. Ikebukoro, Shibuya, Ueno, Akihabara- these are all famous places you can travel to on the Yamanote line. And as an added bonus if you want to get to Tokyo Tower you just….
I have no unearthly clue how you get to Tokyo Tower. It’s a cruel joke! All the famous places are on the Yamanote Line except for THE famous place which is waaaaay off it and seems to require taking multiple trains and buses by my reckoning. Or a specific subway train that we couldn’t figure out because taking a REGULAR train was already far too hard for our simple American minds. So we never went to Tokyo Tower on this trip because it was too hard to get there. I think it must have been on the Yamanote line at one point but then some brilliant Japanese scientist said “Do you realize that in every form of media featuring Tokyo this tower gets blown up? Maybe let’s not put it on the Yamanote line? It’s too easy for villains to get to then. And anyway I just read this really rad manga where this one dude with spiky hair caused an earthquake to destroy the entire Yamanote line so… maybe no. No, thank you. No. Thank you.” So we visited after that and didn’t get to see Tokyo Tower. I did see post cards of it though so that’s something (that’s right. Going to a country to see a postcard of their famous landmark is totally the same thing).
At any rate, it seemed to me that it would be easy enough to get to Ueno and Akihabara with our limited time by just taking that one train. One. Train. EASY. EAAAASY.
It was harder than I thought.
We got to Shinjuku Station and pointed at the big train map and said “There. The Yamanote Line.” and then we stood there. Then we said it again as though we expected that to have a different result. “The Yamanote Line!”, we declared with enthusiasm, “There it is! Right there on the wall!” Strangely, the result was the same. We continued to be standing in the middle of an incredibly busy train station- a line of ticket machines before us that we couldn’t quite understand. Bravely, we walked forward to one and pushed the English option. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t American English because it didn’t make any sense. I could clearly see that there were words on the screen that came from my language’s dictionary- but trying to figure out what it was telling us to do was nearly impossible. We wanted to get on the Yamanote line! To Ueno! Come ooooooooon.
Then we realized it wanted us to put in our ticket or card.
“…We don’t have one! Isn’t that what you do!?” we demanded of the machine.
“No. No, thank you.” It said back.
The train stations in Japan are really really really big and they require a bit of explanation to realize how stupidly hard it was to navigate for us (and how easy it is to navigate for brighter folk). In a Japanese train station you buy a ticket (NO WAAAY) and you feed that ticket to a toll booth (that may or may not also eat your small, delicate hands) to get INTO the station to ride a train and then you feed it to another toll booth to get OUT. There are also loads and loads of gates and entrances to get into the station- sprawling across all sides of the road. So you feel lost getting there and when you get there you think “Am I in the wrong side?” and then you look at the Tokyo train map on the wall and you realize there will never in your life, from this point on, be a time that you don’t feel lost again.
So we wasted about half an hour trying to figure out how to use a ticket machine that wouldn’t give us tickets without us already having a ticket. Then we made this face some more: O_O;
Eventually I saw some blond haired guys that looked like they might speak English because I judge that way. “Excuse me”, I said slowly in a foreigner speaking English like a Japanese person might on a show teaching you English, “Do you speak English?”
They did! They were from Sweden and they explained that that the smart thing to do would be to go back in time and buy the JR Pass from America before going to Japan (>.< we learned this a lot). But since we didn’t do that they said that our next best option would be to get “The Suica Card”. Once we had that we could feed it to the ticket machine and then go to places rather than looking at places on the map, or on postcards, and pretend like we went there.
Of course the part of the station to buy the Suica card was across the street, up a thousand stairs, down some more stairs and across another street. That’s OK. All places in Japan have those same exact coordinates.
We had to buy them from actual, living, breathing, Japanese people in a ticket office which I was not prepared for. “WHAT NO. I was promised machines! MACHINES”. Really. I thought that Japan was a million times more technologically advanced than we are in the States and that by now they’d have been able to create some sort of program that simulates human interaction without actually making a nervous, introverted, fat American girl actually engage in it for real. Alas.
The ladies in the ticket office were very nice and spoke very limited English. I speak very limited Japanese. Actually, it was fun for all of us. I told them that I wanted to purchase a Suica card so that I could ride the Yamanote trains. At least that’s what I assume I told them. Maybe I told them “I butterfly dog giant ride train giddyup” and they just successfully took that to mean “Oh. They want to cause an earthquake to destroy the Yamanote line. Give them the Suica card for $15 each”. I don’t know. But we each paid our $15 and got our cards loaded up ($5.00 for the card- $10 put on the card) and then we walked across the street, up a thousand stairs, down some more stairs and across another street because we’d learned correctly that that is exactly how you get to any place in Japan. We swiped our Suica cards for the toll, RAN REALLY FAST TO GET TO A TRAIN THAT WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE, got on the train and then wondered:
“Did we do this, right?”
It seemed that there should be something else to the process. In Japan there are 4 different kinds of trains (this excludes all the varieties of buses and subways and what not). There are Local trains which stop at every single stop. There are Express trains which stop only at the big stops. There are Rapid Express trains which stop at only the BIGGEST stops. And there are Shinkansens (bullet trains) which make you feel like you’re going to throw up and never seem to stop at all. On these trains are Reserved and Non Reserved seats. That probably makes sense to you. There are also Green Seats which, I guess, is like First Class and cost a butt ton more money that I didn’t feel like spending on not knowing exactly what it was. But once we got our Suica cards we just sorta moseyed onto any ole train, sitting when we could and standing otherwise. On our way to Ueno we had a real feeling that “We have done this all wrong. We really are international criminals. We paid $15 to stand or sit on whatever train we want and be confused about it the whole time.” Go us!
The mascot for the Suica card is a penguin that looks as lost as we felt. So that was evidence to me that we were doing the trip correctly. I assume that little penguin was born in Japan and wanted to one day go to his homelands to see his penguin family, but never got there because he was too busy getting lost on various Japanese trains. Or just riding the Yamanote line forever and ever because it seemed easier than transferring to another confusing train line. He’s probably only ever seen Tokyo Tower on tv and in postcards too.
Right or wrong, we got off the train at Ueno Station, looked at our Ueno map and sighed. “We’d like to go to Ueno Park zoo, but it looks like we’ll have to walk for a thousand years. Probably up some stairs”.
So imagine our surprise when we rounded a corner out of the station past a bunch of children in school uniforms who appeared to be on a school trip to see Ueno Zoo RIGHT FREAKING THERE. On the map it is forever away. It’s like -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------à that far away. But really you step outside, yawn, make some comment about how you are glad to no longer be on a train and POOF! Ueno Zoo appears.
PART 2- LESSONS IN ANIMAL ANATONY
We were really excited about seeing a panda at the zoo. SUPER excited. We got to the ticket counter where we had to interact with a human being again (who was an incredibly sweet and smiley Japanese woman who made me think of a Japanese Sally Fields and should definitely be featured in some feel good, family movie about the strange people who visit the zoo). Then we walked in, asked “I wonder where the panda will be?” and POOF! The Pandas were RIGHT THERE. Right to our right. Signs everywhere screaming “PANDA!!! HEY, GUYS. PANDA!!!” This was amazing to us. Japan had hidden Tokyo Tower from us, certain that we’d destroy it, but tried to make it up for us by distracting us by putting everything we wanted in Ueno park RIGHT THERE when we wanted it.
There were a bunch of really cute animals. We saw the pandas, a bunch of monkeys, a tapir (who was hanging out with capybaras), elephants, leopards, tigers, polar bears, on and on. We also saw adorable Japanese children. This was a delight for all parties. As we thought “Awww! Look! Cute children” (all of them wearing adorable cloth hats) they were obviously thinking “Woooow! Scary, large foreigners!”. The zoo was a great place for cultures to collide!
Some of the children seemed to be tagged and released into the wild. They wore labels on the back of their shirt that I think identified them by name and also by what grade school they attended. Then they just walked around wherever they wanted to. I saw two little girls who looked like they might have been 7 or so years old holding hands. One of them was a tiny, pretty doll of a girl with her long, dark hair loose with a little bow in it. One of her hands was up to her face where she nervously chewed on the nails. The other hand was held by a skinny, short-haired, tomboyish girl. The long haired girl told the tomboy “I’m scared” and the tomboy girl said “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you!” and courageously took the lead. I was both cuted out and mildly disturbed. “Oh my god”, I realized, “That is a scene I would see in a Japanese manga. And it just happened in real life”. Somehow it broke my mind to realize that such a thing could possibly ACTUALLY happen.
At one point Eel’s blood sugar got low so he had to take a quick rest next to one of the enclosures to eat some snacks. A little boy and his sister came by to look at whatever the animal was in there (I don’t recall) and squeal, LOUDLY, anytime they saw the animal do something. Eventually the little boy locked eyes with Eel and just stared at him, stunned, for a moment…. Before patting Eel happily on the knee and the leaping over him. He walked away, came by a second later, looked at Eel the exact same way, tapped Eel’s knee again, and then happily jumped over him again. We’re not sure what the deal was with that- but it was super cute and I’ve decided that it just meant “Welcome to Japan, beardly creature!”.
A lot of the enclosures at the zoo were multi-tiered. For instance you could see the seals from up above, down below and they even had a tube where they could swim over your head when you were down below so that you could see them up above AND down below. This allowed for multiple opportunities to watch animals poop which appears to be the entire function of a zoo. We got to watch a panda poop when we first walked in- then we got to go to another enclosure to watch another panda poop! We also got to watch them clean their butts in their water- so that was something. Then we saw a musk ox poop and then a bunch of monkeys poop. I saw the polar bear poop from up above and then we went to another place where we could see the polar bear from below, sitting on glass, so that we could have a close up of its butt. Thanks, Japan! Also Japan is very serious about educating visitors about the anatomy of their creatures. One of the first things we saw was a sign that taught us about a monkey- drawing circles around notable features we couldn’t read- including its balls. They’re so thorough!
Aside from animals, Ueno Zoo also has 5,000 vending machines. This isn’t unique to Ueno Zoo. This is how Japan is. Every few feet that you walk you have another opportunity to purchase orange juice, tea, coffee or Coke if you missed out on your earlier opportunity. There are very very few sugar free drink options in Japanese vending machines so on the rare chance you are diabetic and come across a Coke Zero in one of the vending machines you need to take that chance. You might not get it again for another 10 feet.
I had an orange juice, a hot milk tea (which burned my tongue and tasted way less yummy than cold milk tea) and then a more different orange juice out of different machines (Japan really loves its fruit juices). Tracy had a water drink infused with peach that tasted so delicious that we had to make the obligatory comment about how much better Japanese things taste than American things. Eel had a Coke Zero because he didn’t know if he could make it five more vending machines later to find another one.
At one point we sat down with our beverage collection (given that there are 5000 vending machines and no trash cans because I assume that Japanese people believe so much in recycling that they just eat their trash) and watched as a man all in black walked casually before the cranes, raised his hands AND BEGAN TO CONDUCT THEM. They all started going ape-shit crazy in so far as a crane can go “ape” shit. They started hooting and hollering and flapping around like mad. I’m pretty sure the Man in Black was an arch-villain to the cranes. When he lowered his hands and walked away they all stopped! We then watched as a few school girls, also in awe of what they had seen, went up and tried to emulate them. They raised their arms to conduct the cranes, but the cranes weren’t impressed. As they had done before the Man in Black’s arrival they just stood there. And pooped. Because they were in a zoo.
Near the cranes was a creature we’d never seen before called “The Secretary Bird”. Here’s a picture since I can’t describe how absurd and fantastic this creature was. While the other cranes were content to stand around pooping, this one knew no life other than vogueing. It came up close to us, tilted its head in a bunch of fascinating ways, and blinked its eyes at us. It knew it had something special. Not even the Man in Black could take that away from it.
PART 3- IT LOOKS LIKE A PAINTING…. Because it is a painting
There is a temple in Ueno Park that we really wanted to go to. By Ueno’s map’s reckoning it was about a two week journey east so we knew that it would be about a five minute walk. We were right. It was BEAUTIFUL. I exclaimed upon seeing it “It’s like a PAINTING” and Eel said “That’s because it is” and he was right. It was under construction. Whatever. I saw a postcard of Tokyo Tower in Tokyo and I saw scaffolding and a sheet with a painting of a temple on it when I went to Ueno Park.
But there were some really cool things there. There were 50 copper lanterns that had been donated to the temple long long long ago by famous shoguns! There were also a toooon of wooden planks, prayers, that people left behind. Also a poignant commentary on nuclear bombs and a flame they had kept going from after the bomb had been dropped to remind people of it. I don’t think anything I have to say will give any of this credit, so I’ll do it with pictures.
Some time. When pictures get off my phone.
PART 4- “SHE WANTS ME TO BUY HER!??”
Then we walked back to the train station, RAN TO THE NEXT TRAIN THAT WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE, and headed on to Akihabara: Electric City. That is what the station is called. I assume that is just the full name of the prefecture. Akihbara is famous for having all kinds of electronics and generally WEIRD crap.
As soon as we got there we went into the Sega building which was a 7 or 8 story arcade. There were more chances to win cute UFO catcher dolls and also win smiling penis plushies. But there were fighting games on one floor and RPGs on another and… no, seriously, 7 or 8 flights of stairs for you to walk up in case you had somehow missed having stairs in Ueno.
Every building in Akihabara was like that. There was no building that didn’t have at least 7 flights of stairs for you to climb and there were often even far more than that. Also there was no air conditioning. Some floors had fans, but most just had humidity and heat. The idea is that you sweat so much in these buildings from climbing the stairs in the heat that when you need to go back down it’s really easy because the sweat pouring out of your skin turns the stairs into a slide! Those clever Japanese scientists!
We visited more arcades, incredibly strange souvenir stores (I got out of a vending machine a spoon holding an egg toy incased in a plastic ball. WOW!) and a pachinko parlor. It was loud and terrifying and I wanted to run away. So we went up all 8 flights of stairs first.
One of the very first things we noticed was that there were girls in maid costumes waving at and flirting with people as they went by. I don’t have a picture of that because they also had badges on that said in big English letters “NO PICTURES PLEASE THANK YOU”. One of them winked at Tracy and put a flyer in her hand that had a picture of the maid in question on it.
“What is this?” Tracy asked, mildly horrified.
“Oh”, I explained, “She wants you to buy her”
“She wants me to BUY HER!?” she asked and then quickly pocketed the flyer (since there are no trash cans in Japan). “WHAT?”
The maids work at maid cafes. There you can purchase time with a pretty maid who will play games with you, flirt with you, make drinks with you and eat with you! The more regular customers get more time with the maids of their choice and are called out by name- but the maids will hang out with anyone who pays for them. This absolutely disturbed Tracy until she realized it: “Wait. They’re like geisha??”
YES!
Quick lesson- geisha and prostitutes are not the same thing. You pay a prostitute money to have sex with you- but she’ll of course probably also listen to you talk and play games with you if you want. But you’re buying a prostitute for sex. You buy a geisha for the quality of her entertainment. She plays music for you, escorts you to big events, talks with you… she’s actually just a companion of sorts. Over time if you purchase her time enough you can probably get around to having sex with her- but that’s not actually her schtick and she DOESN’T have sex with people more often than she does. So these maids are JUST LIKE that- I assume. You pay money to have a cute girl spend time with you while wearing a maid costume.
My favorite part was watching some of the maids get off duty. They suddenly lost their childish mannerisms and high pitched voices and kinda trudged off towards the train station while talking on their cell phones and ignoring the people who tried to interact with them. Classic “It’s a living” kinda stuff. It was also fun watching ones GO to work because they started off looking tired, got to their spot of Akihbara and then were suddenly outlandishly alive and enthusiastic as they started handing out flyers.
Toys are cheap in Japan. It’s not fair. All the things I always end up having to pay $100 for in the United States (statues and what not) were like $30-$50 in Japan. If we weren’t so incredibly limited by having only carry-on luggage I’d have gone crazy buying that stuff. I guess it’s a blessing and a curse that I couldn’t.
We really didn’t have a lot of time to look around Akihabara after having gone to Ueno- so we never got to find the cat café that I wanted to go to. A cat café is a place where you buy to get food and drinks and be surrounded by 20 or more cats who you can also feed. IDEAL.
That day we ate at KFC in Japan (which was way better than in America) and at McDonalds in Japan (which was exactly, and disappointingly, the same as in America complete with orders getting screwed up). Those were rare places in that they HAD trashcans… but the trashcans were weird and we didn’t understand them. There were four or five of them because Japan really IS big on recycling. Looked like one for plastic stuff. One for plastic bottles specifically. A paper one. One that you dump your liquids into before throwing your cup away. Some marked “combustibles” and “incombustibles”. Man, I dunno. It was thorough and intimidating… which is the Japanese way, I guess.
We also tried another public bathroom and were all shocked to discover that it featured no towels or dryers and no soap. Also you had your choice of Western toilets or Eastern squatting toilets. Japanese people all grow up learning to be Sumo Wrestlers and it is like a sumo wrestler that you must stand if you want to use a Japanese style squatting toilet (please note my sarcasm. Not ALL Japanese people are Sumo Wrestlers. Some take the Ninja or Business Man option instead). We watched as people used their own soap and then dried their hands with their own handkerchiefs that they brought with them. We just kinda grossly poured water on our hands and then wiped them on our pants as we had not been warned that we would need to bring our own soap and towels.
After that we boarded another train, got back home and watched a really, really , really random Japanese movie that I’ll tell you about NEXT TIME.
..NEXT TIME: I don’t feel like giving you snippets here because then I have to READ this again to write my post and then what if I don’t FEEL like writing about that? And then what if I’m just a disappointment to you because you don’t get to learn about bathrooms again because I forgot? Too much pressure, man. Learn to love what you’ve got. Geez. ^_^