Asakusa or the ancient (and touristic) Tokyo

It's impossible to talk of a visit of Tokyo without talking of the district of Asakusa, a district of the North-East of the city which is full of tourists... which can be explained by the famous monuments it contains (as the Sensô-ji) and by the concentration of souvenirs shops.

A short visit of Asakusa

In Asakusa (cf. Usefull informations), the most common choice of tourists is to pass though the huge gate which should be on your right if you arrive from Asakusa Station. Its name is Kaminari-mon, the door of the Thunder which contains in its pilars two Gods (of wind, on your left, and of lightning, on your right). The most impressive thing was, for me, the big lantern under which you will have to pass and... the shoes you will find attached on the left pilar after passing the gate: this giant shoe was forgotten by a giant bouddha some years ago...

Le Kaminari-mon côté Namikase-dôri

Once you have passed the Kaminari-mon, you arrive in Namikase Dôri (or street), particularly animated... and full of tourists. This is not a surprise as all the shops sell souvenirs or O-miyage, in Japanese: it is a tradition in Japan where a travel is always followed by a distribution of gifts for all the people who were aware of your trip (your colleagues, friends and family). If you do not do it, even if you are a foreigner, it does not go down well. The street Namikase will let you prepare your come-back to your home country with a lot of traditional gifts from Japan: engravings, cats, chopsticks, small Japanese pastries, flags, key chains or fans...

La Namikase dôri

At the end of this chain of shops of 500 meters, a new gate, called Hôzô-mon, anounces the entrance of the shrine Sensô-ji or Asakusa Kannon (name of the divinity to who it has been erected). It is the most ancient and known Tokyo's shrine: it appears that it was founded in 628 by three fishermen before being built as we saw it now in 1692. Although it was destroyed during the World War 2, it was identically built again. It is surrounded by many buildings, as a pagoda of 5th floors, on your left. On your right, a little farther, you should find the Asakusa-Jinja, a sanctuary which has been made to thank the three fishermen who founded the Sensô-ji. This little shrine is the point from where the procession of the Sanja-matsuri, the biggest shintoist festival of the world, begins each year, on the 3rd weekend of may, also to thank the three fishermen. If you are not in Japan on may, maybe you will be at the beginning of april: on the 8th, there is the Flower day and many children parade at the Sensô-ji.

Hôzô-mon

Sensô-ji

The visit of Asakusa is already almost done. Then, you can decide to reach Yoshiwara (around 1,5 kilometers away at the North), a former district of brothels of Edo (the former name of Tokyo) or choose to lose yourself in the little streets all around Asakusa Station. If you have to go back to the station and to the gate Azuma (or Azumabashi), do not forget to look up and to notice the golden flame on the building of the famous brend of Japanese bier: Asahi... a piece which was realized by a French designer: Philippe Starck.

Wish you a good visit !

Marièke Poulat

Little story: O-mikuji

If the number of tourist is sometimes a problem when you visit a country, it can also be an advantage... For instance, at the Sensô-ji, you will be able to read O-mikuji (good fortune teller) in English to try this Japanese tradition for 100 yens (while most of the time these littles papers are in ancien Japanese). An O-mikuji is a little paper you can pick or choose thanks to an explained ritual (you have to shake a box to receive a numeroted stick which indicates you which drawer you have to open). The paper you receive announces your fortune... and if it is a bad one, you can give up your little paper in the court-yard of the shrine: therefore, the gods will forget you.

Un O-mikuji

Usefull informations

Access: To access Asakusa, you have two options:
Asakusa stop on the Toei Asakusa Line which is the closest station from the Kaminari-mon.
For those who chosed the JR Pass and who prefers the use of Yamanote Line, you can get off at Ueno Station and walk. Go outside on Higashi Ueno 3 Exit and take the street Asakusa-Dôri. Walk straight for about one kilometer and turn left on the street Namikase-Dôri: after 200 meters, you cannot miss the Kaminari-mon in front of you.

Take a look on Google Map

Make the map bigger

Accomodation: Located on the closest part of Tokyo from Narita Airport, there are a lot of facilities to stay at Asakusa for really reasonnable prices (around 2000 yens for a night without breakfast). You also can stay longer, for one week or more, as there are some discounts for long stays in some of these accomodations. These places can be really fun even though it is not always really confortable (dorm or private rooms for 1,2 or 3 people but it is more expansive). One of these inns is les auberges Khaosan.

International Museum of Manga (Kyoto)

Settled in a former primary school and surrounded by a parc made with synthetic grass to let people read a borrowed manga lying in it, International Museum of Manga of Kyoto is a haven of peace. Caution : fan of manga you could forget the world around you... and even more if you have some basis of japanese.

Museum Entrance

Visit of the museum

Open in 2006 by the city of Kyoto in collaboration with the Seika University, which offers a manga section, the museum has been settled in a former primary school. That is why its organisation is quite intricate. After crossing the courtyard of synthetic grass where lectors can lie to read when the weather is good, we arrive in the hall. Then you can reach the cashier where they will speak to you in English or in Japanese. On your left, the entrance of the exhibition with comics from all around the world (say hello to the French Titeuf and the Belgian Tintin), and on your right, a shop where you can find some mangas, of course, but also artbooks, goodies and other specialized books to learn how to draw mangas.

There are a lot of temporary exhibitions. When I visit the museum, it was the week of the demonstration of the students'works of the university: I saw their projects: drawing, storyboards, mangas and other illustrations at the entrance of the museum and short movies were broadcasted on a giant screen. Students were around explaining their projects... even if my bad level of Japanese was a barrier... For these events, you can check the english of the museum which is quite furnished.

The most impressive part of the museum, I thought, was on the second floor of the museum when I discovered the wall of mangas... A room whose walls are entirely covered with mangas classified in alphabetic, gender and year order. Naruto and One Piece are definitively not the only mangas... even if they are the best known in France. At the center of this room, some temporary exhibitions with drawings of the biggest mangakas and some games in Japanese. The following rooms, linked by corridors covered by mangas, present the process of fabrication of a manga, how it is made, drawn... (the story, the storyboard, the drawing...).

Due to the impressive amount of books and explanations which describe each piece, it is really interesting to have basis of Japanese language to appreciate entirely the place and to lose yourself in it. Indead, the museum is full of benches and coaches where you can seat to imerge yourself in mangas. But Japanese knoledges are not necessary to understand everything. Your eyes will shine even if you are not able to decipher a single word: the amount of images the museum contains should be enough to spend a great amount of time in it if you are a lover of art or if you have any interest in drawing (and not fundamental in mangas as the presented drawings are not always stylised one).

Usefull informations

The museum is located on the street Karasuma-Oike, in the disctrict of Nagagyo-ku. From the main station of Kyoto, you can take the Subway Karasuma line and get off at Karasumaoike stop around ten minutes later. It should cost you 210 yens. From the same station, you can also decide to walk: there are only three kilometers between it and the museum.

Make the map bigger

It is opened every days (except wednesday) from 10 am to 6 pm. You can enter it until 30 minutes before the closure but you should not stay there for only half-an-hour: it is too short to really enjoy it ! During summer, between the 14th of July and the 31st of August 2011, the museum never close (even the wednesdays) and you can stay until 8 pm. Exceptionnally, the museum is closed during the New Year Hollidays (at least the fourth first days of January while almost all Japan stops leaving) and for three days in the year for the maintenance.

To enter the museum, you will have to pay 800 yens for the adults, 300 yens for middle and high school students and 100 yens for primary school students. As many museums in Japan, there is no discount for students of University... There are some advantages for those who want to go to the museum quite often: there exist the MMPass with illimted access to the museum and of its library but not to the temporary exhibitions. It is 6000 yens for adults, 3600 for middle and high school students and 1200 for primary school students. The entrance is sometimes free for some events, as for the week of the exhibition of the students of Seika university where I went by chance at the end of February in 2011.

Conclusion

After the visit of three shrines, two museums of Japanese drawings and calligraphy and of four commercial centers, a stop is inevitable at the International Museum of Manga. First, because it is the only existing one in the whole world. Second, because mangas are an another part of Japanese culture worth seing. And last but not least, because what is presented is basically beautiful.

Marièke Poulat

* Website in English and in Japanese :
http://www.kyotomm.jp/
http://www.kyotomm.jp/english/

One day in Yokohama

Yokohama is not only a famous brend of motorcycle : it is also the name of one of the biggest cities of Japan (with more than 3.5 millions of unhabitants), located in the suburb of Tokyo. You need less than 45 minutes to reach Tokyo when you are in Yokohama and many students who are from this city just make the back and forth everyday. A journey that you absolutely should do to discover this city if you are staying in Tokyo for more than one week.

To go to Yokohama from Tokyo

It is particularly easy to go to Yokohama from Tokyo, thanks to the numerous lines of train which are between the two cities and which are regulated by the JR East. The shortest and cheapest solution is to depart from Shibuya Station, with Tokyu Toyoko Line which leads you to the main station of Yokohama (whose name is Yokohama station) in 25 minutes for 260 yens (less than 3 euros !). But you can also depart from Shinjuku and Ikebukuro Stations with Shonan Shinjuku line (around 30 minutes and 540 yens, or 20 minutes and 380 yens if you go on the train in Shibuya). And one another solution (but there are actually plenty of them) is to depart from Tokyo or Shinagawa Stations by Tokaido line : 25 minutes and 450 yens from Tokyo Station or 20 minutes and 280 yens from Shinagawa.

Once you are in Yokohama, you can decide to walk through the city (which can be interesting and beautiful as the balnear city is quite calm and net) or to take the subway to go faster to the place you want to see. There are also some bus which can drive you to the main stations.

Yokohama’s places to visit

There are numerous to see : the parks, the stadium (where the Final of World Cup of 2002 was payed and where many concerts take place), the port, the museum of ramen (yes, it actually exists), a shrine where many soccer players go to pray before matches or the Chinatown… Yokohama is also one of the first place in Japan where strangers arrived and that explain the presence of an international graves. And this is also a balnear city where it is really agreable to pass by and to buy souvenirs. Yokohama is not only a dormitory but a real city, particularly specialised in entertainment, as a giant Odaiba, with some amusement parks and commercial centers. Some characteristics which turn the city into a place to visit for at least one day or more.

Zoom on the Chinatown

If Tokyo does not have a Chinatown, it has been settled in Yokohama for more than one hundred and fifty years. Officially recognized in 1955 with the construction of a goodwill gate as the main entrance of the district, it has been built after the landing of the first Chinese migrants in Japan. It is the biggest Chinatown of Asia with between 3000 and 4000 unhabitants, even if only a few of them are Chinese nowadays. It also counts a lot Chinese restaurants but if you really want to eat Chinese food there exists a lot of cheaper places in Tokyo : it seems that the status « Chinese restaurant of the Chinatown » is quite expensive for the same quality.

Even though Yokohama is close to Tokyo (in situation and in architecture), it is a slower city. Maybe it is more european in its way of living and of being organised. It is a beautiful city to discover if you are going to stay during a quite long time in Tokyo. However, if you are only spending some days in Japan’s capitale, you should choose to go either in Odaiba (which is closer and an Island of entertainment) or in Kamakura, a little farer but actually more interesting as a cultural visit (with shrines, temples and the Daibutsu).

Marièke Poulat

A sunday in Harajuku (Tokyo)

If it is less known than Shibuya, which is the district of Fashion in Tokyo with the crazy crossroad, Harajuku is one of the most famous district for the young unhabitants of Japan’s capital. It is located close to Shibuya (there is only one stop between Shibuya and Harajuku) and is one of my favourite districts of Tokyo for its diversity and its constant agitation.

Diversity of Harajuku

Without using the famous cliché of Japan’s duality between ancient and modern Japan, it is true that diversity is one of the noum which best describes Harajuku. In the same Sunday afternoon, you easily can meet young cosplayers, clothed like theirs favourite manga characters, and then a woman dressed in white celebrating her wedding in Meiji Shrine, the biggest shintoist place of Japan. And this, in a district where mostly three kind of people coexist in two parallele streets : on the first exit of Harajuku Station, the street Takeshita, where you will find teenagers and students, and on the second, the avenue of Omotesandô, which are known to be Japanese «Champs Elysées » and which appeals an older and richer public. And everywhere, internationals, « gaijin » in Japanese, who come to visit this district and who may be more numerous than Japanese people…

Takeshita Dôri

Located at the front of « Takeshita Dôri » exit (Exit 1) of JR Station of Yamanote Line, the entrance of the street is delimited by a portal topped by a clown with ballons which is illuminated at the end of the year. The narrow street is perpetually crowded. On sundays, it is almost impossible to put your feet on the ground : you are just able to follow the flow… Agoraphobic, caution ;) Takeshita Dôri counts a lot of shops whose activities are dedicated to young people : goodies, accessories, fast-foods (Lotteria, McDo…) and special restaurants (Sweet Paradise, an all-you-can-eat specialised in sweets), clothes, shoes… and different places typically Japanese : costumes to dress up as Goth Lolita, official store of Tamagochi (on the left before the entrance of the street), Idoles shops (where you can buy pictures of your Idoles), an entire floor of Purikuras (interactive photo booths), the biggest one-hundred-yen shop of Japan or even stands which sells crepes filled with cream… Yeah. Takeshita Dôri is the teenagers’Paradise.

Omotesandô

Around 200 meters away from this street, there is Omotesandô… the Paradise of (well-of) fashion-addicts. On a wide wooded avenue, with looks like the « Champs Elysées » of Paris, the most prestigious brends of Haute Couture are exposed : Prada, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Dior… If you may not dare to enter into the shops, the architecture of the buildings is interesting as designers must have been crazy while creating them. While being at Omotesandô, you really should go to Kiddy Land a toy store which is currently moving in one of the small perpendicular streets. You will find all these brends you may have cherish while being a child : Hello Kitty, all the goodies from the Gibhli Studio, Pokemon…

Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi Parc

As I said in the introduction, everyone can find his own version of Tokyo he like : if you do not like too much shopping and crowd, you can go for a walk in the park of Yoyogi (Yoyogi Koen). You can easily access it from the second exit of the Harajuku JR Station. Cross the bridge (where you may see some cosplayers every Sundays, even though you will soon realise there are more photographes than desguised people…) and you will join the entrance of the Sanctuary. It is announced by a tôri. You should find it after 500 meters : you cannot miss it, it is the biggest of Japan ! It has nothing in particular but its size is huge and you could assist a wedding ceremony on Sundays. Moreover, the documentation is also available in English, as for some of the charms and predictions. A good way to discover some aspects of this religion, which is more a cohesion of habits than an actual religion in Japan.

I hope you will like this district of Tokyo as I love it : it is amazing how you can find different atmosphere from one street to another and some hours can be enough to discover most of Harajuku… However, I recommend you to spend some time in the shops to be able to feel the ambiance I like.

Marièke Poulat

Green tea and matcha powder

Not only it is a host in all our cups during all our meals and in the traditionnal tea ceremonies, but Japanese green tea is also turning in green many Japanese pasteries. Let’s discover this product that you should not miss while travelling in Japan.

Green tea everywhere…

In either school restaurants, small shops which serve some traditionnal plain meals in some industrial quantities, or on the contrary, in fancier restaurants the fashionable soft drink is green tea. The only thing which differs is the quality of it. And therefore is taste. For instance, in Waseda University’s school restaurant in Tokyo, dispensers offer green tea, hot water and fresh water… but green tea is not really tasty as there must be too much water in it. In many restaurants then, you will have to ask for fresh water if you want some, because they are going to serve you hot green tea*. And in others, you will find some taps delivering hot water and green tea powder you will have to shake to create your own drink. There again, you will have to ask for fresh water if you do not like green tea.

Fancy Green Tea

Reading the latest sentences, it is easy to deduce that green tea is a low cost product in Japan. Which is definitely wrong. Let’s examine wine, in France : there actually exist some low cost wine, which cost less than some euros, but it is also possible to find some « Grands Crus » which are very expensive… This is the same with green tea in Japan. The most expensive, the King of Green Masa super premium, cost more than 2500 dollars for one bottle of 750mL !

A special green tea : matcha

Matcha is a very special green tea as it is not from leaves that you are going to put into water to create you beverage. It is a powder that you have to blend into hot water to create a really think and bitter tea. It is also used while tea ceremonies where it is drank with some sweet pasteries made from azuki (red beans paste) to limitate its bitterness. Many international people and even Japanese people do not like this drink very much for the first time… a recurring joke in Japanese dramas being the grimaces people make when trying green tea for the first time.

Matcha is everywhere…

This matcha powder allows the use of the characteristic flavour of green tea in many products : in beverages but also in some pasteries. For instance, one of the favourite drinks in Japanese coffee shops, as Starbucks (or Veloce Café, Tully’s coffee…), is matcha latte : it is a drink close to a coffee latte, with milk and cream, but with green tea flavour. On reverse to the strong and bitter match tasted during tea ceremonies, it makes very soft and sweet drinks… as for the bubble teas with matcha flavour**. Added to these drinks, it is also possible to find Japanese pasteries with this flavour…which have all the same characteristic. All of them are green ! There are green cookies, donuts, cakes, cheese-cakes or even green kitkats ! And if you want to try to make this kind of pasteries, it is possible to make them everywhere in the world as you can buy matcha powder in many tea shops and find some recipes on internet.

A good way to try this peculiar flavour at home before going to Japan where you will have to taste it ! But remermber that even if you do not appreciate it, you should be able to survive… but it is true that if you like it, it will be easier for daily life and to meet Japanese people ;)

Marièke Poulat

*****

* To those who do not like green tea the magical sentence is « Sumimasen, O-mizu ga arimasu ka ? » « Sorry but do you have any water ? ».

** See the article on Bubble tea if you have not read it already and above all if you do not know this surprising beverage ^^

Gyudon or the dark side of Japanese cuisine

Far from the famous delicateness of sushis, Japanese cuisine counts plainer dishes... and stodgier, as for our ham and cheese sandwich or our cheese omelett. A perfect demonstration of that assertion is Gyudon, or its improved version : oyakodon. These are dishes made with rice served in a bowl for only some hundred yens and therefore are ideal to feed salarymen when they leave their work.

A unique heavy dish

Made from slices of cheap (fat) porc, gyudon and his even heaviest version oyakodon, is a heavy dish. Therefore, it is a good way to feed salarymen after work or tired tourists who have walked all day long. With more than 800 calories for one bowl (even for the S/small ration), it is a bowlof rice topped with slices of porc cooked with onions... the all topped by a boiled egg if you ask an oyakodon. You can also add ginger and soy sauce to it. This cocktail is then quite stodgy but really appreciated by Japanese and international people, particularly during the winter when it is served with a hot green tea.

Oyakodon

 

Available in many places...

If this dish is really traditionnal, places which serve it are also quite surprising. In Japan, three chains of restaurants are weel known to offer gyudon: Matsuya, Sukiya and Yoshinoya. It is possible to taste it in more traditionnal shops, but the main advantage of these chains is that they are cheap (it is less than 300 yens or 3€ for one small bowl... with which you should be already pretty full) and omnipresent everywhere: in Tokyo, it is difficult to make more than 100 meters without finding at least one of these stores. Moreover, as they do not make many dish they make gyudon pretty well at least.

However, their serving is quite different. Yoshinoya is the biggest and offer a wider choice of sets and dishes. Moreover, its restaurants are more occidental, with a waitress to who you have to command and some tables, added to the traditionnal counter where Japanese people like to eat when they eat alone very fast. Two aspects which appear to be normal but which are in fact not so logical in Japan. Indead, both other chains have a different way of serving which should be able to interest the occidental that you are ;)

… with a 100% Japanese organisation

The first thing you will notice while entering Sukiya or Matsuya is the disposition of the room. If you enter a small restaurant at the center of the city, there will be only a counter around the stove where the cook is working. You will also remarke a ticket machine at one side. It presents all the dishes that the restaurant is selling and it is really easy to use: you only need to press the button with the picture of the meal you want, to pay the amount of money indicated and to take the ticket the machine delivers. You give it to the cook once you are sitted and some seconds later, a steaming bowl will be served to you. It's ready ! Now, you only have to eat it with the chopsticks made of plastic you should find in the plastic boxes you have close to you. You are also allowed to add some spicies in it, as ginger or red pepper... Do not add soy sauce in the rice at the end: it is really not polite in Japan ! So, you see, to eat gyudon is as easy as that: you do not even have to say a single word in japanese... an easy solution for those who are affraid to speak... and to those who want to discover a different way of life. 

Ticket machine at Matsuya

Because it is obvious that this is not the kind of restaurant you should chose if you want to try good Japanese cuisine. Besides, Japanese people do not go to these restaurants in that aim. These restaurants are some improved fast-food without burgers, a food factory where people keep entering and leaving after some minutes (I actually mean some minutes). This is a good way of experimenting one of the Japanese way of life... and a good solution if you are hungry at 3 a.m.: one of the caracteristics of these chains is to be opened 24 hours on 24 !

To be tested. Definitively.

Marièke Poulat

Bubble Tea and Sweet pearls

In the streets of Tokyo, you will certainly run into girls carying a big closed glass in plastic surmounted by a straw. Inside of it, a colorfull and think drink and brown little bubbles at the bottom. And then, a question cross your mind. What it is ? Is it good ? And above all... Where can you get one ?!? Only one question you said ? Well, in the right order: this is a Bubble Tea or Boba Tea, a beverage made with milk and which comes from Taiwan with some Tapioca bublles inside; yes, it is good, and no, you do not need to cross all Tokyo to find it as many shops sell it.

The translucent glass lets us realize that this surprising drink can be of many impressive colors... From pink to orange, going through green, white or brown. In your mounth, it seems to be strawberry, mango, matcha (or green tea), coconut, chocolate or even coffee... while this beverage can be made from milk, tea or mixed fruits. About the little brown bubbles, at the bottom of the glass, which give to this drink all its originalitu, they are tapioca bubbles. Their texture is smooth and their taste soft but quite bitter, which can be a little weird as the beverage is really sweet.

Sweet Pearls'Bubble Tea

Bubble Tea is available in many little bars or stands, and most of them are located in the districts where young people stay, as Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya... or Takadanobaba, where I tasted it in a little shop which is between the eponymous station and Waseda University: Sweet Pearls. This little shop, whose colorfull sign reminds us that it is more adapted for girls and couples, lets us buy Bubble Tea not only to drink them in it but also to take them away. There are also some meals (mostly colorfull ramens) but I have not tried them yet, as the prices seemed a little big compare to the size of the meals (between 650 et 750¥ for one bowl).

Haunted by the idea of tasting this beverage that many people had tried to introduce to me before, I entered into this shop at the end of the afternoon, a sunday, with a friend of mine. The room was pretty empty. We both ordered a Bubble Tea (with some difficulties, as the menu is only available in katakanas (japanese)) but our two drinks did not look like each other at all: My friend's one was cold cocoa with Tapioca bubble and mine's was hot matcha with tapioca bubbles too. Indead, it is possible to choose, not only the flavour of your drink but also the heat of it and the presence of tapioca bubbles... but, without these bubbles, it is not bubble tea anymore, isn't it ? Both drinks cost 300¥ and were made with flavoured milk. I do not think that the shop had drinks made with fruits or only tea, but I cannot assure so.

Sweet Pearls'menu 

Once we paid our drinks, we settled ourselves at the very collorful back of the shop, to wait our glasses. There are two little round tables made from iron, as on a beach, and others little places against the wall. Even if it can be weird at the beginning, you will quickly find out that it is really considered as normal to go alone to restaurants in Japan. The capacity must be around 10 people but I have never seen it full while I live very close to it and see it almost everyday.

Our drinks arrived very quickly and we began our tasting. First sip, first surprise. To drink milk flavoured Bubble tea is almost like drinking sweet hot milk. My matcha drink was really sweet while the cacao's one was a little more bitter. The liquid was green, tasty. And these little bubbles were... Mmm... The straw is wide enough to suck one up: so you put your straw at the bottom of your glass and, cautiously... you take a glup, this time. Second surprise. It is soft, kind of sweet but bitter than the beverage. It is difficult to explain exactly the consistance of it. If you know Japanese habits, it looks like bubble of mochi. If you do not, then... I would say it seems to be a piece of bread after being plundged during a long period of time into a soup.

Well. The description est a little difficult to make and the beverage is better than it seems when you read this comment, I assure you. It is really sweet. Maybe to much, by the way... It can become a little nauseating at this end and do not think of the amount of calories that it contains. I must be as high as the one of Coffee Shops like Starbucks. But as the number of sodas is really reduced in Japan and as tea is the only beverage you will drink during all your stay appart from water, you can try the surprising drink ! V(^_^)V

Marièke Poulat