Ikebukuro and Ueno - June 22
We decided to start off by wandering around Ikebukuro for a while. We went through various malls, department stores, and various other shops, not looking for anything in particular. The others were curious as to why all the employees were constantly uttering irasshaimase (いらっしゃいませ) to us as we walked around, and I explained that it is just a customary greeting to customers that roughly translates to "welcome" or "come in" and requires no response.
At one point we stumbled into a Pachinko parlor and were completely mystified as to how the game is played. After reading up on the game back at the hotel, we went to another parlor later that night and Tim and Kirt managed to win enough to get small prizes of boxes of candy. Gambling for money is technically illegal in Japan, so when you win at Pachinko you get tokens that you redeem for prizes instead of cash. There are places that will buy your tokens for cash, but supposedly they are often run by yakuza.
When we headed back to the hotel later in the day, the mobile internet hub that Brian had ordered had arrived at the hotel. It was just a small, pocket-sized device that tapped into the local mobile networks to provide a mobile wifi hotspot. However, the unit we received was completely missing the SIM card. We called the company about it, and they apologized and offered to meet us wherever we were going next. We had planned on heading to nearby Ueno Park (上野公園), so they said they would have a guy waiting by a convenience store near "Ikenohata Exit" of Ueno Station, at least according to Brian. When we arrived at the station we soon found that there was no "Ikenohata Exit" and we spent a while just wandering in hopes of finding our guy. In doing so ended up asking a foreigner (possibly British) named Ben for some direction. He couldn't help us much as we basically had no idea what we were looking for, but he was nice enough about it and offered to let us use his phone. After wandering for a while, we were about 30 minutes late for the time we were supposed to meet. In resignation, we decided to give it up and just head to the park. This path took us through the middle of the station once more, and while we were walking this guy came up to us and asked, "Brian DeFreitas?". Amazed at our luck, we made the switch and verified that the new one worked. Now fully connected, we continued on to the park.
The park was a pretty chill place, and the first thing we came across was a memorial to a battle that took place during the unrest before the Meiji Restoration. After that we set off for the main attraction of the park, the Toshogu Shrine for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the last shogunate period of Japan's history. On the way to the shrine we came across some street performers who were stacking chairs and doing handstands and things on top of them. It was pretty entertaining, and they made a good show out of it. Occasionally they would start a move and then hesitate, looking at the other with a look of sheer terror and violently shaking their head "no". We all enjoyed it and gave them some yen before moving on.
As we soon discovered, Toshogu Shrine was under renovation. There was a large poster put up in front of the shrine with a picture of it in its usual splendor to hide the construction. A bit disappointing, but there was plenty of cool stuff in the area so we continued. We wandered around a bit more and found a couple more cool shrines, one of which was located on at the end of a pier that stretched out into the nearby lake. The lake barely looked like one, as it was completely covered in some kind of lilypad-like greenery, making it look more like a meadow than a lake. Nonetheless, the shrine was beautiful. I tried to do the whole shrine ritual this time around, but was quickly stumped at the incense table. I managed to wash my hands at the fountain fine, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to light the incense. After the other guys had a look, we decided that the flame must have burned out or down and gave up.
We headed into the nearby Ueno metropolitan area for dinner, and eventually settled on a ramen place. This was the first time I got some actual use out of my Japanese, and we able to order for everyone. I ended up just asking for four of whatever the chef recommended ("ahhh...osusume desuka?"). The ramen was good, but very filling and I just barely managed to finish mine. I was quite pleased when the chef complimented me on my ability with chopsticks ("hashi umai!"), and was a little surprised when I looked over to the right to see him dropping forks into Brian and Kirt's bowls. Being used to eating Pho with chopsticks, I didn't even think to tell Kirt and Brian how to eat the ramen and with Tim sitting next to me I didn't really look over at them. Luckily the chef noticed and helped them out. After eating, we headed back to the hotel.
We played some more Pachinko that night as I mentioned earlier, and after that we turned in.
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