The Most Baka of Gaijin

Hi all! Been a full on weekend, we were lucky enough to have a three day weekend, all thanks to November 3 being 'Culture Day'. This gave foreign students such as ourselves free entry to a lot of museums and the ability to participate in all manner of cultural events.

David, Victor and I had agreed we would leave the lodge at 10 in the morning so we could make our way to Ueno in good time; as the day was a public holiday we anticipated it would be quite busy, and having extra time to accommodate this would be ideal. With typical weekend mornings being like they are, we were off at 10.30, all of us in varying states of readiness (I won't say who was the most ready and on time -cough- me -cough-), but shortly after leaving the lodge it was decided a food break was needed - so really we were on our way closer to 11! This was the start of much heckling between us as to our lateness and who would bear the brunt of our collective responsibility.


The museum was the one I went to a couple of weeks ago, but as David and Victor hadn't been through we had a quick meander around, before looking at the events that were being put on for the day. Unfortunately due to our lateness in arriving, we had missed several of them, which caused some ribbing among us as to whom had caused this - was it the sleeper in, or was it the one who forgot breakfast? Fortunately there was a tea ceremony which we were in time for, and after paying our very reasonable 300 yen, we were sitting in a tea house with a bunch of young women dressed in kimono who were very interested in hearing about us. Impressed at our attempts to speak Japanese, they were giggling away and asking what we studied, and when we dropped the 'T-Bomb' of saying we study at Tokyo University, this was met with that very Japanese 'ehhhhhhh!'. Our collective heckling continued amongst ourselves as we called each other idiots to this Japanese (though a little more eloquently), with the conclusion that David was the most 'baka' (idiot) of gaijin (foreigners). When we were led into the room where the tea ceremony took place, David, being first in, had the front seat, which is apparently reserved for the most honoured guest. Again, with our heckling going full throttle, Victor and I claimed it was for the most foolish of people, making it highly appropriate for David.

Playing around with refractions and David's face

Why the long face?

The VIP lounge at the National Museum, apparently still used for dignitaries 

This sculpture was aptly called 'Head of Old Man'

The tea ceremony was very well done, with highly fluent narration as we were talked through what was going on. We had a tea ceremony in the hall last week, but this was full on, with everyone in Kimono, tatami mats and the full atmosphere being made. We were introduced to the Master, as well as her student who was the one making the tea for us that day. It was all very pleasant, and our constant jibbing of each other the cause of much laughing among the Japanese as well - apparently friendly harassment transcends language and cultural differences!

David Victor and I with the tea master

The red bean paste filled rice ball eaten before drinking the tea

Expert hands preparing the utensils for tea making

Following the tea ceremony, we took a walk around the gardens, which were in part made up of some relocated houses that were used by some hermits a long time ago. In typical Japanese style, the gardens were highly manicured, and a delicate mix of wild and cultivated.

Can you get more Japanese?

The garden lake with the National Museum of Japan in the background

Taking a quick look through the gift shop, I couldn't help but notice the mascot of the Museum (like everything in Japan, even the museum has a mascot. Furthermore, it was impossible to not see it as being slightly...phallic?

Is that a mascot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Looking at the information around, the mascot is actually modelled on a clay figure of a dancing man from early Japanese history, but I'll be real, that is not what I saw first of all. I guess the Japanese just want to believe people will see the good in things. If this was in NZ I shudder to think what that museum shop would be like!

Moving from the museum the park was full of culture day spectacles, with lots of stalls and shows performing. We were by this point getting quite hungry, so walked through them without a particular sight in mind, but we caught a range of shows, from dancing, singing, and so on.

Many of the stalls were of businesses and government agencies, some of which I struggled to understand the link to culture day - such as one promoting energy efficiency. This stall had two exercycles which were plugged into a wall of LEDs, with the idea being that as you pedalled you would illuminate some lights, and could compete with the other rider.

When I saw a child pedalling away by herself, I felt compelled to compete, not because of an innate desire to beat children at everything, but because this:

Where's Wally? Oh wait, there's two of them!

At this point I will explain that I am in the process of collecting a series of Where's Troy/Wally images in Japan, and so my garb was like this to get some Where's Troy in Culture Day photos - that this child was similarly dressed was just perfect! There was another instance of this later in the day as we explored the neighbourhood, perhaps though a little more subtle:

Wally plus Wally at PlusMart

One of the other missions we had for the day was a visit to Yoyogi Recycle Garden, which we understood to be a large store of secondhand goods. David was wanting to look into buying a bike, and we figured that would be a good thing to get secondhand. Making our way to the store, when we got there it was not quite as we imagined. Rather than being secondhand things, it was more like an emporium of old things that were still 'new', as in in their packaging untouched. Not seeing any bikes at prices we were prepared to pay, we still had a look around (indeed I bought a frypan and a knife), and Victor was very pleased to come away with dishwash liquid and body wash, as was David with his wall clock/thermometer. I was not so keen on the remote controlled dog that we saw in the toy section, though David was more than happy to take it through its paces:

Also saw a sign for an airsoft experience, with David and Victor looking suitably lethal

Our final, if not slightly spontaneous, decision was to, at David's suggestion, go to a convenience store, buy some beer, and then go to the nearby Yoyogi park to see what we could see. By this time it was around 9pm, so quite dark (sun sets at 5 here), but we thought that would be a good way to end the day. Unfortunately the way we had gone to the recycle shop was such that the park access was a way away, meaning we had quite a walk ahead of us. This culminated in several detours, especially when David found a street he wanted to go down. Following this, and the resultant dinner we had there of a somewhat average burger, we abandoned the park, suggesting we instead just make our way back to Komaba. As we'd been on our feet for around 12 hours by this point this was deemed a good call. We consulted our map on our phones, determined our direction, and headed off down the main road we were on. 

Forty minutes later I stopped to check it, as we did have a long walk ahead, but 40 minutes seemed quite a way to go. It turns out that we had gone in completely the opposite direction: rather than going south we had gone north, which made us all agree we were collectively the most baka of gaijin. Starting at the purple cross, we had made our way to the red one, trying to get into the park, before we decided we'd head home instead. Rather than going to the blue cross, which would then be an easy (and familiar) walk to the green cross (Komaba), we ended up a few kilometers north at the yellow cross! Fortunately buses exist in Tokyo, and we were able to get one straight to Shibuya station, from where we had a very familiar train ride back to Komaba, as well as an opportunity to rest our legs.

We had a very long but good day, with much laughter and collective banter, and having walked close to 26,000 steps each we felt we deserved the beers and ice creams we had had throughout the day!

Such was the weekend that it had so many things happen, there is at least one more blog post, but probably two, with the material I currently have! Tonight Victor and I are going to watch the latest episode of The Walking Dead, and I'm hoping to have an early-ish night tonight, as I have a mission for tomorrow ahead of me (exploring a cool park I briefly looked at yesterday). But all things going well, I'll have another one (or two) within a day!

'til then, keep up the good work!

Troy :D