Day 5 - Yanaka & Nezu
Too early again, wake up around 5, spend a few hours on catching up work and the usual study of Japanese.
Decide on a more touristy path this time, to follow a path through Ueno Park, Yanaka and a few of it's shrines all the way to Nezu Shrine.
Catch a morning ride, and it's sunny as I arrive to the closest station to Ueno. Make my way inside and i'm greeted by a lake full of dead lotuses, but I guess when in season this is a sight to see, as it covers the entire lake and the surrounding temples around it.
All the temples around here are also full of cherry trees and azalea flowers, azalea still blooming, cherry trees not so much but you can see remnants of pink flowers on the ground everywhere, where the cleaning men didn't reach.
As I go through the massive park, I notice school trips happening to either the Zoo or the few museums around here, I should come back for a museum later, but for now path is set towards Yanaka.
As you cross a street from the Ueno Park, once again all the high rises disappear and you just see a few dozen slanted temple roofs, you head towards the first spot, a converted sake store into a more museum, everything on display kind of thing
They also have physical maps of the area availibile so I grab one of those, as it has more points that my google map shows.
One item that is on the same street and catches my eye, is called the Jomyoin temple, and it's 84000 jizo statues. There was some construction happening at the entrance so I did't go it further than a few steps.
Coming back, I decide that i still have not had enough breakfast and this spot was highly reccomended, and old looking house with wooden interior, hipster atmosphere and a full english menu, I order the mornign set of Egg sandwich, comes with free shot of grapefruit juice.
I wanted to try what they call a Russian coffee, but apparently they ran out of it.
From here on, I set the map to a few zig zags around some of the major spots, but to be honest, every single temple in this area has the same type of construction and atmosphere, they are all private temples/houses with either family cemeteries attached to them or some cerimony bell. After seeing 10 in a row, you start ignoring the rest...
The path from all the temples, leads me to a big cemetery, which is famous for stray cats apparently, I only saw 2 of them, being fed by a local lady. As everything in Japan, every grave stone was well kept, clean well taken care of by, what I can imagine being the team who cleans up this cemetery daily, or the families who probably also do an extensive clean every time they visit.
As far as I've seen, every person tends to clean their street and their neighbours street on a repeat basis, no leaf to be seen on a road for long.
From the main entrance of the cemetary, a giant sitting Buddha and a more cerimonial temple building is sitting, a prayer and a drum can be heard from inside.
As I could not see much, I make my way to the rest of the path, to the station and towards the "high street" of the region, which is apparently stuck in time since the 50s/60s.
Every shop being the simplest, wooden with almost zero branding or anything besides hand written signs.
Yanaka Ginza was the name of this strip, ending in a staircase which people sit down to appreciate the sun and eat the food from the vendors.
As the snacks seem all pretty sweet, I decide to just wait a bit and have a lunch somewhere nearby later.
Setting up the route back to my hotel, I forget about visiting Nezu Shrine, the biggest in the area altogether, but as chance would have it, after a few turns I still end up right in front of it.
The weather has gotten a bit cloudier, and cooler, so as I'm walking through the shrine and all of its features I notice a few food stalls, selling what appears to be pancakes with potato and other niceties.
Another tasty meal, and i'm back on the path, after leaving the Yanaka region behind, I notice a building that I knew existed in Tokyo, but wasn't sure it was anywhere as near.
Tokyo Dome, and it's mall with a rollercoaster sticking out of it, think like it's a good idea to have a look, so I go sideways, see that is not working today at all, and the weather isn't welcoming, so just head through the nearby parks all the way back.
Time to fire up the work laptop, and do a few things before everyone wakes up.
I realize I had a tech meetup scheduled for today, and saw it's about 300 people going. I also got an invite from two friends, one from Israel one from Tokyo, I met both of them in the photo meetup a few days ago.
One thing leads to another, and I meet them both in Shibuya, for a teppanyaki style burger, as they bring you the hot plate, the burger is still in full cooking mode, so a lot of oil jumps out, so you must put your napkin in a way to cover yourself from all the oil.
As the conversation flows, I realize that Tokyo is much smaller than you expect. Apparently the Japanese guy, I randomly met a few days ago, sitting on my table... and talking stuff about Vegans, and how his brother is extremely vegan about it.
Is the god-damn, Yas Nomura
Context here... the video here shows two guys, I take guitar lessons every week from the guy called Yo. I know about Yas and all his music projects. I know that he also plays for major musicians here in Japan, or even in the US, and they also play together every chance they get...
So to come to Japan, Tokyo, most dense population, and the first japanese guy you meet, is one step away from your guitar teacher, seems like I should play lottery more often. I would probably get the second prize.
That moment when it all connects, I just sit there and forget about the burger...
The night leads us to another tiny beer place, and a few nice photos in between, but damn... the world is a tiny place.