Just to follow up on Grace’s post yesterday, whilst she was exploring Harajuku I had a good look at the video game arcades in Akihabara. These are not for the fainthearted as in many of them not only do you have to deal with the noise of the numerous games machines themselves but also a background of white noise is pumped in which makes it impossible to talk to anyone (I think this is the same in many pachinko parlours as well). These are very serious affairs with people playing crane/beat em up/giant mech battle/rythmn/card/racing games with a level of focus and virtuosity similar to your olympic athletes. It was great spectating for me as I am a fan of video games. However, if you don’t really know anything about gaming I still recommend you watch some of the people playing dancing or rhythmn games.It is just an extraordinary sight to see people responding to complex movement commands at high speed. Imagine watching people play twister but they are moving each limb onto multiple colours multiple times a second.
Anyways, on to the less specialist interest information. Yesterday, we met up with my friend Ayumi, who I met when studying at Sheffield Uni and who has just moved back to Japan. We caught up with Ayumi in Akihabara during a torrential downpour, so it didn’t feel too dissimiliar to being in Sheffield! After catching up, we made our way up to the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno park.
Ayumi and I outside the Museum
The museum has a huge collection of Japanese art and so we only managed to take in a small selection of the collection. It was very interesting to work through the different eras of Japanese history (from pre-history to the modern era) and our potted historical knowledge that we have acquired over the past few weeks has been greatly improved. We could have easily spent all day at the museum but decided to go shopping instead. The highlights included a long scroll depicting the various states of Buddhist ‘hungry ghosts’ (who might be so hungry they eat the dead/poo/pee/vomit etc.) and a set of ukiyo-e woodblock prints telling the perilous story of the life of goldfish.
We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for souvenirs in Shibuya at a department store called Loft, which sold all of the things including face excercisers and cock grease. Grace – I also got chased by a large bear thing. It was cute but scary.
We then went back to Akihabara and played a few rounds of arcade games. Grace – We played drumming, at which I was expert and a round of Mario Kart which was a close one, but I triumphed easily in the end and used my banana skins with skill.
Ayumi thoroughly beating Grace at a Taiko drumming game
Today we carried on exploring the Akihabara and Ueno areas. The 3331 Arts Chiyoda centre is a converted school full of galleries and craft shops. They had a big exhibition of the figurines produced by the Good Smile Company. I initially wasn’t too bothered about looking at what I felt were just toys, but soon came round to appreciating the level of detail that goes into these figures. I thought they were awesome! Some of the women were depicted in an even more unrealistic way than Barbie, but their hair looked like it was moving!
The bare bummed pumpkin look for Autumn ’16
We managed to stumble upon the bottom end of Ueno park which consists of huge swamp of lotus flowers (well they looked like them). It was great getting up close with these flowers after seeing them depicted in the various Buddhist temples we have visited.
After finishing our holiday shopping we went for food in the huge Yodabashi shopping centre in Akihabara. This place is crammed full of electrical goods, a floor of restaurants and even a floor of baseball batting cages. We had an excellent meal in a sort of izakaya (drinking/pub-type establishment) consisting of a rice dish (which I can only describe as tasting deliciously like the inside of B&Q smells i.e. creosote and paint) and some fried chicken (which Grace says was the best she has ever had in her life – a huge accolade).
Rice ball count: 0!!!!
Historycatz 