Day 40, Wednesday

I (Kate) was determined to be able to say I ate sushi at 7 am in Tokyo's fish market, so I headed down again, this time by myself and not as early. I walked through the stalls a little bit more and found a restaurant that looked inviting. I ordered up a bowl of sashimi from the picture menu and sat back, putting myself in the capable hands of these guys:
The fish was amazingly fresh, but I gotta say, I'm not so sure I like sushi in the morning. It was also my first taste of sea urchin, which was, um, interesting. The miso soup arrived and sat on the counter staring at me. It was really tasty, though, and no, I did not eat the shrimps' eyeballs.

Then I headed back to Ueno park and had some time to spare before the National Museum opened. I stopped at the Gojo shrine, which I reached by walking through a little tunnel of torii gates.
The shrine was full of statues of foxes, the messengers of Inari who the Japanese believe is the god of cereal grains. Ever since my bunraku performance (which featured a princess being possessed by foxes) I have noticed the fox featured frequently in temples, illustrations, and even television. Turns out foxes are traditionally viewed as sacred and mysterious. I read that the favorite way for a fox to possess a human is by entering underneath his or her fingernails. There you go!
The museum had three halls, but I only had time for one before I had to meet up with Joe, Archer and Malcolm. I took a whirlwind tour of Japanese art. Favorites were the woodblock prints.
We all met up in front of the zoo and did a "baby trade off." Joe went off to prepare for his talk in the evening, and the three of us headed in to see the giant panda. We had been excitedly talking about the giant panda for the past few days. I've never seen a panda bear before, so I was truly looking forward to seeing this cutest of cute animals. Doh! The panda is dead! While this is quite sad, it just seemed funny at the moment. Tokyo seemed to keep laughing at our plans. The zoo was great, though, and I thought Archer was going to lose his mind with happiness during one moment of ice cream and Thomas the Tank Engine-fueled ecstasy.

In the evening, I (Joe) gave my talk at University of Tokyo. (Y.'s colleague here organized it when we me at the conference in Kagoshima earlier in November.) It was great to again be able to talk about some new research in a relaxed atmosphere. Slightly more people attended this talk than the one at Kansai, which was nice as well, and there were tougher questions, which was also good to have. (The audience had a greater familiarity with English, which I think prompted this.) After the talk most of us went to dinner.

They also provided some travel funds and a monetary award for giving the talk--both completely unnecessary as I will talk to anyone who will listen, without charge. But the unusual thing that has happened several times now during the exchange of money is that you're expected to count the money given to you, right there. Every time I've been paid in Japan, the money has come in an envelope and the giver insists that I open it and actually count the money out in front of them to make sure the correct amount is there. Which makes me really uncomfortable. To me it's much more natural to just put the envelope in your briefcase and smile, trusting that the giver can count at least as well as you can. Ah well. They could ask me to count it while standing on one leg and I wouldn't complain!