Memoirs from the Land of Suits and Ramen, Sat, 02 Nov 2013 | written by Simon
Simon with Eva at a City, Museum, Park in Asia, Japan

Under the streets of Tokyo
Although I couldn’t fall asleep the previous night, today I woke up at 5am and couldn’t fall asleep again. Ah well, at least I had some extra time to mark essays.
Bicycle parkings in almost every building
Cables everywhere
Since the weather improved considerably, we decided to go for a walk towards the Edo museum. Some interesting views on the way, rivers, canals, bicycle parking lots, lots of vending machines and many many cables (all electricity lines in Japan are all over ground, due to earthquakes). On the way we went to a park with a shrine devoted to the victims of a great 1923 earthquake – thousands of people died in this one. Earthquakes are very common here, I hope we’ll experience at least one before we leave – there was one just before we arrived, damn it (Eva doesn’t share my enthusiasm on this one, I should note).
Navigating Tokyo is helped by all the maps on the streets, but would be easier if they didn’t all have North pointing in different directions
1923 Earthquake shrine
I want a palanquin!
All serious for the kimonos
The museum presented the history of Tokyo well, we learned a lot. In the meantime we experienced a short paper cutting and storytelling shows, but the language barrier turned out to be too much. We got to dress up in proper kimonos as well. We left with many questions for dear old Google. Afterward we went back to Ueno to check out the art gallery we missed yesterday and the temples that were already closed. On the way it turned out that finding an ATM in Japan is harder than expected – most machines don’t accept Western cards! It took a while, we had to find a post office, but we got there. Lunch included great miso soup, curried tofu with minced meat, liver with noodles and mystery veg, and a mystery pickle.
Today’s food

Once we got to Ueno, it turned out that the park has been taken over by a festival – tons of street performers, musicians, acrobats, including a guy doing hula hoops on a flexible 10 metre pole, and a performing painter who very expressively painted something that seemed completely abstract, and then turned it around revealing… a portrait of Elvis! We strolled about for a whole, had some green tea flavoured ice cream, and stayed until sunset.

On the way back home we were given a flier we followed immediately. Right into a cat cafe. Two floors up in a inconspicuous looking building, a flat with three rooms: one looking like a cafe with manga and magazines about cats, another with a bed and a sofa, last one with lots of toys. Filled with cats. Well, not totally filled, but there were some 8 beautiful creatures sleeping or lazily strolling. Nyan!!! They were the most calm, chilled cats ever, let us stroke and cuddle them to no end. Well, when they got fed up they just left, as all cats do, but there were plenty others to cuddle. Despite the amount of toys and platforms, they were too lazy to play much – but the petting was great enough. We spent an hour there, happy time!
After coming home, more essay marking, more mystery food, and sleep. Good, healthy, non jetlagged sleep. Finally!
The triangular bit at the bottom is Cthulhu’s armpit
This was a fish in a sweet sauce, with some intriguing vegetables