Secret Town Hidden in Tokyo Park

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum:
A Secret Town Hidden in a Tokyo Park

It's hard to believe something like this is as unknown as it is!

Somewhere in the heart of Koganei park is buried a 200 year old neighborhood. What's more, hardly anyone here seems to know about it.

The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural, or tatemonoen hereafter (the Japanese name), is a massive preservation model neighborhood surrounded by an even more massive recreational park in the western suburbs of Tokyo. It's further cleverly obscured by things like hedges and fields so effectively that among the numerous Tokyoites I know, barely a handful have ever even heard of it.

What is it?

In order to preserve Tokyo's cultural heritage, with particular awareness of the natural disasters that often threaten Japan's buildings, they have amassed a collection of historical homes, buildings, restorations and model structures dating all the way back to the Edo period.

One of the coolest things is that you can walk into and explore all these buildings.
The smells. The textures. The sound of old floorboards (and sod) under foot. It's a full-sensory trip back in time. We have one like this back in Dallas, but not this impressive. I first discovered it chaperoning my son's school field trip there years ago.

The buildings are exquisitely maintained and are also well furnished. Old dial phones, vintage furniture, working hand-pumps. For younger visitors it's like visiting another planet.

Old house with sod floor and working cooking pit

Seen here is an old thatched-roof house with a sod floor and a working cooking pit.
When my son's class visited, one of the volunteers, an elderly grandmother in period costume was tending the pit and telling stories to anyone who'd listen. The half of the class who understood Japanese were immediately gathered around the fire, mesmerized. But there are plenty of staff and volunteers who speak English, and other languages.

coffee house

For history buffs, every building is well-notated with bilingual plaques explaining whose home it was and why it's significant. Pictured above is one of the bigger homes with gorgeous interiors and a nice coffee shop with crepes and cakes.

Restored bathhouse

Go early and plan on making a day of it. Every time we go, we run out of time. In addition to the buildings, they have two museum halls where they hold periodic exhibitions like the current Ghibli exhibit that runs till the end of 2014. This alone is worth going for. For an additional fee you can see two sizable exhibits of Ghibli studio's architectural art and models. Ghibli, if the name doesn't ring a bell, is the studio that created Hayao Miyazaki's animated films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. Google it. Thought the artwork, sketches, designs and animation cells are only notated in Japanese they're still stunning on their own. They show us just how much work went into these amazing films. And moreover, they have a number of large-scale models of some of the more popular Ghibli locations, like a 3 meter tall, highly detailed model of the Aburaya bathhouse from Spirited Away.

They also have late hours for one weekend in November where you can see the buildings lit up at night. We're planning on taking that in this year. 

town square

There's also a park (yes, a park in a park...in a park--Ooo, meta!) with stilts and old-time toys that most post-Nintendo kids have never seen before. Again, volunteers on hand to help.
"This is how your grandparents (or your mom and I...depending on when you were born)."
Just looking at these pictures, you can see why Hayao Miyazaki often visited here while he was working on Spirited Away.

My advice: bring a picnic/bento; walk around for a few hours (let the kids run wild), have lunch, then carry on. Running around someone else's house was as much a thrill for me as it is for my own son and his friends. 

Toddlers, teens, adults, seniors...this one's good for all ages. And it's reasonable; 400 yen for regular admission and all discounts for kids and seniors.

Warning: take public transportation if possible. While the tatemonoen itself is amazingly uncrowded, Koganei park where it resides is a very popular park and parking is very something you're not likely to find. There isn't much coin parking anywhere near, either. So bite the bullet and take the bus from either Musashi-Koganei station (chuo line) or Hana-Koganei station (Seibu Shinjuku line). 

The park is open from 9:30 to 4:30 (5:30 April to September), so get there as early as you can. Those seven hours will fly by. 

Their English site will tell you how to get there and anything else you might need to know.

They have special events listed here.
And this is a map of the park.

How something like this could be so unknown is just baffling.

English site

Calendar of Events

Map

Wikipedia notes

Japanese site

Fish-a-Palooza 2014

Art Aquarium: a breathtaking art installation in Tokyo.

This is the first time I've ever seen goldfish as an artistic medium. Artist Hidetomo Kumura has set up some stunning arrangements of goldfish (kingyou) in beautifully aesthetic tanks with colored illuminations. After 7pm it becomes night aquarium where they turn down the lights and fire up the lasers and fog making the space look like a high-priced disco with hypnotic trance techno throbbing from the sound system. And with the greedy throngs pushing about, it can really feel like a packed nightclub; kids need to go on Dad's shoulders and the meek shall inherit poor views.

At one point, a pair of dancers performed captivating pole dances, wearing goldfish-styled kimonos.
A note: the music is quite good featuring artists like Ken Ishii, Dragon, and Neko Punch; they sold out of the CDs of it...I couldn't get one, and I'tried.

The fish themselves are award-quality specimens, and the overall arrangements and orchestrations of sight and sound make this very much a great work of art and design; not merely a fishy gimmick.

On a Tuesday afternoon, it took us a half hour to get through the line, but once in we easily spent an hour taking in the full experience. Access is not straightforward. It's in the Mitsuisumitomo Hall of the new Coredo 3 building at Mitsukoshimae station. Depending on the turnout, you'll probably start at B1 of Coredo 3, by the A6 exit of the Ginza line. Cue a bit, then receive a card which you'll take up to the top floor where you'll buy your tickets at 1,000 yen. Photography is allowed but no flashes. Good for families. Great for a date; something about this place seemed to be putting everyone in the mood. But again, there were plenty of spellbound families in addition to the amorous couples.

So have a look at some of the photos we took and decide if it's for you or not. Click on any of them to open the gallery and see them in full size. You've got until September 23. They did this last year, so they may do it again next year...I wouldn't take a chance, though. More information at:

http://www.nihonbashi-tokyo.jp/ecoedo2014/

日本橋のナイトアートアクエリアム行って来ました。今まで経験した事のないパフォーマンスとあまりの美しさに超感激。トランスをBGMにシンセサイザーと光のパフォーマンスでのアート鑑賞。見る価値ありです。

Sleeping like a River

川
That's the Japanese kanji for "river."
It's one of the first kanji Japanese kids learn, obviously, because of it's simplicity. It even looks like a river.
There's a joke in Japan that families sleep like this kanji. "Kawa no ji ni natte neru" (川の字になって寝る), or "sleep like the character for river." Conventionally, Japanese families sleep together in one room, on the floor, on futons. Sleeping side-by-side, mother and father, with the child between them, it looks like this kanji.
Isn't that neat?

I sleep this way with my son and wife and I'm really fond of it. We don't always have time to sit down and eat together like families should. But every night when we bed down we chat a bit as we drift off to sleep. In the middle of the night, I might wake up for whatever reason, and I'm never alone. It's very comforting.

Yokohama Ramen Museum

It's open again!
It's open again!
The Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum is finally open again!

If you're only in Tokyo for a few days, go to the ramen museum in Shin Yokohama.

It's not far from the glorious Yokohama station, itself a short ride from Tokyo. A few blocks from Shin Yokohama station is one of the weirdest, most interesting places in Kanto.
It closed down years ago, but as soon as I heard it had re-opened I grabbed my family and we trained it out there.


I'm not sure I'd call it a museum...maybe a theme restaurant / museum?
The ground floor houses a modest museum displaying the history of ramen in Japan and it's trappings. But it's that which lies below for which you should go.





The basement stairs are actually a time machine, taking you back to the year 1958 when ramen saw a boom period across Japan. There you'll find an amazing replica of an old, Japanese neighborhood consisting of a town square surrounded by dense little urban paths and filled with numerous ramen shops.







The Japanese fast-food equivalent of the American hamburger is a bowl of steaming ramen. While it's not the  healthiest meal, it's a good-sight better than tacos or burgers, and it's about as fast.

Now ramen shops are pervasive, ranging from sublime to awful, and like any fast food you learn to keep expectations low in touristy areas like theme parks and rest stops. You go do Disneyland for the rides, not the spaghetti, right? Not so here, where the museum showcases the best ramen Japan has to offer from Hokkaido to Okinawa; alot like EPCOT's World Showcase.


The shops rotate periodically, but the shop we found most interesting when we went in September was actually from Hollywood, CA. called Ikemen (a play on words, ikemen meaning handsome, and men meaning noodles).

The ramen is dipping style, where you take some noodles and dip them into the sauces. And in addition to great food, they have a great sense of humor, with menu items such as "Johnny Dip Ramen" and "Jurassic Pork."

Admission is about 300 yen for adults, 100 yen for kids.

It's the details that really complete an illusion and the detail the really sold me that I'd stepped back in time was a "public TV," mounted high on a post in the square so everyone could watch it (because hey, this is the 50's; who can afford their own TV???)

The secret to getting the most out of your visit, unless you plan on multiple visits, is to order the "mini" bowls of ramen at the various shops. These are half-sized servings. This way you don't fill up quite so quickly. We were able to sample three different shops this way and still have room for soft-serve ice cream at a nostalgic old "snack" bar (something between a coffee shop and a tavern).

We happened to get here in time to watch a TV station record a superhero scene in the square. TOO FUNNY!

The name of this shop translates out to "Fire Nation." As a fan of The Last Airbender, I entered cautiously.

...a WHAT booth??? How did the older generations ever survive without  iPhones?

Just enjoying a steam at the local sento bath-house.

Enjoying a frozen jelly, in the classic dagashiya style.

I took my dad here when he visited.
I took my wife here on one of our first dates.
I took every visitor here.
And everyone balked at the suggestion.
And everyone loved it.
And it was closed down before my son was old enough to experience it, which was a real bummer. But now I have been able to share this wonderful place with him, and he can't wait to go back.

And of course what night ramen would be complete without a few laps on an old slot car racetrack? Weird? Unrelated? Sure, but it was so much fun I'm not complaining.

For more information, follow this link to their English site or type Yokohama Ramen Museum into Google.

Halloween in Japan 2013 Progress Report #1: Food

One of my favorite things about Japan is how it assimilates foreign culture without imitating it. Take, for example, my favorite holiday - Halloween. We first started seeing the earliest glimmerings of it's presence here 20 years ago. Now it's becoming firmly positioned in the Japanese pop-holiday pantheon. But in the same way England and North America have their own ways of expressing it, so does Japan and it's about as similar the the American Halloween as is Mexico's Dia De Los Muertos.

This year, we're seeing two new sweets in the stores. This one is an apple pie that looks like a jack-o-lantern. Light, flaky crust and cinnamon-sweet apple filling.

...and this is a steamed pumpkin cake.

It has the consistency of sponge cake, but with a Japanese Kabocha "pumpkin," a variety of Asian squash. Very tasty.

I'm looking forward to what other confections Japan comes up with in the Halloweens to come.

Orbi: a New Multi-Media Theme Park

OK, I wouldn't call it a theme "park." It's really more of a theme theater, but that sounds odd; and Orbi in Yokohama is hard to describe.

It's equal parts movie theater, museum exhibition, and theme park.

BBC and SEGA have teamed up to create a space full of innovative, high definition video displays that showcase the magnificence of the natural world, the animals in particular.

What you have is a large, indoor area with a main cinema and nine surrounding exhibits. The main cinema is a semi-circular, curved panoramic screen where you watch a 30 minute montage of environments. It's visually stunning. Anyone should enjoy the outstanding nature shots, and small kids will be captivated by the animals. This time it was the four seasons of the arctic. The show was supposed to include aromas and while the entire theater had an odd, musky smell to it I couldn't make out any distinctive odors in the course of it. As far as I could make tell, it was just a high-def panoramic documentary which isn't to say it wasn't excellent. But they're promising perhaps more than they can deliver.

Why go?
This exhibition draws on the BBC's vast wealth of wildlife media and with SEGA's multi-media excellence, they present it so well that it transcends conventional natural history museums to stand as fine art. Honestly, the way the animals and environments were presented was nothing short of art. While the photos themselves were gorgeous, the presentations were themselves beautiful.

This is well-balanced for all ages. Toddlers and infants will be just as engaged as teens and adults, which is quite an achievement. It's a great place to take visitors. It was clear to see that this is also a first-rate date spot; I saw a good deal of hand-holding and shoulder-rubbing in the crowds.

It should be as interesting to environmental enthusiasts as to people who don't know a newt from a skink.

The ambiance is outstanding. We all agreed, when we get super-rich we want this to be our living room.

My favorite "room" was a presentation of jellyfish at various depths. I may despise jellies more than anything else in the sea, but some of these were dazzling! And anything less than HD just wouldn't work for these. I went through it several times. They tried to give the illusion of featured jellies suspended in mid-air by projecting them onto vapor cascades (you know, like in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride), but it didn't really work. But it didn't detract from the overall exhibition. Ultimately, it tries to impress on you how far down the lowest point in the ocean is, but it was the jellyfish that we all remembered.

We all loved the "cold room" where you can experience -20C degree blasts of arctic-cold winds. You don't hesitate to pack into a tight huddle with complete strangers as your survival instinct kicks in.

The weakest exhibit may have been the Animalpedia where you stand before a towering video wall and use hand gestures to select among silhouettes of animals and get pop-up displays of basic information about them. But the information was fairly bland; nothing we don't see on the internet all the time. And the controls were frustratingly difficult. So what it's essentially the novelty of a giant screen and an iterative system that while cool-looking will simply frustrate anyone who has grown up using mouses and touch screens.

There's a room that features the colors of nature and surrounds you with brilliant wildlife photos that match the color of whatever you place under a camera in the center of the room. If you love wildlife photography, you'll probably spend a good deal of time in this one.

Next to that there's a dark and winding corridor that features insects. I skipped through pretty hastily, expecting more of a haunted-house with simulated bee and spider attacks. In fact, it's just sights, sounds, and an occasional air jet. Mostly harmless.I may have been a little jumpy because we'd just come from the Komodo Dragon room where, after watching a short documentary on why Komodo Dragons should scare the hell outta us, they put us in total darkness and simulate a throng of Dragons stalking all about us, with synchronized audio, air jets in our seats, and a rumbling base.. Fun and interesting, great for a tepid date, but not for easily frightened children.

Another exhibition sought to put us in the midst of a wildebeest heard and give us a real understanding of what 1,300,000 of them really looked like. I'm grateful they didn't try and simulate smells on this one.

Finally a flying video takes you on a breathtaking 40,000 km landscape tour. If you're in the center of the theater, it's very realistic. If not, you'll have to try and ignore alot of concave distortion.

Why not go to Orbi? The reasons are few and slim:

I felt 2,600 yen / person (half price for minors) was a bit steep. But my wife contends that we spent over three hours in there and as theme parks go, the price was reasonable.

While the staff are eager to speak English and the most critical words are co-presented in English, the entire presentation is limited to Japanese. But it's largely visual and you need not understand a word of Japanese to understand most of it. English language brochures are also available. But this is Japan and English just isn't as globally important as it used to be.

And although they do regulate the crowds inside keep the numbers within limits, we still had to wait 20-45 minutes for most of the attractions. But the lines were close enough to the "base camp" that the little ones could run and play until their group's turn had come. The Base Camp isn't quite a playground, but it is a good space for little ones to run around and burn off steam.

Know this:
Small kids should absolutely avoid room C, the Komodo dragon room. It's not just scary, but the documetary is shocking and gory. It should be rated PG.
Wear good walking shoes because you're going to be doing alot of standing.
Drinks aren't allowed, and not provided, so be sure to smuggle in a bottle of water and maybe some snacks.
Also be aware that once you exit, there's no re-entry.
There's also a large gift shop at the end that carries quite a large array of natural history merch, mostof it direct from England. Alot of this stuff I've never seen in Japan, so this can be a great opportunity to buy novel gifts.

Verdict
A fun, informative afternoon for any kind of group or person. You won't be sorry. And after you're done, you'll be in Minatomirai which is one of the most awesome urban destinations in Japan, and a short walk from Chinatown, Yokohama station, and Kanae.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, we had to wait about 45 min to get tickets, and another hour after that to get in.

"Base Camp" is a lounge area with animals and environments protected onto shapes. It makes for a striking rest area.

Various animals are projected onto this giant cushion, including this lizard, a polar bear, an killer whale and a caterpillar.

This logo is everywhere

A good idea of the space and the crowds within.

And a brochure is worth another thousand words:

Truly Great TV Shows

Following my less-than-100% rating for Downton Abbey, saying that it falls short of true greatness, my friend Reed asked me which shows I /would/ consider as great. Here are ten:

• All in the Family
• Battlestar Galactica (new)
• Breaking Bad
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Doctor Who (new)
• Futurama
• Game of Thrones
• Hillstreet Blues
• M*A*S*H
• Sherlock

Disagree? Please feel free to debate me on these; I welcome it!

And to illuminate what I mean by "greatness," here are some shows that I'm crazy about; which I could watch endlessly, but I'd stop short of canonizing as great.

• Firefly
• Big Bang Theory
• X Files
• Star Trek OS & V
• The Beverly Hillbillies
• Venture Bros
• Bob's Burgers
• American Horror Story
• Tinker Taylor Solder Spy
• Twin Peaks (if it weren't for that weak middle, I'd have put it on the first list).
• Lonsome Dove
• 24 (season one)
• Dexter
• Desperate Housewives
• Dark Angel
• Lost
• Soap
• Twilight Zone
• Wild Wild West
• Odd Couple
• Little House on the Prairie
• Moonlighting
• Heroes (season 1)
• The Prisoner
• Malcolm in the Middle

To be truly great, I want a show that delivers greatness in all areas, script, acting, production, sound, editing...within the limits of it's means...the kind of results you only get if >everyone< involved is either at the top of thier field or the peak of enthusiasm. Passion and prowess, approaching perfection. I also want to walk away with something; I want to have learned something or had a veritable experience, the kind of thing you don't get from a show where people are merely doing a great "job."

And for what it's worth, I haven't yet seen:

• The Sopranos
• Mad Men
• Six Feet Under
• Boardwalk Empire
• West Wing
• The Wire
• The Shield
• House

...so I can't comment on those.

Review: Saturday Night Live: Third Season DVD

Running Time: approximately 1 hour, ten minutes per weekly episode
Perceived Running Time: 40 minutes (depending on the episode)

Replay-ability: high
Estimated Durability: 4 generations+
Audience: Wide. Fifth grade and up (some mildly dirty jokes).

Why:
This is one of the best and most entertaining time-windows into the late 70's you'll ever find. It features some of the funniest, most talented performers, at their height, hungry, raw and energetic. This is about the time when they'd polished off the rougher edges, but before the show became tiresome formulaic. Watching each episode in it's entirety is important as each one had an overall rhythm and flow like a good music album or symphony. My 6th grader has found a cornucopia of inspiration from this trove of forgotten excellence in performance and modern vaudeville. I predict that the material herein will remain fresh and highly entertaining long-after my generation is dead and gone. The Charles Grodin episode alone was hysterical from beginning to end, in a weirdly post-modern way. My son's watched that single week several times over.

Without the commercials, the episodes fly by. They can also be enjoyed in chapters if you need a some quick entertainment.

This is also a great time capsule of Americana, reflecting the mind and matters of the late 70's. If you want to get a cultural feel for that time, or share it with someone else, this is better than any history book. While it does mock timely events and make timely references, it does not rely on them to the point of alienating subsequent generations; about as much as classic Loony Tunes or Monty Python.

In addition to the comedy, it also features some very candid performances by famous musicians, also in their early prime.

Why not:
The jokes do get a little dirty here and there; it is a late-night product of the swinger culture of NYC. It would be considered racy even by today's broadcast standards. It periodically makes references to people and events that are long-forgotten, even by those of us who were active in those days. The most intolerant youth might call it dated, and the pacing is of course slower than modern comedy. The skits that do rely too heavily on the forgotten are easily skipped.

Further, the quality is not strictly consistent. Some "weeks" are funnier/better than others. Some skits soar while some bomb. But even the weakest weeks are quite entertaining. But this is the result of it's organic nature. As it grew in consistency in the 80's, it lost genius.

If you like That 70's Show, you're going to LOVE this. It's the real deal.

Kudos:
Raw, hungry, fresh, energetic talent.

Demerits:
Occasional out-dated references.
A blu-ray edition would be appreciated with more special features, bookmarks and the ability to play only the musical segments.

Notes:
You might be given to buy one of the "Best Of" volumes, but you'd be cheating yourself. Again, each week had a flow. At the risk of comparing SNL with immortal classics, it would be like attending a Best Of Shakespeare. It would be like only watching the highlights of a sporting event. Too much of the overall experience is lost. Several youth I know never "got" the classic SNL until they sat down and watched complete episodes.

Verdict: Don't bore younger people with your old-people stories of how great the 70's used to be. Show them some of this and then just answer their questions.

Very Bad Neighbors

Man, talk about bad-to-worse.

We live and work in a walk-up above what use to be a ramen shop. It was a nice shop and we got along well with the family that ran the shop. About as bad as it got was in the mornings when we'd open the windows and catch a waft of the greasy, boiling pork stock. But it wasn't so strong. About like having a neighbor cooking.

Then they closed shop and moved out.

We went a year or so with a dark, cold, empty space under us. That made winters colder and I worried about it attracting crime or the landlord bulldozing the entire building.

Finally someone moved in; a couple of Nepali guys with the intention of opening an Indian curry restaurant. Initially that seemed great. More foreigners and Indian food a stair-way away.

What I didn't count on were foreigners and Indian food.

The Japanese put courtesy as a top priority at all times. They always start by asking themselves, "will this bother or inconvenience anyone?" Foreigners who learn to play like this do well locally. But most foreigners have no interest in this protocol.

Now we have people downstairs who might as well be Americans,  they're so inconsiderate.

• They play loud Indian music all night. 
• They block our entrance with delivery trucks.
• They throw trash in our garden and make a general mess of the area.
• They do noisy construction without regards to the acceptable construction hours.
• Unorthodox use of their plumbing has a sickening septic smell backing up through our kitchen sink regularly.
• They have completely filled up our "half" of the landing downstairs with garbage and junk to where we can't even get our bikes in and out. When we ask them to give us a little space, they just move things around.

The landlord could care less.

But the worst of it is the smell. It's really putting me off my love of curry. Our house is inundated with the reek of curry spices and garlic 24 hours a day. Even with the windows closed, it seeps up through the floors. Some days you can even SEE it as a yellow haze in the air. Our eyes burn and we have to run air filters all the time. There's nowhere to hang out our laundry that it won't come out smelling like curry.

I don't think they're mean. They're just inconsiderate. And I don't think I'm being bigoted by suggesting that it's cultural because my own American culture isn't in real practice one bit more considerate, as much as we Americans might like to think otherwise. We like to think we're so considerate, but growing up in Texas I met very few people who demonstrated such values. I must be turning Japanese.