Karaoke Competition

Went to Ueno park to see the museums and enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the park to stave off jet lag. The Tokyo National Museum was loads of fun, all kinds of great exhibits. The Buddhism special exhibit had a lot of great sculptures and paintings but little for English explanations. Bought some funny fish stuff and a drink from a convenience type store and had a picnic lunch in the park. Very peaceful except some bugs were biting me and I didn't realize it until too late. I'm screwed if I go to a country with malaria, my blood is just too sweet. ha. The weird thing about this place is that they have these umbrella lockers outside every building. They work just like a locker with a key and a little hole for the handle - these folks must have some fancy umbrellas!

That night they had set up lanterns and booths for a street carnival along the bank of the pond (full of turtles, koi, and flowering lily pads) at the NW end of the park. Lots of street vendors selling their wares and the Japanese version of carnie food. I heard music down by the pagoda and went to investigate, this iｓ where things got a little crazy...

Looking through the wrought iron fence, I could see five guys wearing tights. They looked Japanese but had painted their entire skin, except their ears - I thought they were some sort of indigenous acrobatic tribe at first. I had to get inside to see what this was about.

I took a seat at the back of the stadium style seating inside the pagoda. Could not tell what was happening at first, lots of singing and silly dancing, crazy costumes and terrible singing... It was a karaoke performance! Some random guy was handing out beers to the suits sitting next to me and he decided I needed a beer too. What a nice guy! He must have spotted me as the obvious stiff in the crowd and thought I needed a beer. He came back later and gave me another Asahi and a bento box of sushi! Turns out he was the VP of the Japan Travel Bureau of Tokyo and he was putting on this event! 14 sets of terrible karaoke singing later and we were friends. Well, a bit tipsy at least.

Not bad for the first full day in Tokyo, culture shock 0 : Japanese friendliness 1.