Ueno

After the symposium ends, I go back to my hotel to wait for my brother to call. I am enjoying my nap when his call comes. We meet inside a subway station (to avoid paying for two trips) and proceed to Ueno. We find a restaurant serving teppanyaki. Diners take off their shoes and sit on a tatami mat. On low tables are gas-fired iron plates (teppan). Different kinds of food are fried on this plate, most commonly some kind of omelette mix, meat or or sea food. We, or rather my brother, strikes up a conversation with the young couple at the adjoining plate. Her headgear is a bit like Boy George and she is so slight that one wonders if she might get blown away in a strong wind.

I accompany my brother back to his hotel, the Yayoi Kaikan. It is a business hotel. These hotels provide a minimum of services for substantially lower prices than vacation hotels. The room is twice as wide as the single bed within and perhaps only about 5 or 6 metres long. In one corner is a bathroom unit which looks prefabricated and plonked into the corner of the room. For this room one pays about 5500 yen per night. Compare this to the 15000 yen I am paying for the Holiday Inn room. There is a vacancy, so tomorrow night I'll be moving here because I'm paying for my own expenses Thursday.