Tsukiji is huge. If you tried to walk down every aisle in the place it could take a week. So it’s no wonder that we never found the tuna auction on our first trip. The auction is tucked back and out of the way. To find it you will need a map. We made a beeline for it, with map in hand, as we came off the first train of the morning, and I’m glad we did. The above sign will let you know that you’ve found it. I was surprised that we weren’t first in line. I don’t know how the others got there before us, but the line quickly grew very long behind us.
Only a few people are let in at a time (and there have been occasions when the auctions have been banned to the public for viewing). If you arrive after 6 a.m. your odds of getting in are very slim indeed.
The freshly frozen tuna, with tails cut off, are lined up in row after row. Potential bidders are allowed the chance to poke around in the tuna’s cut off portion. They were diving in with all manner of poking devices to check for quality before bidding I suppose. Then, at just after 6 a.m., the bells started ringing and the auctions began in a flurry. I shot a 1 minute video of this scene below. The quality isn’t great as I was being jostled about by the other tourists. It wasn’t all that different from a rock concert.
First a little Japanese lesson for you. Bon Odori can be written in three ways in Japanese–ぼんおどり (all hiragana), 盆おどり (kanji and hiragana like the lanterns on my street pictured above), or 盆踊り (mostly kanji).
Bon (or o-bon) means the annual summer festival which celebrates or brings to mind the deceased. O-bon happens in both July and August, usually around the 15th of each month. In some parts of Japan it is only celebrated once, rather than in both months.
Odori simply means “dance.” Odoru is a verb meaning “to dance.” Put Bon and Odori together to get something that loosely means “dance of the dead.” Viewing a Bon Odori doesn’t conjure up visions of a dance of the dead however.
After the magic that was the first night’s dance I made sure my family came with on the second night, even though my daughter had already fallen asleep again. I brought her in a nearly comatose state so perhaps it was a dance of the dead after all. 😉
I think they really enjoyed it too, especially watching the little girls, all dressed up, trying to learn the dances from their mothers and grandmothers. The taiko drumming that accompanies the dance is fun to experience as well.
After each song an announcer thanks everyone for their participation and then introduces the following number. They probably did a dozen different songs, or more, each night. Each song has a different dance with which it is associated. Some of the participants were amazing in their ability to remember the steps and movements in each of the folk dances. I don’t think they ever do the bon dances outside of the night or two each year.
My wife and daughter were invited to join the dance, but they politely declined.
The songs remained in my dreams both nights, going through my head over and over again. Maybe we’ll still be around next year (in July anyway) to catch another Bon Odori or two.
This guy in the crowd with one arm up and a yellow wrist band messed up a large number of my shots. He was center, front and had both arms up high most of the night.
A few songs I was a bit surprised that didn’t make it into the setlist were Deliverance, Baying of the Hounds, and The Drapery Falls–all three of which Opeth played the three previous times I have seen them. I was really happy they did Demon of the Fall. The full setlist is in my prior entry.
Opeth members took a deep bow after the photo below. I have a picture of the deep bow too, but you can’t even see the band members in it as they bowed so low they were below the crowd.
At long last, I present for you the full video for The Lotus Eater from the Watershed CD. There are a couple of things worth mentioning before viewing.
The first is that the LX3 can take great video (even in poor lighting conditions by someone who is very tired and in a state of constant jostlement by those around him). I seriously doubt there is a camera, that can be easily brought into concerts, that can take better photographs and video. Be sure to set the LX3 to HD mode and 16:9 viewing. Also, don’t be afraid to zoom into the digital mode on an LX3. I believe the non-digital mode only goes to 2.5X. The video below is at about 5X and the results are pretty good. Since you can’t change the zoom once the video begins be sure to get to 5X (or something closer to the maximum of 10X if you are farther away) before starting the recording.
The second thing to note is Per Wiberg, the keyboardist, at around minute 3. He moves his microphone out of the way to prepare to headbang which I find very amusing.
This entry is for some of the slightly risque things we’ve encountered in Copenhagen. Don’t worry. There’s nothing to offend here–just a few things you probably won’t usually encounter in the states. I’m not going to include, for instance, pictures of the outside of strip clubs, which in Denmark include life-sized pictures of fully nude women.
First up is the tamest of all I suppose. In fact, it barely belongs in this entry. I include it only because I thought it was a bit funny.
My wife points to the above and says, “check that out” as we were walking down Stroget. I thought it was a nice scene so I took the above photograph. On closer inspection, however, we find the following:
The above caused me to recall the story about Tyco’s $2 million birthday party for the CEO’s wife which featured an ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s David spewing vodka from his penis and a birthday cake in the shape of a woman’s breasts with sparklers mounted on top.
Next up is a scene from Tivoli, a child’s amusement park, or so they say…
Not only can you visit bars in Tivoli (and there are a ton of them–something I’ve never seen in amusement parks in the states), but they have large tobacco stands selling all manner of cigarettes and pipe tobacco. The amount of smoking that goes on outdoors here is one of the few things I don’t like about Copenhagen.
Amusement parks are very popular in Japan, not only with the Japanese locals but also with foreign tourists. I really don’t understand the latter. For instance, why would an American going to Japan want to go to a more crowded, more expensive version of what they can already get at home (while in a country like Japan with so many things that are unique and foreign to normal experiences)?
I’ve never been to Tokyo Disneyland, and I hope it stays that way. I did go to Universal Studios Osaka and regretted it. However, when traveling with kids it can be difficult to avoid the amusement park trap; I mean trip. My suggestion is to avoid the ones everyone knows about and find something a little different.
Flashback to 1989… I was living in Tokorozawa, Japan. Nearly every night during the summer I was treated to a fireworks show from my apartment thanks to a nearby amusement park called Seibuenyuenchi (西武園ゆうえんち). I only went there once and my recollection was that there weren’t many rides. I remember animals there–especially a peacock. Either my memory is bad or things really changed at Seibuen Yuenchi between 1989 and 2007.
While surfing the net before going to Japan in 2007 I told my kids that I once went to an amusement park in Japan that now appears to have a Hello Kitty Marchen Town. They had to see it so we put it on the agenda. Plus, I wanted to check out my old Tokorozawa neighborhood which in my memory looked like scenes from Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ). (Miyazaki lives in Tokorozawa.)
Given that the cost of Seibuen Yuenchi is a small fraction of what you’ll pay at Universal Studios Japan or Tokyo Disneyland I was happy that if we were going to do an amusement park it would be this one.
Although most of the park consisted of your typical rides, this section of the park, for younger kids, is what I will share with you in pictures. Here my kids are heading off to the Hello Kitty Angel Coaster.
Hello Kitty and her friends were all over the place in this section of the park. I’m guessing that Sanrio Puroland (サンリオピューロランド) is like this on a much larger and much more expensive and crowded scale.
The above ride was like the Mad Tea Party ride at Disneyland except that you get to spin in Hello Kitty and her friends.
The above video is of my kids on the Hello Kitty Angel Coaster. We were the only foreigners in the park that day and it wasn’t very crowded, even though it was a holiday week.
If you want an inexpensive amusement park experience in Japan then Seibuen Yuenchi isn’t bad. Nearby is an indoor skiing facility called Sayama Ski Slope. To get there take the applicable Seibu line from Ikebukuro or Shinjuku. Coupons are sometimes available on the website linked above.
