敬老の日

Today is 敬老の日 (Respect For The Aged Day).
(I wrote a short FAQ about it here).

My kids bought a small gift for their 94-year old great-grandmother. They took it to her house and paid her a visit.

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Yesterday we went to 上野 (Ueno, Tokyo).
As we were leaving 上野駅 (Ueno Train Station), we passed the Hard Rock Cafe, Ueno Stn Tokyo. We didn’t go in, but I noticed this poster outside the cafe:

I like the American rock band Mötley Crüe, and I know that they’re coming to this year’s Loudpark Heavy Metal Festival in October (see my “Festivals In Tokyo” page)…but according to this poster, they’ll be playing dates in Japan after the festival, too.

From there, we went to the big 「やましろや」 (Yamashiroya Toy Store), and then we went to a lake that has rental boats.

We rented a boats for our daughters and they had fun paddling around the lake for a half-hour.

Here are a couple of videos of the boats on the lake (none of the videos of my kids are online):

After that, we saw some people feeding the 亀 (turtles) and 鯉 (carp).
It was crazy. They started swarming to get the bread:

A nearby shrine:

At shrines in Japan, you can buy your fortune. After you read it, you tie it to one of these:

You can also buy an 絵馬…which is a wooden board that you write your wish on and then tie it near the shrine so your wish may come true.
Here are some people’s 絵馬 with their wishes written on them:

The shrine was setting up in the evening for the 祭 (festival) the next day (today):

My wife and daughters folded bamboo leaves into boats:

We stopped at an Okinawan store in Ueno to buy some Okinawan food. I really like Okinawan food.

This シーサー (Shiisaa) was outside the store. They are Okinawan mythological guardians (usually found in pairs):

And here’s an intersection in Ueno at night:

Japanese Garden

Today we went to 柴又 (Shibamata). This is a traditional 下町 (downtown, blue-collar) area of Tokyo. We live in downtown Tokyo…but this is one of the downtown areas that stills maintains the old, traditional look.

I’m trying to explain it so that people from outside of Japan will relate…but Japan’s 下町 (downtown) and 山の手 (uptown) are unique and hard to explain accurately.

Come to Japan and I’ll show you. 🙂

Anyways, 柴又 (Shibamata) is the hometown for the character 寅さん (Tora-san) in the popular TV series 男はつらいよ (“It’s tough being a man!”) that ran from 1969-1995 in Japan.

The actor that played the main character (Tora-san) died in 1996. There’s a statue of the “Tora-san” character outside 柴又 (Shibamata) train station.

Here it is:

Near the train station is a store that sells Japanese candies. Just like most of the shops in this area, it looks like an old traditional Japanese store.

Here’s the 駄菓子屋 (Traditional junk-food shop):

(The Coke machine looks like a robot).

We also went to a temple and saw them setting up for a 盆踊り (Bon Dance Festival)…(we didn’t go to the festival, though), and a traditional Japanese street performer, and we went to a Japanese garden.

Here’s a slideshow of some of the photos I took:

[rockyou id=119928351]

I took a few videos today and uploaded to my YouTube page (in all of them you can hear 蝉 (Cicadas) in the background. Proof that it’s summertime in Japan 🙂 ).

Also, in the last video there are 提灯 (paper lanterns) that say 寅さんの日 (“Tora-san Day”). This is in preparation for August 27—the anniversary of the first episode of TV series 男はつらいよ (“It’s tough being a man!”) that began on 1969/8/27.

Here’s my video of the Japanese garden:

Here are three videos that I took of the traditional Japanese street performer:

And here are two videos that I took of the 下町 (traditional downtown area):

We’ve been to this area a number of times. But it had been awhile since our last time here…so it was alot of fun!