My family and I went on one of our approximately annual trips to Tokyo yesterday, and this young lady was the highlight. There are two pandas in Ueno Zoo at the moment – youngsters whose parents were shipped back to their home country not long ago – with a separate queue for each, and having arrived at the zoo about 15 minutes after it opened, we only had to wait for about 40 minutes to see Lei Lei. The weather was pleasantly warm and she could just about be seen chomping on a plentiful supply of bamboo even before we had reached the front of the queue. We then had a good two or three minutes to press our smartphones against the glass of her enclosure before being moved on to make way for the next wave of visitors. This being the capital and currently full of more foreign tourists than at any time in Japan’s history (post-COVID/weak yen), I even managed to buy a proper vegetarian (although not quite vegan – there was some mayonnaise on the salad) treat for my own lunch in one of the zoo’s cafeterias.
A first for the kids outside of school trips, we went by bus this time, and this was driver’s frankly jumbo jet-like control centre.
This was the more user-friendly control centre at the 7-Eleven where we bought our homeward-bound evening meal. With no less than eight extra-high-power microwaves for customer use, clearly this part of Tokyo Station has a very high turnover during commuter rush hours (the 7-Eleven was practically empty at 4 p.m., and another only-in-Tokyo/not-in-Ibaraki moment was the South Asian chap who served me at the till).
This is why there is still a demand for human translators…
And this is the appealing abstract artwork that being shut inside M Jr.’s rucksack for the afternoon and rubbed by the other bits and pieces there created on her e-notepad thingy.
This food truck in Ueno Park is running out of 100 yen coins. All the time. Because if it wasn’t, why would they have permanently taped this laminated sign to the window to tell their customers?
You’ve heard (and wondered at the pointlessness) of bottled cold water, right? Well, this is bottled hot water. Probably very nice in the dry air of a winter’s day if you’re already losing your voice from talking too much at work, but let’s face it, an equally pointless waste of resources. (Incidentally, between them, the two drinks machines in the waiting area at Tokyo Station Yaesu South Exit bus terminal contained an incredible ten different types of tea: green, milk, black bean, lemon, barley, corn, juroku, brown rice, and two more that I can no longer make out in the photo that I took.)
Finally, here’s what happens to your step count when you spend time in a big city (and bear in mind this was on a day when we spent the best part of six hours sitting on a bus).
