I dunno...Palpatine?

Shibuya station platform, JR Yamanote line
Shibuya Crossing, May 5, 2010

So why is Darth Vader suddenly leering from the side of every building in town? As nuze.me explains, Docomo has launched an interactive web campaign to promote some new product or service featuring the Dark Lord of the Sith:

"Go to a special website, enter your name into a text box (in hiragana, or katakana in the case of non-Japanese users) after which you'll see a video of Darth Vader stalking the streets of Tokyo, only to stop in the middle of Shibuya crossing and dramatically look at your name displayed on the area's iconic giant video screen. Wait a few moments more and you'll be presented with a surprisingly effective, scary close-up of Vader, who then says (in Japanese), "[Insert your name here], you are not my boss!" Although it's not clear whether Vader's "boss" will be a new mobile phone or data service, we'll all find out in just two weeks (May 10?) who Vader's real boss is supposed to be. If you ever wanted Vader to say your name (albeit in Japanese) you can give it a try here."

More of the Dark Lord outside Shibuya station, Meiji dori side, on a rainy Tuesday, May 11
I love that clear umbrellas are so prevalent here

dolls in the house

Yesterday I went with a bunch of other BST moms (mums) to the Heiwajima Antique Fair in Ota-ku and brought home these Kokeshi, traditional Japanese wooden dolls from northern Honshu. The craft dates back to the late Edo period (1800-1830); no idea how old these ones are... The lady who sold them to me (she had several big buckets full and I prolly spent 15 minutes rummaging) kept saying they were 200 years old, but I'm pretty sure she meant that's when the craft began.
Here's my little group of 7, standing around in our living room, between a window and the TV. Not sure where they will land. For now they will stare at Terry while he plays Xbox games. The smallest one is 16 cm high, the tallest, 25 cm. (Sorry, the only ruler I have handy doesn't mark inches. We're all metric system now!)

Fwiw, the fair -- official Japanese name: Heiwajima Zenkoku Komingu Kotto Matsuri -- happens over a few days, four times a year; there was one back in March, and there will be another one in June and again in December. Some 200 dealers participate, and they have prints, pottery, kimono and yukata robes, laquerware, jewelry, knickknacks, small furniture and other collectibles. I also bought a series of matchbox covers from the 1930s, two fans and two tiny plates cheap enough to actually use. There were loads of pretty teacups and things with pricetags in the tens of thousands of yen range (hundreds of U.S. dollars! apiece!) obviously intended to be kept on a shelf, or locked in a china cabinet. Very old, I'm sure, hand-painted, etc. etc., just not my thing...Anyway for those who might want to check out the next one, it took less than half an hour for my friend Karen to drive us there from the Shibuya area; it's not far from the Shinagawa aquarium and it's right by Heiwa no Mori Koen, a big park with a cool obstacle course that I really need to take my boys to sometime...

Fine Ahht

There's a great exhibit going on right now (through July 25) at the brand new Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in the Marunouchi area. (Above: "Berthe Morisot," 1872.)

We managed to go see it this morning, and the halls were crowded but not too bad. It is Golden Week, after all. Terry's been off work but it's too expensive to travel anywhere (and the British School is in session anyway) so we've stayed local, enjoying our childless days (no offense, boys).

The Manet exhibit is presented in Japanese and French. Luckily I seem to remember enough from my 3 years of high school French to muddle through the titles, and thanks to some organizational clues we caught the gist of some of the larger themes. In any case it's definitely worth a visit. And the area just outside the entrance to the building is lovely, a landscaped pedestrian plaza surrounded by open air cafes and a few benches and well placed sculptures on loan, I suspect, from the Open Air Museum in Hakone.
Like this one by Henry Moore

Here's a shot of the Queen Anne style museum building from -- what's the name of this street? Let me check the atlas. Hmmm, apparently it doesn't have a name, but it's two blocks over from Imperial Palace Plaza, and features many gleaming Marunouchi skyscrapers. It's part of "Itcho London" (one-mile London). I took this picture as we were walking up to the Otemachi metro station, where we jumped on the Hanzomon line bound for Shibuya. Very easy. Basically you can take any train that stops at Tokyo station to get here. See the map at the bottom of this webpage.

Now, go get yourself some culchah!

we don't drive here but we take lots of taxis

Click here to watch "Driving Through Tokyo," a fascinating if slightly disorienting Vimeo clip by an expat kid here who calls himself Omi San that will give you a really good feel for what it's like getting around in this city...

Also for your viewing pleasure, a Flickr photo of Shijuku at night called Urban Energy, posted by Surrealize...

making do in the big city

Walking through Shibuya early this morning, I passed this black crow, hard at work ripping apart some restaurant's ill-advised sandwich board adornment. Totally logical, as the straw (a bit of cornucopia?) is, of course, ideal nesting material. Who can blame this bird for grabbing it? I was quite impressed with the way it was pulling and twisting the stuff free with its beak while maintaining its perch and keeping a sharp eye on any human witness who happened past. I didn't stop to observe for long. Them black crows are scary.

practical magic

I stand by my previous recommendation that travelers take the train instead of the bus from Narita airport into the city of Tokyo, with one very important exception. That is, me, i.e. parent traveling solo with two "high-energy" boys and three very heavy suitcases. The Airport Limousine Bus may hit highway traffic and you might have to sit through multiple hotel stops before reaching your destination, but it's easy-peasy to find it and get on -- no trying to herd the cats while also lugging the big valises up and down escalators, through ticket gates, across platforms, and in and out of the trains during the 10 or 15 seconds the doors remain open. You just wheel that Smarte Carte out of customs and through the terminal front door and let the courteous and totally competent attendant/bus baggage handler take over. (This is Japan, after all, a country that seems to me to have set the gold standard for customer service. Returning from a two-week trip to New York this past weekend -- it was the boys' Easter break -- I nearly embraced the man who thus unburdened me.

I'm not exaggerating. It was a revelation. I always feel so alone on that Narita Express platform. Alone and annoyed, at my boys who don't stand back from the edge, and those train doors that only stay open a few moments while I shout "LIFT! ROLL! LEAVE IT AND GO FIND YOUR SEAT!" like a Crazymama. But on Saturday, I was practically serene. I never knew if we hit traffic or not. It didn't matter. I was dozing, the boys were DS-ing. And when we arrived at The Westin hotel in Ebisu, a 5-minute taxi ride away from home, I think the boys and I wheeled the three mammoth bags about 6 ft. before a nice man wearing a cap lifted them into our cab's trunk.

I used to pooh-pooh (or is it poo-poo?) the "limousine" coach because I so love love love the trains here, I really do (in terms of cost the difference in fares is negligible: 3,000 yen for the bus vs. 3,300 yen for the Narita express), but I have seen the light. If you don't have kids or much baggage with you, I still say N'EX all the way, but from now on I will be catching that coach.

Unless Terry is with me, because when he is, he does all the heavy lifting while I hand out the snacks.

'Please do it again.'

Looks like Tokyo Metro is switching tactics and reinforcing good behavior instead of shaming people for their usual insensitivity. Note the look of absolute shock on the face of the injured gent who's being offered a seat for once. -Terry (guest blogger)

spring fashion

approaching entrance to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Sunday, April 11

DIY cotton candy, 200 yen a cloud

The boys get their sugar fix at Showa Kinen Park last Sunday (big bro just can't leave little bro alone...)



Showa Kinen is our favorite destination playground -- we take the JR Chuo Ome line from Shinjuku to Nishi Tachikawa and spend the whole day. We rent bicycles, follow the path all the way around and don't stop til we reach the Bouncing Dome. From there it's on to the Dragon Dunes and then Rainbow Hammock when it's time for a snack. Last Sunday the grownups were desperate for hot tea and coffee, it was so cold. Here's Ali at the crepe cart.


Rainbow Hammock looked like it had been spruced up since the last time we were there. And check out the cherry!
This weekend should be great for cherry blossoms. Only a few had popped when we were there. Lots more on the verge.

More of the gang from last Sunday

Dylan's helmet, borrowed from the cycle center, looks like a hardhat.


Two dogs along for the ride

why ask why

This kind of kawaii collectible reminds me that not everything we do (or buy, or think...) has to have deep meaning. Why not keep a plush Smile Slime around. (I happen to have a Smile Slime paperweight.) I've been rather charmed by the cutie-pie culture here, the trend toward the adorable that compels grown men to hang a little Snoopy or Pooh Bear on their mobile phones, young (childless) couples to make a date out of Tokyo Disneyland, and big high school students (or were they 20-something salarymen, in weekend casual?) to play for the better part of an hour with my primary school-aged children on the Bouncing Dome at Showa Kinen park.

For whatever it's worth, the Smile Slime line of toys and pencil cases and you-name-it available at KiddyLand and elsewhere is based on a character designed by Akira Toriyama sometime in the mid-80s for the popular Dragon Quest videogame series. He's supposed to be a drop of water, so as an enemy, he's pretty weak, but he was so popular he later became star of his own spin off game, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. Shall I go on?

fwiw

Here's a little something I wrote for Pink Pangea, a travel blog, about seeing the cherry blossoms in Tokyo

supermarket sushi

Daimaru Peacock, Daikanyama

Does Hallmark know?

Tomorrow is the first day of April. Hooray!

Here's a list of important days you may have missed in March, as reported in a recent issue of Metropolis:

Stewardess Day
March 5th
JAL posted the results of its first flight-attendant exam on this day in 1931. Of the 140 women who took the test, hoping to become an "air girl," only three passed.

Escalator Day
March 8th
This country's first escalator was installed in Ueno on this day in 1914. It moved at a speed of 1.08km/h (the current max is 2.196km/h).

Mannequin Memorial Day
March 24th
Takashimaya became Japan's first retailer to use a mannequin to display its products at a clothing expo in 1928. The word "mannequin" was seen as auspicious, because it combined mane (to beckon) and kin (money).

Moss Ball Day
March 29th
Marimo, a species of filamentous green algae, was included in the list of Japan's Natural Monuments on this day in 1952. These fuzzy green balls are known to form only in Japan, Estonia, Iceland and Scotland.

they're out!

The cherry blossoms really pretty up this ordinarily all-too-gray city. Bursts of pink and white everywhere! This weekend should be great for hanami (literally, "flower viewing") parties in the parks...if it ever warms up.
The road behind our apartment building in Hiroo, 2chome, Shibuya-ku

squid!

Tokyo Sea Life Park is an amazing aquarium at Kasai Rinkai Park, a sprawling waterfront green space not far from Tokyo Disney and a great place to take kids for the day. It's a 5-min walk from the JR Kasai Rinkai Koen station on the Keiyo line, which is 15 minutes from the Tokyo JR Station. (We got a ride with friends and in traffic it can take an hour to drive from Shibuya-ku.)

Pizza of Death

fashionable couple at Kasai Rinkai Park one fine Saturday in March...

odd

Icky metro train advert featuring "Mr. Contac."

I would think that this kind of remedy -- a pill that turns off your runny nose -- would be particularly useful here in Japan, not just because sakura season brings wicked hay fever to many people, but also because it's considered impolite to blow your nose in public, though apparently you are permitted to quietly dab at the drips with a tissue, and to sniffle, all day long if necessary. And if you are seated next to me on a plane, go ahead and sniff like a coke addict for the entire 13-hour flight, just do not, God forbid, honk into a hankie.

This reminds me of a little fun fact about the free Kleenex that's regularly handed out near train stations and outside shops. My understanding (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that this practice of distributing coupons and ads tucked inside packs of tissue became popular because public restrooms didn't have toilet paper, hence, few would refuse -- gotta have something in your purse just in case, right? But nowadays, many public facilities if not most do make the loo roll available, and yet the free tissues are still out there for the taking. If you're in the market for some, try the busy corners near Shibuya station and outside Docomo and Softbank stores.

brilliant

Mister Minit repairs shoes while you wait.

One afternoon the boys and I went to the one on Meiji dori, about a half block up from the Bic camera (and the great glass elevator) on the corner across from Shibuya station, near Bunkyodo book store and Family Mart. It took about 10 minits for the guy to reglue the sole of Conor's school shoe, which had been flapping free, like an overheated dog's tongue, for who knows how long before I noticed (or did Conor finally mention it?). Anyway it only cost us 420 yen to fix. A few days later we returned to have a little stray nail removed from one of Terry's shoes. The pointy bit was sticking straight up, near the arch of his foot. (Ouch!) The guy snipped off the end with some big industrial clipper thing, handed it back and didn't charge us a thing.

Brilliant!

You will see Mister Minits all over town, and in train stations too. Really handy.

Mt. Takao's Lucky 7

Toward the end of our hike back down Mt. Takao on Monday, we passed this little shrine, so charming with the Jizo statues positioned around it.... But wait, what's this? Seven statues representing the 7 Buddhist gods. Or is it the Seven Dwarves? (gasp -- only an American would say that! Sorry, two years here is not enough to undo a Disney-fied childhood).

Ahem. And now, to redeem myself, here are a few fun facts about the Shichifukujin (literally, "Seven Lucky Gods"), for your cultural edification and mine (totally cribbed from this website):

The Shichifukujin 七福神 are an eclectic group of deities from Japan, India, and China. Only one is native to Japan (Ebisu) and Japan's indigenous Shinto tradition. Three are from the Hindu-Buddhist pantheon of India (Daikokuten, Bishamonten, and Benzaiten) and three from Chinese Taoist-Buddhist traditions (Hotei, Juroujin, and Fukurokuju).

In Japan, they travel together on their treasure ship (takara bune 宝船) and dispense happiness to believers. Each deity existed independently before Japan's "artificial" creation of the group in the 17th century by a monk named Tenkai, aiming to represent the essential virtues of man, in order to please the Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1623-1650 AD).

The virtues (and gods they represent) are:
CANDOR: Ebisu (God of Fishermen, Good Fortune, Commerce and Honest Labor)
FORTUNE: Daikoku (God of Earth, Wealth, Prosperity)
AMIABILITY: Benzaiten (God of Music, Fine Arts, Literature)
MAGNANIMITY: Hotei (God of Contentment and Happiness)
POPULARITY: Fukurokuju (God of Wisdom, Virility and Fertility)
LONGEVITY: Juroujin (God of Longevity) and
DIGNITY: Bishamonten (God of Treasure, War, Warriors)

I'm pretty sure the one in the middle, with the stringed instrument, is Benzaiten, so I don't think the arrangement here is in the same order as above. Can you match each statue with its corresponding god/virtue?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

There was a parade here on Sunday -- and we marched in it! (We have connections...). Luckily our friend Gabrielle let us borrow her Guinness pint hats from 2004.

As the parade looped around Omotesando dori (the posh shopping street in the Harajuku/Jingumae area) we had a great view of everybody else who was marching in it.


A strong showing by the Tokyo Irish Setter Club!


Check out the dude with the Irish wolfhounds


We walked with the folks from Enterprise Ireland (working to promote Irish businesses in Japan). Terry's friend Tristan hooked us up.

The Shamrock Ladies fell in behind us
...and so we bonded.

The sideline crowds were pretty thin, considering how big this city is. And calm. These onlookers were the most enthusiastic, with their frog hand puppets.

We ran into lots of school mates afterward

Our family's not Irish, per se, as in, from Ireland, though we do come from Irish stock. Terry's maternal great grandfather is allegedly from Connemara, near Galway. And my paternal great grandfather was from Dublin. Or at least that's where he hopped on a boat bound for America after selling his uncle's goat and deciding not to return to life on the farm. Also, Terry and I did spend our honeymoon in 1997 driving through the Irish countryside, stopping in Kilkenny and Cork and Dingle and seeing the Cliffs of Moher and the Aran Islands and lots of points in between. Surely that counts.