Aug 27-28-29th : Quiet Week-End

   Once the rain as gone, the heat came back right away (I t has never been cold, but now it is warmer) and I spend the whole night with the fan switch on right over my head. Waiting for my wife to come back, I received a copious breakfast from my mother-in-law and then was seating contemplatively at the 'balcony'.

   On the agenda of today is the announced Family Meeting Lunch ! As the brother-in-law will marry soon, the both families will meet up for the first time.

   The meeting place is still from us unknown, just we know it is a station after Ueno, and the brother will pick-up us there. So we go there, and since we are ahead of time, and that it is hot outside, I pull my own to go into a skimpy but well-stocked fish shop standing in front of the train station. There was simply more species of fishes, seashells or cephalopods than I can name, all fresh and some still alive on their stalls.

you can eat the dried lotus
flower (on th right)

   Finally comes the brother, and it appears that the group of people standing and waiting as well since  several minutes a few steps away from us were none else but the future family-in-law. hmmm. Without further ceremonial we head for the restaurant. At the 5th lobby of building, a traditional Japanese-food restaurant where luckily one does not have to seat on the knee (there are deep slots under the table so while one looks to seat on the ground, one is indeed sitting normally). Since it is somehow a formal meeting, there is even a table plan, hopefully we are 5 from the both side of the family so it is balanced (now I understand why my wife and myself were invited). Lunch course was long and tasty, not less than 5 courses, some made of small portions of delicately crafted foods.

   After this long lunch (I think we spend some 3hours there), while the brother and his girl went to find clothes for the wedding ceremony, with my wife and her parents we go to Ueno park, a few block away. First, we have to pass through the overcrowded merchants streets alongside the tracks. One of the entrances of the park, in front of the main train station is marked with a peculiar statue of a man walking with is dog. An almost peacefull if not somehow naive representation of Saigō Takamori who was the so called last true samurai, instigator of the ultimate revolt against the Meiji restoration after the Tokugawa shogunate was dissolved. At the outcome of the Shiroyama's battle, he committed seppuku, so he lived and died as a samurai.

   The park is organized around the Shinobazu Pond and the Tōshō-gū shrine which is here the extension of the one in Nikko. In summer, the pond is fully covered by the lotus, so that water cannot be seen. on the small island placed in the middle of the pond, several shrines, among them even a memorial for the fugu fishes, this delicate fish which tasteful meat can be poisonous if not carefully prepared.

    In front of the Tōshō-gū shrine stands an everburning flame, as memorial for the destruction of Hiroshima. The stories tells that a man went to Hiroshima in search of his uncle right after the disaster, and found a a remaining flame burning in the ruins of his uncle's house. He brought it back to his hometown and with the time the symbol and its fame broaden largely the extend of his village: in 1968, the villagers continued to take care of the flame, in 1989 it was installed in Ueno.

  

one can find vending
machine for very various
products in the streets

   On the next day, I accompany my wife meeting one of her former school friend, and take my leaving from them after we  went to a café. It seems that café with French flair are trendy in Tokyo: there is competition among them in the way they create fancy over-priced cakes and labelled themselves with French sounding-like names which make no sense, such la Maison Ensoleillé Table. I part from them afterwards, and browse the streets around Yokohama station (since we were there) still trying to find some fancy phone straps. Thinking of the next tour coming ahead, I found practical to purchase some vacuum bags for packing, since we'll be traveling with back packs. I resist to the envy of going into a game zone, and prefer to replenish the stock of liquors at home in buying some shochu, which is a distilled drink and therefore different from sake which is fermented, and some beers. Although there is a large production of alcoholic beverages within the country, prices are relatively higher than in Germany because of higher tax policy on this range of products.

   I finally reach home, where my wife is already back, somehow worried that I came so late. Certainly she thought I would get lost in the meanwhile. And since my parents-in-law had also bought some beers earlier, we help ourselves in the evening. kampai.

“the super light and most
comfortable shoes in green fashion“

   A new week starts, sunnier and hotter. No program for today, just idling and going to Kawasaki, by foot. This time we take alternate path, and we end up walking on an indeed large street but right under the sun. I'm happy to reach the mall, we can rapidly cool down thanks to the overwhelming air-conditioned infrastructure. In one the of the hallway, a stand is presenting 'concept' shoes made of special plastic said to be 'ecological' (see their manifesto) Since the selling-lady is pretty customer-oriented and can also speak English, the three of us (my wife, her mother and myself) are being told about the product, and invited to test the shoes, which are somehow design in a modern way. Simple, light and open; they remind me of the Crocs model, but in slimmer. Well, casual, light and comfortable, in the end my mother-in-law and myself bought a pair each; if you meet me at office, I might wear them.

this is natto ... :p

   The next purchase highlight was more food oriented. Some craftsmen were selling their own production, and among them one is selling warabimochi, which is a kind of vegetable sugar jelly rolled into sweeten soybean flour, and that I like much. As in many food-shop, samples are available to taste, and the man is very happy to give me some and to ask me where I do come from and if I like other Japanese stuffs like nattō, which I do not, as many of other foreigners, since it is fermented soybeans that smell in a powerful way. The worst about natto, is that Japanese eat that already at breakfast! So we buy some warabimochi since I liked it much (and a lady close to me asked me first if I liked it before to buy for herself...) and the price was very attractive.

   Then we went back home to finish our backpacks. In the evening, we take the night train that will bring us to our next tour around 350km tot the west of Tokyo in the area of Iseshi, Kumano-kodo and Kyoto.