Tokyo: Ueno and Akihabara - serenity and wackiness

Drain cover , Ueno Park, Tokyo

We stopped off in Tokyo a few times in our trip, so our time her was a little bitty, and we didn’t see as much as we otherwise might have done. But we did still get around a few areas, and this post covers two of them, Ueno and Akihabara.

We went to Ueno Onshi Park on a Sunday, so when we passed through the Kappabashi Dogugai Street area as we strolled from our Akabusa lodgings, most of the hundreds of kitchenware shops that have served the area for over a hundred years, were closed. Probably just as well, as I’d only have wanted to buy stuff.

Ueno Onshi Park, Tokyo

The park was the first in Japan, designated in 1873, and is a good place to walk around, with a number of museums and a zoo, if that takes your fancy, or simply people watching. There are a few street performers around, some of whom are better than others.

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

We visited the Toshogu Shrine, which was built in 1627 by Todo Takatora, to Tokugawa Ieyasu, as requested in his will. It is an attractive shrine, with a good number of the lovely stone lanterns, and when we were there, there was a Spring Peony festival, which added to the visit.

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

It amused me to see the flowers being given their own parasols.

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

The other thing of note at the shrine is the Flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The story goes that Tatsuo Yamamoto went to Hiroshima shortly after the bomb dropped to search for his uncle, finding only the bombed out remains of his home.

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

He brought a flame, that was still smouldering in the ruins, back to his home in Hoshino-mura, and resolved to keep it burning as a symbol of remembrance, peace and the aim of abolishing nuclear weapons. Twenty three years after the bomb, his village built a torch to hold the flame, which was lit on the anniversary, and has been kept alight ever since.

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo

In 1988, a flame was taken from that torch, and another was taken from a spark made by rubbing together broken roof tiles from the Nagasaki bomb, and they were merged together as a flame for peace. This flame was taken to the UN General Assembly for Disarmament in New York, with a petition signed by 30 million people. Two years later, on the 45th anniversary of the bombing, the lit another flame the same way, and that is the flame that now burns permanently in the shrine here.

Akihabara, Tokyo

We'll now move to another area, away from the peaceful calm of Ueno, and on to the slightly crazy area of Akihabara.

Akihabara is known as being the key electronic area, and as a place for anime and maid cafes.

Akihabara, Tokyo

The electronics side wasn't especially interesting to us, but if you are in your forties, and had a misspent youth playing video games, you might enjoy checking out the retro games arcades that are tucked away in dark little rooms.

Akihabara, Tokyo

There are also lots of places where you can play those machines where you control a grab to get yourself a little cuddly toy. In the UK, these are usually the domain of little girls, but here we had teenaged, an even a bit older, boys playing them.

Akihabara, Tokyo

The anime, or comic, scene isn't as obvious here as it used to be, as it has moved on a little, but it is definitely still around, and you have the Tokyo Anime Center, where you can look at comics and buy huge amounts of merchandise. We bought a set of Ghibli, 'Spirited Away' playing cards, and they have certainly provoked a lot of interest when we've used them, especially amongst Japanese expats.

Akihabara, Tokyo

And then there are the maid cafes. I've mentioned before that the Japanese have a slightly worrying culture of allowing older men to ogle girls dressed up in schoolgirl outfits and the like, and this is another version of that. Maid cafes will have girls dressed in very short maid outfits, and people will come along and be served drinks etc by their maid.

Akihabara, Tokyo

Now this isn't as bad as it could be, no one is allowed to touch the maids. But I do struggle to understand the idea that grown men want to play the kind of hand clapping games that I used to do in the playground when I was about six!

I know it's harmless in itself, and I actually have no issue with even some of the rather wilder fetish interests (as long as all those involved are consenting), but this does all feel a bit too commonplace and creepy.

Akihabara, Tokyo

These days, it has become a bit more of a 'thing', and more women and tourists go along as well, but it still didn't quite feel like something we wanted to do.

We were quite interested in going along to one of the growing trend of spoof cafes, such as the ones where the maids are actually all men dressed up in the same outfits, but sadly we hadn't researched it well enough, and couldn't find one in the time we had.

Akihabara, Tokyo

The other example of that kind of culture here is the official show theatre and café of the incredibly popular Japanese girl band AKB48. The AKB represents the band's location of Akihabara and the 48 is the number of girls in the original line-up. the band was formed to be 'an idol group that you can meet'. the large number - there are now around 140 girls - means that there can be multiple groups of AKB48 appearing on stage and at handshaking events at the same time.

Akihabara, Tokyo

There are multiple daily shows at the theatre here, and the group is hugely successful, with its main fanbase being young pre-teen girls and older men. The girls in the line up are early teen to mid twenties, after which they are deemed too old for the short skirts and pigtails look and are 'graduated'. The girls are not allowed to date while they are in the band, but have been the target of attacks by over zealous fans. Two girls were injured by a male fan with a saw back in 2014, and just last week, one was stabbed multiple times by an older male fan who had sent her a gift and wasn't happy with her response.

Japan is a strange contradiction.

Akihabara, Tokyo

Akihabara, Tokyo

Akihabara, Tokyo

Akihabara, Tokyo

Akihabara, Tokyo