Tokyo Meanderings & Memories - July 19

More organizing, laundry, packing to see of we can still carry everything.  We can’t.  Have to buy another bag.  Glad we checked!  

Our meanderings this day took us through another lively shopping arcade between Okachimachi (our stop) and Ueno.   Ame Yoko (short for Ameya Yokocho) is rumored to have originally been a market place for sweets, hence the name Ame.  It was also one of the largest post-war black markets.  Now it’s a colorful discount shopping area where you can find clothes, accessories, shoes, seafood, vegetables & fruits, restaurants, etc.  It’s lively and full of sounds and smells.  Julia and I share a love of these places!

I found a couple of CD’s of a favorite singing group of mine when I was a teenager here in the 70’s.  They’re called Kaguya Hime and I’d lost the casette tape I had of them a couple of decades ago.  Is this ever a walk down memory lane for me!  Here are a couple of clips I found on YouTube of them in 1999/2000, looking considerably more “mature” than when I was listening to them, but the sound is still the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn1PoloP3XM&feature=related
And then this one’s cute because they just look so happy!  If I’m understanding the announcer correctly, they are playing together again after 21 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLAh-NbQKC0

The highlight of the day, though, was definitely going to see my dear old friends, Ruth & Paul.  We all went to high school together here in Tokyo.  They had a houseful with one son back from college for the summer, as well as a niece and nephew, but still welcomed us graciously and fed us sumptuously!  It's always heart warming to me how one can, with dear old friends such as these, pick up right where one left off even if it's been years.

We went through Shibuya station a couple of times that day.  On our first time through, I showed Julia the statue of Hachiko.  Hachiko was an Akita dog who became popular as a symbol of extreme loyalty.  He would come to Shibuya station to meet his owner every evening when he came home from work.  One day, the owner suffered a stroke and died, never to return.  The dog continued to come and wait for him at the end of the day for the remaining nine years of his life.  They built a statue in his honor just outside the station.

The second time we went though Shibuya was at the end of the evening.  At some of the major intersections in Tokyo, after the lights allow the traffic through in different directions, there’s a signal change that stops all motor traffic and allows all the pedestrians to cross in any direction at once.  It can feel a little like being in the ebb and flow of the tide when you’re caught in one of these during rush hour, but it’s fun to observe from above.  We stopped for a moment to do so on our way home.  Remember, this is 9:30 at night when the crowds have thinned out.