Lyd's Adventures: May 2017

Saturday, May 27, 2017

A temple, a museum and some Japanese fine dining

We enjoyed exploring more of Tokyo over the next few days. We paid a visit to Senso-ji Temple, which is the oldest temple in Tokyo. The street leading up to the temple was fascinating, full of small stalls selling food and souvenirs. We sampled some of the local delicacies. This country is exceeding orderly and one of the rules is that you are not allowed to eat while walking around on the street. All the food stalls had signs up saying that their products were only allowed to be eaten in the area directly in front of the shop.

The temple and its surrounding gardens were lovely to wander around.

I liked seeing some of the locals dressed in their traditional clothing.

We also paid a visit to the Van Gogh and Gauguin exhibition that was on at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

Outside the museum was yet another reflective orb. We've been coming across them all over the world during the last few months!

We also came across yet another casting of Rodin's Gates of Hell, having already viewed other casts (including the original) at both the Musee d'Orsay and the Musee Rodin in Paris, as well as the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. I do love my Rodin, and have probably seen enough on this trip to last me a lifetime!

It was dark by the time we finished at the museum so we got to enjoy some lights that are designed to replicate the famous cherry blossom.

Will is a fan of Japanese woodcut prints, so did his research online and found a shop with a reputation for selling good quality prints at a reasonable price. We managed to hunt down the shop and purchased the print below. It will be a nice momento of our time in Japan.

The manhole covers in Japan are works of art in their own right. Apparently there are approximately 12 000 different designs and we enjoyed keeping an eye out for them.

There are several places to get up high and get good views over Tokyo, but it won't surprise many of you to learn that I opted for one of the free options! We headed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku one evening and headed up to the free observatory deck to admire the view. On clear days you can see all the way to Mt Fuji.

On Friday 16th December Will put in a day of work at the University of Electro-Communications in Chofu, Tokyo. He met up with his colleague Keiki Takadama who he has known for a very long time. During the day Will gave a presentation and met Keiki's research group. That evening I made my way to the university and we were taken out for a rather flash, traditional set-menu meal.

I was a little bit out of my comfort zone during this meal as I don't like the feeling of not knowing what I am eating, and there were all sorts of weird and wonderful things on offer! Keiki's secretary who was lovely, and spoke good English had also joined us for the meal. She did her best to identify things for me, but some things didn't have an English equivalent, and some things she didn't know the English translations for. I gave it a decent bash and tried most things, including the fugi (pufferfish!).

On Saturday 17th we checked out of our Airbnb, and moved into one right around the corner. We had extended our stay in Tokyo as on the Sunday Will made the journey back to Singapore to catch up with Yew-Soon Ong, who was out of the country when we were there. Yew-Soon is a bright up-and-coming professor in his field of Evolutionary Computation, and Will was very keen to catch up with him, even if it meant a 10-hour flight each way to spend 1 day with him. This gave me a couple of days by myself in Tokyo.

A day-trip to Yokohama and a night at the Robot Restaurant

On Tuesday 13th December we took a train to Yokohama, approximately 40 minutes south of Tokyo. We were met at the train station by Will's colleague Masaya. Masaya was an exchange student at Victoria University Wellington for a year, and is now a lecturer at Yokohama National University. Will and Masaya headed off to the university to work, and I set off exploring Yokohama. I went for a nice walk from the train station to the waterfront, and then caught a bus out to Sankeien garden, a vast traditional Japanese garden which is one of tripadvisor's top things to do in Yokohama.

Despite being a dull overcast day, I had a lovely time wandering around the gardens for a couple of hours. I was a few weeks late for the main autumn show, but the colour that was left on the trees was still rather impressive.

It was then time to bus back into the city centre to meet up with the guys. Masaya and his friend took Will and I out for okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake). It was a cute little traditional restaurant where you sit on the floor (after removing your shoes and placing them in a locker -you always need to make sure you are wearing decent socks in Japan!). Luckily there was a pit under the table so my poor old knees could cope...

After a quick lesson from Masaya...

...Will set about cooking us our dinner. He did a great job, and the final result was super tasty!

After dinner our hosts were keen to continue the evening, so we ended up in a random American themed whiskey bar where they insisted that Will join them for beers with whiskey chasers. I was quite happy I had decided to stick to water for the evening! Masaya was a very generous host, we weren't allowed to pay for a single thing all evening. I think he quite enjoyed taking his former supervisor out on the town!

The following night we walked to Kabukicho which is the entertainment/red light district of Shinjuku. There were girlie bars everywhere! Some of the names and signage amused us...

That night we had tickets to the Robot Restaurant, which isn't so much a restaurant as a slightly kitsch 'robot' show. It was pretty expensive, but very much one of those 'only in Japan' experiences. It is actually a lot tamer and family friendly now than it used to be, with the performers now wearing (a bit) more than they used to, much to Will's disappointment! Here is a clip from the past...