![\"Moomin](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/moomin.jpg\")
<\/a>\n… a Moomin gachapon machine.<\/p>\n
Moomin, for those as unfamiliar as I was before meeting Leigh, are a Finnish media property involving creatures that look like Hippopotami, but are apparently trolls. And for some reason, are also located in a gachapon machine in Japan.<\/p>\n
She got Little My, in case you were wondering.<\/p>\n
Something else I learned while writing this pots.\u00a0 Gachapon machines are named for the “gacha” noise the crank makes, followed by the “pon” noise of the capsule falling into the chute.\u00a0 The more you know…<\/p>\n
From there, we headed to one of the major tourist sites in Tokyo, the Senso-Ji temple complex.\u00a0 It’s famous for a reason – the gates and the temples are imposing and beautiful.<\/p>\n
This is the Kunarimon gate, which was originally built in the 10th century.\u00a0 However, this one is from 1960.<\/p>\n The gate leads to a long shopping street, but much less cool than most of the others we visited, as it was more or less entirely geared towards tourists such as ourselves.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I’ll point out that this street has ALWAYS been geared to tourists visiting the shrine.\u00a0 The only difference in the modern incarnation is that there’s more T-shirts and fewer… not T-shirts?\u00a0 I don’t know what Edo period tourists would have considered a desirable \u5b89\u3074\u304b. (What Google translate assures me is Japanese for “tchotchke”)<\/p>\n At the far end of the street is another massive, imposing gate.<\/p>\n I don’t mean to be glib.\u00a0 The REASON this structure had to be rebuilt was World War II, which obviously no joking matter. (Although the previous Edo structure, was also built to replace the one before THAT that was destroyed in a different fire.)\u00a0 It’s just a consistent pattern in Tokyo that you can appreciate the incredible architecture of these structures, while bearing in mind that they are copies, and also thinking about why these copies exist.<\/p>\n Inside the second gate was a number of shrine buildings, which were all quite packed, so we were startled to find a nice quiet little garden only steps away that we more or less had to ourselves.<\/p>\n Also in the vicinity we found this interesting grave, which is apparently for a famous early 20th century actor and comedian named Soganoya Gokuro. (The birds aren’t real, but – are any?)<\/p>\n There’s a large shrine in Akihabara called Kanda shrine, which is in many ways similar to the other ones we’ve visited. However, there was one really neat feature that we learned about once again from the “History of Japan” podcast.<\/p>\n Akihabara is not only the district where a lot of anime merchandise is sold, it’s also home to some of the animation studios where it is made, and there’s really impressive artwork on a number of these tablets.<\/p>\n We did visit one other shrine in Akihabara, at the absolute other end of the imposing spectrum.<\/p>\n You know “Up?”\u00a0 The Pixar movie that you can never, ever, watch a second time because of the first ten minutes?\u00a0 The one where they build an entire skyscraper around Ed Asner’s house, because they can’t get rid of it?<\/p>\n I suppose we should post a picture of Akihabara itself, too.<\/p>\n Anyway, we played Pong with real pieces.<\/p>\n You spun the knob, and the physical paddle physically moved and utterly failed to prevent the physical ball from scoring.<\/p>\n We also went to an arcade with a lot of rhythm games, and had fun trying to figure out how they worked while local teenagers next to us were playing so fast I’m surprised they weren’t giving off Cherenkov radiation.<\/p>\n We needed a break at this point, so we went and had some NON blue beer at a local brewery located under a train bridge.\u00a0 After this it was time for dinner, and we spent a while trying to locate a restaurant recommended by a friend of ours on the Discord for the Youtube channel “Chinese Cooking Demystified.”\u00a0 (Great channel, you should watch it.\u00a0 Start with “Old Buddy Noodles.”)<\/p>\n Tokyo is\u00a0absurdly<\/em> dense.\u00a0 We finally realized the restaurant we were looking for was in a four story building with a tiny restaurant on each floor surrounded by uncountable other buildings with restaurants on every floor.\u00a0 The one we wanted was on the third floor, had eight seats, and served one of the most amazing pork bowls I’ve ever had. Which, including the beer, came to less than ten bucks.<\/p>\n While at the pork bowl place, we started looking at tickets for an art exhibit we had been considering, and realized that we could get in that evening if we bought the tickets online and hustled.\u00a0 So we did.<\/p>\n This exhibit is called “TeamLab Planets.”\u00a0 Most stuff we did in Tokyo was actually pretty cheap – even the National Museum was only about ten bucks to get into.\u00a0 This was closer to forty per person. And VERY certain of its own profundity.<\/p>\n This one felt like you were in the middle of a 3D starfield.<\/p>\n Whew.\u00a0 What a long day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leigh’s conference theoretically had another half day to go, but she had basically conferenced all the conference she was capable of conferencing, so we decided to spend the whole day exploring the city.\u00a0 We started with another delicious train station … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nAgain, while the original dates from the 900s, this steel-reinforced concrete structure was built in 1964.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nWe also got a fortune from the fortune telling machine.\u00a0 You shake a stick out of a container of sticks, and them open the drawer corresponding to the number on the stick and take the fortune.\u00a0 Ours was a BAD fortune, so we left it behind, tied to the structure placed there for precisely that purpose.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nAfter wandering around a bit more looking at the other shrines and graves in the vicinity (including a sign for a ceremony for blessing pins and needles) we started moseying back towards the metro station, at which point I decided to follow the coordinates for a geocache.\u00a0 They led through this tunnel, which I GUARANTEE was only ever visited by tourists if they were looking for the same cache we were.\u00a0 Leigh can’t say I never take her any place unique.
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\nBut we did find the cache, and ended up walking along the river a little bit.\u00a0 This is the Tokyo Skytree and the headquarters of the Asahi beer company. (Which is which is left as an exercise to the reader.)
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\nAnd after that, we were off to our next stop – Akihabara!\u00a0 Known as “electronic town”, Akihabara is famous for arcades, electronics stores, and anime and manga merchandise.\u00a0 It’s also back in the penumbra of the curry district, so after perusing a little arts and crafts arcade for a bit, we did that for lunch.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nI’ve not had cheese on a curry before, but I regret NOTHING.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe tablets you see in this picture are a standard feature at shrines and temples around Japan.\u00a0 Visitors will write wishes on them for benefits from the resident deity.\u00a0 Some of them are simple things like “I want to do well at school this semester,” while others are quite poignant requests from folks with a lot of terrible stuff going on.\u00a0 Because of the latter category, we opted not to photograph these from any closer in, but what makes Kanda unique is that a LOT of the tablets here have art on them!<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThis is the Hanabusa Inari shrine.\u00a0 It has been here significantly longer than any of the surrounding buildings. It’s in a tiny space between two buildings, located off a narrow alley located off an only slightly less narrow alley.\u00a0 It’s pretty damn cool, isn’t it?\u00a0 It’s apparently dedicated to a spirt of food.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nYep.\u00a0 Pretty much exactly as advertised.\u00a0 We did go into some game, electronics, and anime stores, and they were fun to poke around in, but mostly didn’t allow pictures.\u00a0 We played a … what’s the opposite of virtual? Actual Reality? Virtual Virtual Reality?<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nWe were informed that we were going to be connected to the experience of the shared humanity of… whatever. Something.\u00a0 The verbiage was too pompous to take seriously, but the actual exhibits were pretty neat. Plus, it was fun trying to photobomb wannabe influencers’ selfies.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThis one had you wading through water with fish projected on it.<\/a>
\nThis one had giant balls.
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\nOne of the most interesting, though, was a room full of orchids trained onto strings, which automatically lifted out of your way as you walked toward them, and lowered behind you, so you were always surrounded by orchids.
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\nOverall, a very cool experience, as long as you didn’t take it too<\/em> seriously. In other words, do NOT take it as seriously as it takes itself.<\/p>\n