Kitty in Tokyo キッテイは東京で

Frank’s mother is on a visit. All the way from Geldrop!


As there is a time difference of eight hours with the Netherlands, a sturdy jetlag is easy to get. First day bravely stay awake over a good coffee at Starbucks. It is packed again. Teenagers doing their homework.


Look, this really is a fine present.
A Rubik's cube in ball shape. With a world map in Japanese!


At home we rolled out the stretcher. Frank is checking all options. Like is it possible to watch telly when the couch gets crowded? Might do.


On a stroll we find wooden shoes and a frog, reminds us of the Netherlands, often nicknamed Frogland. Wooden shoes have floating capabilities ;-)

But then surprises again. Until what time is this information centre open? Really?

Roppongi Hills is an enormous project for living and working. In the Roppongi area developers bought all the separate lots and created a large project. The process of purchasing all the land took seventeen years. Today you see skyscrapers for living and working. The surrounding area is public space with shops and greenery.

There is even a Japanese garden.

National Museum in Ueno. It is a beautiful museum with a great collection. Here is one of the highlights.

The Fugaku Sanjûrokkei, also known as Thirty six views on Mount Fuji made by Katsushika Hokusai in 1831. The Big Wave at Kanagawa is one of them. An explanation from Wikipedia:

His best known work is The Big Wave at Kanagawa, in which a few tiny boats try to sail the giant waves. The biggest wave is very impressive and looks like a monster with claws. This wave shows the force of nature and as well the force of the rowing men in the boats. By the way it was not proven in Hokusai’s time that such waves really exist, but nowadays science is convinced of it. Such waves were also seen in Tokyo Bay, were Hokusai most likely located the event.
In the background is mount Fuji but Hokusai probably also depicted it in the upfront wave as it exactly matches the silhouette of mount Fuji from another viewpoint. The Big Wave has inspired many artist since, as well as cartoonists of political prints.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsushika_Hokusai

Outside again and time for a break. A man pops by for a chat in fluent English. Lasted half an hour altogether. Many “Today’s youngsters” and so on. While recently we read that Dutch children are the happiest in the world, ‘family’ is probably the biggest issue Japanese society is struggling with. We see commercials on the television suggesting parents to talk with their kids. The news shows images of classmates in tears when another teenager took his/her own life. The newspaper writes frequently about teenagers killing one or both parents.

This parent is taken care of properly. After this picture was taken she decided it might indeed be better to take of her winter coat... :-)

Tip of our teacher in Japanese: take the waterbus from Asakusa to Odaiba. Great tour of approximately one hour by which you can see Tokyo from the water. And that gives a different view indeed.

Between all that high rise such an antique lantern.

It was a beautiful day.