Thursday's travels to Ueno Park and Asakusa at night

People in Japan not only use public transport like the subway, buses and trains, but bicycles. I am constantly amazed by how many bikes there are here. We have often walked by a row of 20+ bikes lined up near a place of work or restaurant.

While we were walking thru Ueno Park Thursday afternoon, I just had to take this picture. Pets seem to be a big part of many Japanese' life.....and they really spoil them. Not sure if you can see it, but there is a dog in the basket of this bike.

So, that may give you a hint of what we did for part of Thursday afternoon. We met up with another Japanese friend for lunch - we ate at an interesting Japanese style restaurant, but we sat in regular chairs! Ken had a very interesting meal - it was like a seafood hotpot, which meant that it was a tray of various foods. I had a tempura meal, which included squid, prawns (Ken aced in getting that) and then we wandered around the area near the train station. What an interesting market....a bit like Granville Island market, if you have ever been there. Ah, the sights and sounds of vendors hawking their wares, people chattering to each other, horns honking, trains going by overhead....a symphony of sounds and smells. Most everything smelt wonderful.

after lunch, we headed into Ueno Park, which is a huge green space. A number of museums and a baseball diamond, a zoo and a small pond. As we were walking along one of the pathways, we just had to stop and watch these two clowns perform. It was so much fun to see how they did their performance and got the crowd involved.


This young lady caught our eye, just after we finished watching the clowns perform. She seemed so out of place....dressed up in very dark clothing. The youth culture of Japan is trying to find their place in their culture, and every Saturday & Sunday, at Harajuku, do what they call Cos Play. (Harajuku is some distance from where we are staying), they get together, dress up and have a time to just express themselves thru music and dance.

We then headed over to an ice cream stand, and bought ice cream and a slurpy type drink for Ken and just watched the people walk by.


As we continued along on our walk, we stopped at one of the ponds to take this picture. There appears to be many turtles around, and this one seems to be enjoying the sun and warm temperatures. We saw a turtle a few minutes earlier that had quite a bit of algae growing on its shell.

It is now Friday morning, and we are heading out on the subway to the other end of the Ginza line, which is the subway line we take to and from our hostel, to check out some more sights, go to a book market and see some more sights. Saturday we are visiting with more friends, who will take us to the Tokyo Tower and more sights in that area.

As Ken and I sat and ate our supper, we were visiting with a fellow from Australia, who was hoping to find work in Japan for a few months. Interesting conversation.Afterwards, we headed
out to take some night pictures of the Asakusa district (just two stops on the subway, and at the end of the Ginza line, near our hostel).

It is almost breakfast time - rice and sushi...I think I just may partake of an egg sandwich.