tsewei’s blog

This time round I took a long ride up north to Ueno station for a glimpse of Old Tokyo.

Unfortunately for me, I missed the sakura by 2 months, so I headed off to the Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park for the summer view.

It’s a charming little spot, with huge lotus leaves spreading over a large portion of the pond.

It’s almost like a lotus leaf invasion — they’ve taken over the entire place.
But no flowers yet. Later in the summer maybe.

It was very calm on a weekday. No thronging crowds of the cheery blossom season so it’s peaceful. Saw a lot of people walking their itsy-bitsy dogs, or just cycling. Some just hang out by the pond and read.

And it seems the park is a popular spot for homeless people. Most just hang around there and feed the ducks, or sleep.

Apparently you can also row boats at the pond. But I noticed the people were not wearing life jackets! Eecks. Maybe I didn’t see correctly or something. I dunno, the weather may be hot, but dropping into the pond for a swim is not my idea of a great afternoon.

But these fellas are enjoying the water just fine.

Okay now these 2 are drying off at the steps.
They look so cute. Kinda reminds me of the duck that Joey and Chandler had in Friends.
Wait, are these white ducks, or geese?

And completing the picture of a quaint old-styled place, is the little shrine right before the Shinobazu Pond.

There’s a zoo as well, but I wasn’t exactly planning on smelling monkey’s poo for an afternoon so I gave it a miss. There are several museums (on art, history, everything) within Ueno Park, but I’d leave that for another day. It’s not exactly my ability to stretch the afternoon’s hours to fit that much in. But, I did check out the street market nearby, Ameyoko-cho.

With small tiny shops wedged tightly together, Ameyoko reminds me of Petaling Street in KL. You can find all sorts of cheap (and fake) bags, shirts, shoes, belts, etc. There’re also a lot of lil’ shops and stalls that sells vegetables, fruits, seaweed or fresh seafood. I swear they were selling tentacles of a giant octopus that were so huge, they look alien. yeeks.

The cool thing about this street? It’s as if these shops have train tracks as their roofs. The entire street market runs parallel to the train tracks from Ueno station to Okachimachi station. So as I shopped, I could hear the trains chugging by every now and then.

Also, I wasted 100yen just for a piece of pineapple! Fruits are expensive here. Will eat fruit at any cheap opportunity. Imagine paying 380yen for one-sixth of a watermelon. And it’s not even seedless! 100yen for any fruit is the cheapest so far, so I dove straight in for one. *slurp*

It all began with this photo.

Au Yong snapped this some time ago cos he thought I would love the bear as it has a large red button and I love buttons. And he was right.

I thought it was the cutest thing, and I named it ‘pnyek’. It’s just a word I made up. Kinda like the sound you get when you press the button on a squeaky toy. Pnyek!

Soon after we discovered that she has a brother character. Dark brown in colour, sans button. Again, not knowing its real name, we called it ‘pnyok’.

Before I came to Tokyo, I made up my mind to hunt down these bears. And lucky for me, I found the soft toy pnyek on the first day that I was here shopping.

And then last Saturday, we bumped into pnyok on the streets of Ikebukuro!!

I’m sure everyone’s thinking, crazy girl, but I really don’t care. heh.
I kinda wish I’m shorter, so I could hug pnyok like the kids. haha.

whee!
Oh yeah, the real name? Rilakkuma.
Too long. Pnyek & pnyok sounds better.

6 weeks is heck a lot of time to be in one city, especially when your darling is in office, and there’s only so much housework you can do. So when I’m not veging in front of the monitor catching up on missed episodes of Gilmore Girls, or busy scrubbing the wooden floor, or sleeping late and missing out on another mild-earthquake, I’m off on my own exploration, one train station at a time.

This is a lil’ late update from last week. First stop of choice: Harajuku.

It’s a quaint lil’ station, with a wooden clock tower like the old days. On one side is the serene tranquility of the Meiji Jingu Shrine, and on the other side is the exciting energy of Omotesando and Takeshita-dori.

My first stop was the Meiji Jingu, and since it’s a weekday, I missed out on the fashion parade that happens on Sundays at the entrance where Japanese teens don weird costumes for fun.
And lucky for me it’s mid-june and the irises are in full bloom in the Iris Garden. Admission 500 yen, complimentary mosquito bites included.

The purple trail goes on forever.

And the flowers are real beauties of their own.

The place is truly scenic. Tree-lined winding lanes, clear pond on the south with big carps and giant tortoises, and clear water flowing out of a well at the north end.

And beyond, is the shrine and its calming presence.

This place was apparently built in memory of the Emperor Meiji, but had to be rebuilt after being destroyed in WWII.

There’s a huge tree in the middle of the ‘courtyard’, where you could write your wishes on a lil’ piece of wood, and hang it around the tree, and the priests or somebody will offer this wishes in some daily ceremony. Pardon the vagueness in details, my brains can’t store much facts.

And of course, one wish will set you back by 500 yen, so I made sure I wrote wishes for everybody on that small piece of wood.

And within the shrine, they have kindly prepared lil’ pamphlets in English on how to pay respects in the shrine. Cleanse your hands with some cool clear water that they’ve prepared at the side (looks like another well to me), and then walk in, offer some coins, clap your hands twice, and bow twice. Or something close to that, as far as I can remember.

What I like most about the Shrine is its serenity. So quiet and peaceful. A great place for a nice long walk. And it is like a world of its own, cocooned away from the hustle-bustle of the city right outside of it.

After leaving the Meiji Jingu, I took a walk along Omotesando, and it’s one crazy shopping place. It’s like Orchard Road, shopping places on both sides on the road. But with stores so exclusive, I think a closer comparison would be Paris’ Champs Elysees, maybe not that grand, but close enough. Name any designer brand, the store’s probably there. So naturally, all I did was stroll on the streets, and sat at a cafe with my juice and cake, and people-watch.

Of course everyone’s very fashionable. And many actually bring their dogs out for a walk, and they’re the cutest smallest dogs I’ve ever seen. So tiny, my cat’s probably bigger. And some are even more fasionable than me with their itty-bitty doggy clothing. hah.

I liked how the Tokyo Union Church is wedged in between LV and Armani. Such unlikely neighbours. And off the main road, are smaller lanes with the funkiest stores and hair saloons.

So there, exploration trip number 1 on my own went well despite my japanese vocabulary that totals up to only ten words. Everyone’s real helpful, maybe cos they all want me to buy their clothes haha. (I saw a Zara dress for only 1590yen!! but no size!! arggh!!!!) But funniest was when some fella tried to approach me on the street for some survey (or something, I can’t understand). He jabbered away in japanese at 140km/h, me catch no one word, so I just waved my hands frantically and say the 2 words that I know best: Gomenasai, wakarimasen! (sorry, I don’t understand), and ran off.

Must be more cool, calm and collected next time. Next time.

Yes, I’m now living in the time zone of GMT+9, land of rising sun, sushi, ramen, hello kitty, japanese school girls, and mild-earthquakes which I slept through this morning.

Narita airport is really so far off from the city it took us 2 hours on the train just to reach back. 0_o Good thing au yong was there to pick me up, else I’m sure I would’ve gotten lost. Their train system is absolutely bonkers. So intricate with so many different train services. Just look at the map in this link and you’ll see what I’m talking about. How crazy is that?

My communication capabilities is practically paralysed here since I don’t speak Japanese. I feel kinda bad sometimes when all the salespeople at the stores or restaurants greet me and ramble on and on in Japanese, and I have no idea what to say. :s eecks. Au yong’s Japanese phrase book now has a permanent place in my bag. Not gonna go anywhere without it, and the subway map.

Went off to explore Akihabara, land of electronics goods - where else would tech geek au yong first bring me to than this? - and I actually managed to find my favourite pnyek! bear. teehee. And found out that the real name’s actually rilakkuma. Or something like that. Yay! And there were all the coolest toys that I wished I had when I was a kid. I like the Doraemon that has eyes which you can swap (like Mr-Potato-Head in Toy Story) and a pouch that can fit all sorts of different items!

Finally checked out the new Nintendo DS Lite too. So cool. I am so enticed to get one for meself. Very very tempted, but I’ll sleep on that first before deciding further.

Shibuya was crazy on a Sunday. The intersection was jam packed with people. And that’s where I had an umbrella tussle. With the permanent Sunday rain, everyone was carrying an umbrella, and guess what happens with people from both sides of the street start to cross? Thousands of umbrellas, pink, white, black, green, blue, all moving perfectly avoiding one another, cos this is Tokyo. Until…. one small stupid tourist — me — stepped onto the road and started poking everyone’s umbrella with this look of confusion in me eyes. Good thing I didn’t take out anyone’s eye.

But it’s a great place to hang out. And of course shop. Most of the Japanese labels are really costly, though very pretty. The bags!! So pretty!! And so unafforable. But I still managed to get some cheap stuff, at Gap’s sale. Haha, it’s a little ironic, to be in Japan but buying American fashion, but I can’t help myself when it’s cheap AND available in XXS. It’s hard to find my size in US. So, ladida, caching! There goes some yen, but we both got something nice for ourselves. But the best still is the Disney Store. It’s like a mini cartoon castle in the middle of the city. With tons upon tons of Disney goodies. I went back to being 5 years old.

Food is great. I especially love all the cute little family restaurants located on little streets. I’m gonna become so fat.

Despite the language barrier, I really like this place. The city centre is very exciting, with so much to see I had to spend some time on the train just stoning my eyes out cos if I kept on looking at the riotous eclectic mix any longer I think I’d get disorientated. But at the same time, nestled right between the little streets is a slightly older Japan, with quaint grocery stores that sell only fresh vegetables and things like that. It’s so charming. And cute!

Now, on to plan more travelling!