Ueno, Asakusa, Kitchen Town, depachika

Subway stations have signs that implicitly tell you not to give up hope, as they display the distance you still have to go, e.g. Chiyoda Line 240m. I like that the maps gray out the part of the line that you cannot get to from a particular side of the platform, and that the stations are numbered and indicate how many minutes away they are. Small things but very useful.

It's raining again on Friday. I dropped by a Lawson's drug store this morning to try and get a ticket to go to the Ghibli Museum on the weekend. A clerk helped me use the Loppi terminal but we discovered they were all sold out for Saturday and Sunday. They're not exaggerating when they say you should buy tickets weeks in advance.

First stop today was Ueno Park which houses a zoo and a lot of cultural buildings like art galleries and museums. I loosely followed the Lonely Planet writeup and went to the pond, some shrines and a peace memorial, before seeking shelter in the National Museum of Western Art. A worthwhile visit, lots of minor Impressionist and Renaissance paintings, a bunch of castings of Rodin sculptures and a wing of modern art. This was my favourite.

Back at Ueno Station, I explored the Ameyayokocho shopping area which seemed to grow out of the elevated railway tracks. Every vendor yells out what I assume are special deals or enticing banter to get you to buy something. It's very noisy.

Back on the subway to get to Asakusa station where I walked up Nakamise-dori to get to Sensoji and wandered around some of the shrines. From there, I used Lonely Planet Tokyo again which described a walking tour of the Shitamachi area. I was also excited about seeing the Chingodo-ji with the sculptures of raccoon dogs with giant testicles. The real thing was very low key though. However, it gave me an excuse to have lunch at nearby Daikokuya, a tendon (tempura and rice) restaurant recommended in the book.

I skipped the detour to Rokku and went straight down to Kaminarimon-dori where I spent an hour at the Drum Museum. It's basically a very big room with exhibits of drums and percussion instruments from around the world. Eerily quiet, as I was the only one there (they had to turn the light on for me) gingerly banging away on what looked like very old animal skins.

From there, I went up and down Kappabashi-dori checking out stores of "Kitchen Town" which is filled with restaurant supply outlets. Lots of baking items like cake decorating supplies, cake rings and tart molds and I even picked up a German cane brotform. You can buy raw ingredients like miso, pickles, chocolate and wheat flours. You can buy square turquoise glass plates, disposable chopsticks and lidded takeout containers. You can buy neon signs, sandwich boards and deep fryers. You can even buy "do not eat" packets of dessicant.

For dinner, I went to the main branch of Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi and was awestruck by the depachika (department store food hall). Stalls had everything from freshly made gyoza to French chocolates to kimchee to bento boxes to ultra-expensive gift boxes of fruit (thousands of yen for a canteloupe). So much choice, but my ankles are getting weak. I picked up this box for dinner.

Tried to get to bed early tonight, but I discovered the wireless Internet in the lobby.