henry's letters: Japan trip days 4 and 5 Studio Ghibli and Robot Restaurant

Day 4 Tuesday Sept 25 Tokyo

I spent most of the day at the neuropathology conference. I don’t have much to say about this. I think these academic conferences are, for a large part, a bit of a sham. Young people get to be noticed by the older power structure, and the older people get to schmooze on (usually) grant money. (In fact, I found out later that many of the high academic whiz-bangs had an after-conference conference in Hakone.) I didn’t think the quality of a lot of this conference was exceptionally high on the science scale - - a lot of case reports from local (Japanese) pathologists.

In any case, molecular diagnostics is playing an ever increasing role. Although we have some relatively clear correlations between genetic mutations, histologic (microscopic) appearance, and prognosis in adult primary brain tumors (gliomas, not metastases), this is not the case at all in pediatric brain tumors. There are a variety of low grade pediatric brain tumors (Long Term Epilepsy Related Tumors or LEATs) that have allegedly distinct histopathology, but do not correlate with any specific molecular signature (i.e. more than one type of ‘histologic diagnosis’ can share a similar molecular profile; likewise multiple different molecular subtypes can share a similar microscopic appearance). Luckily, these tumors are low grade and often the patients survive more than 15 years after diagnosis. Still, we would like to ascertain prognosis more accurately to decide if the patients need additional therapy (radiation and maybe chemo (if we can find a chemo that works)).

After the morning session, and a bento box lunch, I walked in the rain to the now somewhat familiar commercial area of Shinjuku looking for tabi socks and CDs of traditional Japanese music. I was unsuccessful after several hours of wandering. I went back to the conference for a few more hours. Meanwhile, Cindy tried to go to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, but discovered the usual day of closure had been moved to Tuesday due to the holiday weekend. She then went to the Samurai Museum, lunched at a coffee shop, and did some laundry.

It had been raining, sometimes heavily, on and off all day. We did not want to be stuck in a downpour, so for dinner we stayed near our hotel, and ended up in an udon restaurant that specialized in curry flavored broths. I ended up with ‘black’ curry, which although their second hottest, needed more pepper. Cindy had a sour tomato curry. We shared a shrimp fritter, and I had a mango lassi.

After dinner we turned on the TV. We have been disappointed, in that we have not found any anime on TV, nor have we seen any wacky game shows. The few dramas seem to be either dubbed American or Chinese. Most of the home grown shows have an MC, 3 or 4 panelists who are paid reactors (shown in little screen-in-screen boxes), and some protagonist doing something boring, while the heads in boxes nod their heads or frown. One side and the bottom of the screen often have Japanese writing going on simultaneous to the ‘action’. Over a couple of days, one of the stations was showing professorial types doing math with explanations.

Bento box lunch at conference

3500 yen = $35! (seen during my walk during lunch)

Black curry udon

sour tomato udon

super exciting Japanese tv

Day 5 Wednesday Sept 26 Tokyo – Studio Ghibli and Robot Restaurant

This morning we got up and activated our JR rail passes, and then took a 30 minute train ride due west of the city to Mitaka, home of the Studio Ghibli Museum. This houses the works of Hayao Miyazaki, often referred to as “Japan’s Walt Disney”. In short, he was a famous animator, and our family has enjoyed (many times over) many of his features. Our Google maps did its best to lose us on our straight forward walk from the train station, but we did get to the museum eventually. This is a prized ticket to get - - we had to order it several months in advance, and many Japanese we talked to expressed their desire to visit this museum themselves.

The museum is housed in a Gaudi-esque building in park-like surroundings. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside, so all you will see is pictures of the exterior. On entry, we were directed to the lowest level, where we saw a 20 minute animation that takes place in the world of Tortoro, cat busses and all. Next we went into a room filled with zoetropes, some antiques, others created by the Studio. Many of the exhibits are only 3 feet off the ground, making the adults crouch, but placed at the perfect viewing height for smaller humans. There were lots of gels, several rooms with reproductions of Miyazaki’s crowded office, and representations of his artwork. There was a special exhibition of how Miyazaki showed food, its preparation, and peoples’ enjoyment of it - - the Japanese are pretty interested in eating! Of course, after 2-3 hours we were almost done, except for a visit to the museum shop, where you could buy plush toys, pins, artwork, and more.

We ate an unmemorable lunch at the train station, and then back to Shinjuku. I went back to the conference to see the last of the poster sessions. Again, I wasn’t impressed with any scientific breakthroughs, most of the symposium were rehashed talks on stuff that has been percolating around for a few years (to be honest, I only went to the brain tumor talks; there may have been important new things in the dementia talks, but I doubt it). I shouldn’t complain too much about it, since the conference gave me the excuse to visit Japan.

Studio Ghibli

Totoro!

You can climb up here from the roof of the building

Robot on the roof

manhole cover

I had time to visit a bookstore near our hotel, and I was able (with Papago, a translation app on my phone), to pick up some CDs of (I hope) traditional Japanese music. We’ll see at the dojo if my random selection was any good. I also stopped in a sporting good’s store - - the strap on my satchel had broken, and I was able to buy a cheap carabiner to partially repair it. On the way there and back I had to wait at a train crossing, because the street went across one of the main Shinjuku station right of ways; a train spotters paradise. Then I picked up Cindy, and we went to the Robot Restaurant show.

We went to see this on Isaac’s recommendation “see the show, but don’t eat the food”, which was about right. We went to a sushi conveyor belt restaurant in advance for a snack, and then on to kabuchi-cho. We reconnoitered the venue, and then had a meal of curried rice, fried chicken and delicious gyoza (these were so much better than what you can get in the States everywhere we tried them).We had pre-paid for tickets, which is a good thing. Although there are three shows a day, the show only seats about 200 people, and is frequently sold out. Most of the audience was Westerners, but there were still many Asian faces (I don’t know if they were Japanese, Chinese, or what).

Once you get your will-call tickets, you take an elevator to the 3^rd floor, where there is a ‘robot’ band (most of the robots are actors dressed as robots) playing piano, drums and guitar. Everything is super shiny, glittering, lit up, and bright. I felt like a human pachinko ball. We got one of our included drinks (tequila and soda; it was awful), and after about 30 minutes were brought down the hallucinogenic, seizure-inducing stairs to the basement where we were separated into two banks of people around a long concrete corridor.

The show is in four acts, separated by intermissions where you can buy food (fried chicken, churros, popcorn), and drinks, and souvenirs. We did get an alcoholic orange-cassis drink in a can (I later learned this was probably considered a flavored chu-hai). We were sitting next to a man from Portland who claimed to be an executive for a company that built wind turbines, but he looked like Russian Mafia. He spent two weeks per month in Asia over the past two years. He was seated with a much younger Brazilian woman, and they did not appear to know each other very well, although he did buy her a split of champagne. Cindy speculated that she was hostess engaged by him for the evening.

The show is very hard to describe. The first act had drummers and dancers in fox and demon masks. The second act described some kind of war between humans and their biological guardians against evil mechanical robots. The third act had giant robots and dancers with light sticks on their clothing and lots of lasers. The fourth act was a mixture of Carnival, Las Vegas, and whatever. The whole thing was like being in the middle of some weird live action anime. The music was incredibly loud; I was glad to have taken up the offer of a pair of headphones prior to the beginning of the show. I would occasionally slip them off for a second or two, and could not believe the amount of noise. All of the dancers are headed to early auditory loss.

Anyway, although hard to describe, the show was absolutely amazing! Afterwards, we went back to the hotel in heavy rain. I was lucky to be with Cindy, because I got completely turned around, and who knows where I might have ended up.