(Day 27) Typhoons & History

Since tomorrow I’m away for the day up in Sendai, this was my last chance to pick up the necessities – such as more gifts for my wonderful host family for being so incredibly wonderful. Since Maya would only be ready to go by 11:30 AM, I dragged myself up from my futon at 9:30 to be at Isetan and Parco when the doors opened at 10…I was a bit late, but oh well.

As it was a bit dreary with rain, the kind ladies at Isetan covered my bag in swaths of plastic so not a drop would mar the delicate wrapping. After that I headed to Parco in search of more souvenirs for my family. On this trip, I had the pleasure (I think) of using the mall washrooms…which were amazing.




The expansive inside of Parco.

Wandering the mall, I found a purikura machine…and since I had kind of always wanted to give it a shot on my own, I busted out 400 yen and stepped inside…


Eh...I can do better. I gotta work on my poses.

After stashing my goodies at home and stuffing down some lunch, Maya and I made our way to Ueno, back into Ueno Park where Mother and I had visited previously on our trip to Ueno Zoo. This trip, however, was particularly more uncomfortable since the weather had taken a nasty turn over the course of the lunch hour and the rain pounded down on the pavement and, inevitably, us.


Maya, attempting to keep the mood high with a smile.

We found the museum, but were considerably wet before even reaching its gates. After entering the grounds and unsure of which building to enter, the winds whipped up and the rain poured over us like a five-gallon pail of water. I kept screaming it was a typhoon and people were running all over trying to catch cover. Did I happen to mention it was during this walk to the museum where I discovered that not one, but both of my boots apparently had holes in the soles? Squish squish squish.

Once inside the galleries and umbrellas safely locked away, the rain let up. Of course it did. We were to be engrossed in the collection for the foreseeable future anyways, so let’s look. The first galleries told the history of Buddhism.





You will notice in the picture above, there are three separate statues of Buddha. I took the photo above and then I was going to take a photo solely of the Buddha in the middle…as I fiddled with my camera, some lady (not museum worker) lunged at me, slightly flailing her hands in front of my camera telling me that she wasn’t allowed to take a picture, so I’m not either. I stared at her blankly and said I wasn’t using flash. She said it didn’t matter and I can’t do it. After giving her the look of death for several seconds, she didn’t shrink away, so I gave up my photo-taking notions for the moment. However, since she told me I couldn’t, I wanted one more than ever.

Moving on, we passed through several other galleries where I spotted the flailing lady in question taking pictures of things with her flash on. Dumb.


An actual sword forged by Masamune. Uwaaaa!


Voodoo dolls


The outside gardens, closed due to the typhoon-like conditions. (Please note that I am referring to the horrendous rain as a typhoon…whether or not it was is another question.)


An old medical drawing of a lady with child. I don’t know what the Mickey Mouse ears have to do with it.

One of the reasons I was anticipating visiting this museum was the extensive collection of ukiyoe, or woodblock paintings. I’m in love with this style of painting, as anyone who has seen my living room can attest.





When we left the museum, thankfully the rain had mostly ceased. Our next destination was Ameyokocho – about a 15-minute walk from the museum further into downtown Ueno.









Ameyoko was rows of shops on either sides of the alley selling everything from raw fish to handbags and shoes. If the weather had been different and I hadn’t run out of money from too much shopping already, I would have liked to explore it much further.

The afternoon now whittled away, we headed back to Urawa since we had dinner reservations at a small yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant a few blocks from Maya’s house. I had never had yakiniku but knowing it was going to be grilled meat, I loved it already.



The restaurant was owned by some nice Korean people (yakiniku is a Korean meal) who chatted familiarly with Maya and her Mother. They had a Korean student who was studying Japanese working as a server and was so attentive he made most Japanese restaurant personnel look completely slack. It was kind of awkward, really, because he did mess up on a few occasions. Poor kid.


Maya’s mother, masterfully grilling away.


Perfectly marinated…heaven on a grill.


Seaweed snacks.

Thank you so much to Maya and her Mother for sharing such a wonderful meal with me. It was probably my favorite, ever. Yum yum yum.

Tomorrow….my life will be complete. I will see Ryo-chan, after hoping to find him over the past month. Screaming right now doesn’t even do it justice.