Tokyo April 14

We had an interesting conversation this evening about everyone's dinner last night. My coworker, Mike was rejected from a restaurant in Tokyo last night because he is Gaijin. Apparently, Sasamoto-San tried to take Mike to a very local dive, and they were asked not to come inside. Mike didn't even make it through the door. This lead to an interesting discussion tonight about lack Gaijin. Many of the members of my team are Gaijin, and it is very rare that someone is turned down in Tokyo today for being a foreigner. I am yet to be turned down, and I ate in a real hole in the wall last night. My Japanese sucks, so I know I can not pass as Japanese.

We had a few quakes today, but none of them made the building sway. The did make our Japanese Jolt Colas shake on the table. 

Aside from Mike's experience eating last night, I really felt like a Gaijin in the past 24 hours. My Japanese is nonexistent, but I am trying to pick things up as quickly as I can out of necessity. It is especially problematic to be on your own and try to order food. Even the picture places are difficult if the cashier does not speak English. I went on my morning exploration, and I figured I would grab breakfast on the go. I walked over the bridge to Fukagawa this morning and made my way to the Buddhist shrine. The shrine was not as close as it looked in the map the lady made for us, so it provided a lot of walking.

As with any ancient city, Tokyo was founded on two rivers, the Sumida and Tama with multiple smaller waterways nestled between the buildings. The IBM building sits on the Sumida river.I snapped a few shots of the building on my walk this morning.

Picture of IBM building from the opposing side of he Sunida

Picture of the front of the IBM office

The Sumida is a very clean river. The Japanese keep tokyo amazingly clean, including the rivers. When I walked across the Eitaibashi, I could see a the shore line dotted by blooming cherry blossoms.Although there is some blue in the picture I took below, the humidity keeps the sky a foggy white color all day.

Sunida River from the Eitaibashi

I worked my way down the street looking for the Buddhist temple and a place to eat. I really wanted to get something to go, but I've confirmed with Sasamoto-San that it is not the acceptable to walk and eat in Japan.Additionally, the area of Tokyo I am in has very few morning eating options. When I did find some places that served a morning meal, I could not read the menu. The Japanese pretty much eat the same thing for breakfast lunch and dinner. Getting a donut is not the Japanese thing to do, but I did break my pattern of eating straight Japanese food when I found a McDonalds that had a picture menu. It was the most difficult .sausage biscuit I have ever ordered. The cashier wanted to give me the combo meal. I just wanted a sausage biscuit. Eventually, she understood me and I gave her some Yen and went on my way.

Inserted random flower picture because I can

  After a few miles of walking, I found the side street leading to the temple. Although the temple was hidden down a small street, there was a Japanese gate marking it from the main road. As I proceeded down the road, I stopped by the Shinto Shrine right next to the Temple. Amazingly, here was a Buddha inside the Shinto Shrine. This is actually pretty common. In japan, it is said you are borned and married Shinto, but you die Buddhist. It is a culture of two religions.

Statue in the Shinto Shrine

 

Front of the Shinto shrine in Fukagawa

Someone was nice enough to make sure the statue is warm. They gave him a hat.The shrine also had a small well and a pretty decent sized main shrine. After making my short stop, I moved on to the Temple.

The temple grounds were very spacious, and the temple itself was enormous compared to the Shinto Shrines that I've been to. The monks were busy preparing  for the day when I arrived, and I began to snap some picture of the some things in the temple grounds.

I will have to say, I like these three dragons better than the dragon I found in the Shinto shrine on my first walk.  They had not turned them on yet, and the picture was difficult to take because I didn't want my shadow in it.

Smaller side temple on the Buddhist temple grounds

Front of Fukagawa Temple

I wish I had a lot of picture of the inside of the temple,  but I only have one... illegal picture I took. Yeah, I didn't know I couldn't take pictures within the temple or that I needed to take off my shoes since the monks were all wearing sandals. They invited me inside to see the temple, and I snapped a picture of one of the drums. One of the monks explained to me that I should not take pictures of the inside of the temple since a picture does not have a soul. I understood, and I would have complied if they would have put the no picture signs out. As soon as I began looking at the rest of the temple, I was informed I needed to take off my shoes. This was a little distressing since they didn't ask me to take them off when I entered. I took my shoes off and finished my rounds at the temple. On the way out, I helped the monk put out the no photography/no shoes sign... how ironic.

Only picture from the inside of the Fukanawa temple

The monks were very nice to me despite my cultural boo boos. They were very thankful I helped them get ready for the morning. I thought it was the least I could do.

When I arrived to work, I got to experience a Japanese protest. The IBM japan employees were protesting the PBC rating system and accusing IBM japan of deflating PBC ratings in a measure to cut expenses. They were also protesting the large amount of layoffs in Japan.

IBM Labor Protesters

Hopefully, there ill not be any International Trevathan incidents like... American spreads toe fungus after removing his shoes in Buddhist temple.


Proverb for the day

If you take a ton of crap, compress it and put it under an extreme amount of pressure... you can make diamonds. This is the theory of my project.