Tuesday was our Japanese culture day. We took a trip into the Sumo Kokugikan (the hall used for 3 of each year’s 6 tournaments), the Edo Tokyo Museum, and to cap it off, another trip to Akihabara – some of the old and some of the new … very Japanese.
All these places are fairly close to the centre of Tokyo so we jumped on a train with Mari and zipped into the city at around 11:30 (therefore not too packed on the trains…the kids always want a train that’s not too full so that they can sit down…not to rest but so they can play their Nintendo DS without falling over as the train accelerates or decelerates).
The Sumo Kokugikan and Edo Museum are literally right next to one another and, in my opinion, should be on every tourists’ itinerary. Well, trying to be objective, I recognize that Sumo is not for most non-Japanese; but being as its right next to the museum it’s a “freebie” anyway. Also, not only is the sumo competition hall there, but a number of sumo heya (stables – professional training organizations) exist in the area, so not only can you sample traditional sumo food such as chankonabe in the specialist restaurants of the area, you can often see rikishi (sumotori – practicioners of sumo) getting about in their yukata (we saw 1).
So, first visit was to the Sumo museum, and the small nearby shop – all part of the Kokugikan. The museum is a single large room with photos of many of the yokozuna (grand champions)
going back many years, some of their mawashi (colourful belts) and a few other items. If you’re not into sumo its not likely to hold your attention for more than 5 minutes. The associated shop was small and disappointing to me – I was hoping to find DVDs of famous past bouts (but we were told such things didn’t exist) and other interesting items. Certainly, there was a fair bit of the usual nick-nacks that are found associated with tourist locales and temples/shrines, but …
After lunch at a kind of French bakery (Maria had to sneak in obento bought down the road at the 7-11 [probably Family Mart], due to her gluten intolerance) it was off to the Edo Museum. An impressive building in itself (particularly in the context of Tokyo and its lack of space – it
kind of looks like a lego building on stilts; there being a massive multi-story space between the museum’s lowest floor and the ground), its contents are even more impressive.
We probably spent about 3 hours at the museum and could well have spent a full day – if we had the time and energy. As the museum almost certainly has good online multimedia support I won’t bore people with details other than to say that for me the highlights included a full-scale replica of a section of Nihonbashi (major wooden bridge that led into Edo/Tokyo), a stunning suit of armour for a samurai bannerman, some amazing dioramas and old maps, a great yari (spear) I was itching to get my hands on, displays of how ukiyoe (wood block printing) was performed, and a few interactive displays (fireman’s banner that can be lifted, palanquin that can be sat in, etc.).
From there we hopped over to Akihabara for some quick back-street shopping (there’s some very dodgey shops in the back streets too that we did not visit), and I resisted the urge to visit Odobashi or Bic Camera (the 2 mega electronic stores) and splurge on a new camera.
Back on the busy train to Kichijoji we grabbed a variety of obento (including takoyaki – one of my favourites – octopus balls … note that’s not testicles) from LonLon’s award winning basement level (I kid you not that it apparently [there’s always doubts when listening in a 2nd language] won an award for that…
Best Basement Level – it being endless specialist food shops packed check to jowl). Then home, where the Miyazaki theme of this trip continued when I found a late-night 1-hour special on the artist.
All these places are fairly close to the centre of Tokyo so we jumped on a train with Mari and zipped into the city at around 11:30 (therefore not too packed on the trains…the kids always want a train that’s not too full so that they can sit down…not to rest but so they can play their Nintendo DS without falling over as the train accelerates or decelerates).
The Sumo Kokugikan and Edo Museum are literally right next to one another and, in my opinion, should be on every tourists’ itinerary. Well, trying to be objective, I recognize that Sumo is not for most non-Japanese; but being as its right next to the museum it’s a “freebie” anyway. Also, not only is the sumo competition hall there, but a number of sumo heya (stables – professional training organizations) exist in the area, so not only can you sample traditional sumo food such as chankonabe in the specialist restaurants of the area, you can often see rikishi (sumotori – practicioners of sumo) getting about in their yukata (we saw 1).
So, first visit was to the Sumo museum, and the small nearby shop – all part of the Kokugikan. The museum is a single large room with photos of many of the yokozuna (grand champions)
going back many years, some of their mawashi (colourful belts) and a few other items. If you’re not into sumo its not likely to hold your attention for more than 5 minutes. The associated shop was small and disappointing to me – I was hoping to find DVDs of famous past bouts (but we were told such things didn’t exist) and other interesting items. Certainly, there was a fair bit of the usual nick-nacks that are found associated with tourist locales and temples/shrines, but …After lunch at a kind of French bakery (Maria had to sneak in obento bought down the road at the 7-11 [probably Family Mart], due to her gluten intolerance) it was off to the Edo Museum. An impressive building in itself (particularly in the context of Tokyo and its lack of space – it
kind of looks like a lego building on stilts; there being a massive multi-story space between the museum’s lowest floor and the ground), its contents are even more impressive.We probably spent about 3 hours at the museum and could well have spent a full day – if we had the time and energy. As the museum almost certainly has good online multimedia support I won’t bore people with details other than to say that for me the highlights included a full-scale replica of a section of Nihonbashi (major wooden bridge that led into Edo/Tokyo), a stunning suit of armour for a samurai bannerman, some amazing dioramas and old maps, a great yari (spear) I was itching to get my hands on, displays of how ukiyoe (wood block printing) was performed, and a few interactive displays (fireman’s banner that can be lifted, palanquin that can be sat in, etc.).
From there we hopped over to Akihabara for some quick back-street shopping (there’s some very dodgey shops in the back streets too that we did not visit), and I resisted the urge to visit Odobashi or Bic Camera (the 2 mega electronic stores) and splurge on a new camera.
Back on the busy train to Kichijoji we grabbed a variety of obento (including takoyaki – one of my favourites – octopus balls … note that’s not testicles) from LonLon’s award winning basement level (I kid you not that it apparently [there’s always doubts when listening in a 2nd language] won an award for that…
Best Basement Level – it being endless specialist food shops packed check to jowl). Then home, where the Miyazaki theme of this trip continued when I found a late-night 1-hour special on the artist.
No comments:
Post a Comment