Japantown

Oh man, things are getting stressful at school. In order to kill some time here are some pictures I've taken over the past month. I went to Japantown (in downtown San Jose) for lunch over the past weekend, so that was something. Great weather too, with cool wind and sun all around. The Japantown in San Jose apparently has strong historical roots, since many benches had short historical stories inscribed on them.

There were actually a number of Ukelele stores around town, so it must be a decent business

While walking around I noticed something. This painted-over electrical box had a red, one-eyed mustache man on its cover.

Later on, I saw the same image, but this time through the shop window of a pottery shop

After typing "one-eyed red japanese mustache man" on Google, I found out that this is a Daruma doll--commonly found in Japan as a token of good luck. It was really a coincidence that I took a picture of the electrical box (I thought it looked cool) and found it again later. To think: had I not taken that picture I wouldn't have known what a Daruma doll was.

Here's a look at a 4 way intersection in Japantown. As you can see, not really busy; no traffic lights, and only a few people out, even during the afternoon. I haven't been to Japan, but this image feels nothing like the kind of Asia I've lived in. 

According to Wikipedia, Tianmu, the place I lived in Taiwan (see my earlier posts) is also a Japantown. Not surprising given the fact that there was an international Japanese school right in the area, but I had no idea. Also this would explain why sometimes waiters/waitresses would try to speak to us in Japanese when they found out our Chinese was pretty bad.

This isn't my picture (it's also from Wikipedia), but check this out for a comparison of Japantown, San Jose and "Japantown" of Tianmu Plaza

I get some heavy nostalgia just from looking at this picture.

Alternatively, here are pictures of Tianmu that I took (they aren't too great)

My justification for the lopsided image: I wasn't able to look at pictures after I took a photo since it was so bright out. I just snapped a pic, heard that click noise, and moved on.

I'll be honest, there were some less flattering parts of Japantown (most notably the empty parking lot surrounded by a worn looking chain link fence) but I didn't take a picture. Maybe I should try to highlight these areas instead of hide them.

Until next time, later!