Day 9: bags packed, walk Asakusa, Sensoji, finally through the tourist magnet in our front yard...

We were packed early, checkout midday, a couple of hours to spare.

So we set out to cruise the neighbourhood, stopping for the lights with some elegant shoppers

and on into morning quiet time in the playgrounds of Asakusa, first past this opportunity surely to bless the entrepreneurial and entertaining world of Asakusa

where the fairground was having a warm up spin

and things becoming spruce

till we reached the eaves of the Sensoji, oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo

where we turned first to see the small and beautiful Asakusa Shrine, Anja-Sama, 

the Shinto shrine which honours and protects the Buddhist Sensoji,

which stands to the right, here, across this laneway, 

and where school excursions are the main early feature of the day

though some, including the drinks machines, are still languorously enjoying the sunny morning morning, 

while waiting for the wisteria, which we only get to see in first moments of bud-burst this week

See the blue sky? 

We have had fair weather since we arrived... and rain is forecast for tomorrow, after we have gone.

and then it's time to leave Sensoji, as regular tourists arrive

We head down a back street and find a fine park

before looking into the astonishing fancy food arcade under the Asakusa Tubo Station.

Then we head back to the apartment, crossing Nakamisedori, 

the covered shopping street that delivers tourists via Consumption Central to the Sensoji.

Here's the movie.
Watch for the conversation between the rickshaw man and his passengers,
his bewilderment that they want to be parked looking away from the temple.

Day 7: forest, water, nostalgia and a tiny west coast Italian restaurant

I placed another account of this trip with more detail on the trains with this movie at YouTube.

The movie is made on iPad Mini, my regular camera having taken leave of its sensors... and the film was assembled using iMovie on the iPad, a perverse process somewhat akin to assembling a sailing ship in a bottle, plus involuntary rattlesnake noises added by some creature at Apple who designed this cut-down app... along with involuntary "Ken Burns Effects", the seasick effect of photos zooming out and in. 

An astonishing day. Planned but even though planned, worked very well. Though complex, did not break down. This written aboard Shinkansen Max Toki sitting waiting for departure at 2019 from Niigata for Ueno. We have travelled 360kms on four trains to get here, not seen a non-Japanese person all day. And have just topped off the day with a delicious Italian meal, as organised by phone from home by Emiko our house minder (along with David and Ralph). Now to rush home on the bullet train, 123 minutes to cover 330.3kms

We took the 8am Tubo Limited Express Kinu from Asakusa to Kinugawa. At Kinugawa, we did that wonderfully Japanese thing of rushing train to train, trains being invariably precise and people being given in this case from arrival 0959 to departure 1001, the easy bit being that the second train was across the platform, the slightly complicating bit being that we were in car five of six arriving needing to get on a two car (one red, one white) diesel, way up there. 

We scrambled in the back door of the second, red, car, to discover that it was the plush lounging car, already occupied, among the pot plants, by a cheerful indeed garrulous gang of mature locals, beers in hands, at 10am, life living. We moved on to the less populated white with blue velour car, with its own pot plant in front window. Disbelieve if you dare, go watch the movie! This is, after all, the daily two car workhorse of the Yagan Railway and Aizu Railway.

A wonderful trip up through mountain country....

Parenthetical: the train inspector of tickets just went by on this Shinkansen, as it charges through the night and I can still write. As is entirely routine thing on Japanese trains, he turned and bowed  for a moment to the carriage before disappearing. Train shift teams also, I observed today, bow to each other on handing over.  The land of the courteous, the dignified and respectful.

Back to story... We stopped for an hour between trains at Yunokamionsen. The only station in Japan with a thatched roof, perhaps the only one with an open fire? Surely the only one with a thatched roof, an open fire AND a foot onsen with hot alkaline water to soak toes (see video).

The Aizu trains and stations have embraced kawaii [cuteness] wholeheartedly.

Important to note that these small trains despite size had beautifully appointed and immaculate toilets. Public toilets, railway toilets especially, have great variety in ingenious design. Well, the same basic elements of squat or swirl, but after that... Will keep for separate story.

The 1230 single car train for Aizuwakamatsu was very much a local, stopping at every stop, Interesting people, interesting country,with snow on hilltops... Alas up in these mountains no cherry blossoms. For the most part rice fields still winter bare, just a few beginning preparations.

Aizuwakamatsu is hard to describe. We walked but got to see mainly that if we had time and inclination to walk further we just might see something. A bit like being plonked in a back street of Gouburn Helen thought.

We got back early for the departure of the 1433 Banetsu West train. It came in early and of course we all rushed for seats. Two cars of seats between two dozen people. Setting off with snow on mountains, approaching mountains. Inside the train, as on the Aizu train, wonderfully warm, on this occasion windows that could be opened to provide a welcome jet of fresh air. 

This rail line from Aizuwakamatsu to Niitsu and Niigata is, according to Wikipedia also know as the water, forest and nostalgia train. The film may show that title is deserved. Having for most of the trip looked filmed snoozed among about seven passengers altogether,

The character of the trip changed totally as we approached Niitsu and Niigata, into the world of afternoon commuting. At Niitsu we had the luxury of a five minute gap between trains, pelting up and down stairs with a mob from platform 1 to platform 4 and impressed now to get aboard an altogether bigger and very serious train after the deilghtful rides on little trains stopping-starting at tiny places through the wild.

I had not known what character to expect in the city of Niigata. It was evident when we got there that we could have chosen from a thousand restaurants. But curiously google maps had drawn me to a place  called Piatto Giorno (Italian for dish of the day) several weeks ago. And I had asked Emi to call from Australia on my Skype account and see whether they could meet Helen's diet needs. Which the chef said he would happily do.

And so we walked, aided by a gross google map on paper and by nice advice from a gentleman walking home the way we were going, through the sea-damp dusk of Niigata, to find Piatto Giorno. To walk through Niigata was a great pleasure. After leaving the built up area around the station we were on quiet streets with substantial dark serious houses. The air was damp and cool and full of the smells of deep cold sea. The family who own and run Piatto Giorno, mother and father and two young children, came running out the door with smiles to greet us. 

They had prepared our places at a table and also placed there an English translation of their daily menu chalk board.

Such a nice welcome, such a great meal.

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Now flying for Tokyo, 320km, two hours three minutes, from 2019 to 2222 hours, a train not to mess with. Double decked Shinkansen Max Toki. (it sounds fierce just to say it: "SHIN-KARN-SEN all short sharp and loudly MUCKS TOKKY!" Alongside me as I blog a young slim businessman works in endless spreadsheets of his day's business. I am just on holiday, but this is a serious working train. 

BELOW: Queueing for reserved seats, 2006 hours, thirteen minutes before departure,  train still closed while cleaners clean and computers rotate seats... perhaps an internalised apprehension of being left behind. 

FOOTNOTE [haha]

This is where to stop if the bell is telling you there is a train coming at the open crossing at Yunokamionsen.

Day 1, part 2: pics Asakusa

DEEP BOWIING JAPANESE APOLOGY:

Having just set up this blog on 8 April, using an iPad mini Retina 2014, I found myself wrestling with blogger and imovie and getting messy results, so I had to apologise for the mess of the blog, especially movies. I am now tidying up back in Australia on computer on 19 April, but leave here someone else's wonderful explanation of how to bow and apologise in Japan, land of constant courtesy.

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So to the point, today's story, 9 April.

It's interesting to be out in a tourist place before the touts and tourists, before the bric-a-brac shops open, while the streets are being cleaned and children are being cycled to work. Important to note that the car is a minor player in street life in Tokyo and a subservient one. Pedestrians are given space... if one allows a certain Naples quality to the way cyclists weave among people. Cyclists of all ages and circumstance. My first obervation is that fogey males are tentative cyclists compared to the dolphin diving style of many older female cyclists. Bikes are very beautiful things here, as you will see. But nobody rings a bell and cyclists obey the rule of Naples car drivers that a millimetre is a space.

Enough chat. Here are some photos from walk through Asakusa at 8am. Click on any and with any luck all will turn into a slideshow. First, next door, the fugu in the restaurant window. We would look at these creatures over coming days, thinking, gosh, eh, you survived a night with diners.

It's off-to-school time

one of many subway entrances for Asakusa (Tsukuba) station, at our door. Connects with JR line and the world at Akihabara. My photo does not disclose what I discovered later. This is a bicycle entrance, long shallow steps, a trough to the right going down for taking your bike to the bike park underground, and on the right coming up, a rough rubber belt with power switch at the start, for power assist bringing your bike back to street level.

One turn off the main road and into a largely pedestrian world. And at later times of day a tourist world. 

Somewhere I read that the ratio of people to vending machines in Japan is remarkable, even here in this maze of shops. This group of machines has a matching waste bin and a forest coloured guardian. Recycling is taken very seriously in Japan. The wonderful Japan Talk website has this interesting advice on the Japanese concept of mottainai. A society that avoids waste.

Although Helen's readiness to compare aspects of Tokyo with aspects of Rome sometimes puzzles me, what is wonderfully reminiscent is the readiness to embrace decay and impermanence and see the beauty in natural decadence. Oh yes, and there's the common factor that you can walk lots of streets with few cars, etc. And the overdrive of aesthetic stimuli.

This web page of Japan Talk is a good start point for an overview of elements of Japanese cultural perspective. 

Any notion of Japanese being uniform people or blended-homogenised culture is blown away by the eclectic variety of streetscape (also people, as we go along, not many people at this hour, just my advance security).

Aha, canine life too...

This is the quarter of Tokyo attracting visitors for its heritage retention of the flavour of old Edo, but there are small wonders of modernism along the way.

The gross impression is of Edoworld blandness in the whole streetscape but the good bits are in the little details, the individual styles.

Now this below reminds of Rome, the curious corruption... along with a delightful Japanese, not Roman, approach to use of bits of wood...

and street bonsai, which would surely have other, domestic, bonsai green with envy

This seems to me to define sense of place.

and a tiny space to breathe

Cross a street... 

I'm sure there must be a law dealing with bicyclexting. 

Riding on the footpath is very much accepted.

and back into the maze of individual look, though here we have definite signs of kawaai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawaii

before emerging from somewhat disorder into the regimented 200 metre Nakamise, the terrifying run of shops leading from the Hanzomon Gate to the great Sensoji, Tokyo's biggest Buddhist temple.

This man below is wearing a mask. Everyone, including police, train staff, etc, wears a mask if they have any kind of infection. It protects the wearer and those around. I came home to Australia with a virus and some masks. Very valuable to wear the mask on the plane, I did not dry out, risk to others from my virus reduced a bit. But wearing it to the doctor yesterday, you'd think from some people's reactions in the street that I was a terrorist, albeit aged and somewhat frail. This guy has style!

arriving at the gate with my ever wtchful security... note also that you are never out of place using a camera here.

Outside the gate on busy Asakusadori (dori = street) a contrast: magically modern, magically seemingly rickety wooden

and looking back, a rhapsody in blue

On to next blog entry to see the cherry blossoms in Ueno Park.