Today is Respect for the Aged Day. Once Japan was criticized for not having enough holidays. Now, with New Year's for winter celebrants, O-bon in the summer, Golden Week in the spring and an assortment of traditional and recently created special days in between (with Mondays off if they fall on Sunday), we have a wide selection. So get out and do something. If you are elderly, perhaps someone will get up and offer you his seat. There is even a festival you can go to, and if you are new to Tokyo, it will be a good introduction to Japan's old culture. There will be a parade of portable shrines throughout the neighborhood from around 1:30 p.m. until 3 or 4 p.m., and at night, bon dancing from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. Ana Hachiman is a five-minute walk from Waseda Station on the Tozai Line -- just follow the crowds along decorated streets. Tokyo's last streetcar line ends at Waseda. Ride to the other end of the line and you will pass through much of old Tokyo.

Recently, I wrote of Eloise Cunningham whose Music for Youth program has been introducing children to the classics since the postwar days. Cunningham will be celebrating her 100th birthday this year. She told me what a good country Japan is to grow old in -- there are so many programs and services to aid and entertain the elderly. She, however, is too busy helping young people appreciate good entertainment, a world beyond manga and video games. Take children to see the Saiga Ballet in a presentation of "Ivan and the Little Horse," based on an old Russian folk story Oct. 15, 10:30-11:30 a.m. at Jido Kaikan near Shibuya Station. The music was composed by Rodion Shchedrin, a leader among Russia's new generation of composers. Call (03) 3400-3386 10 a.m.-1 p.m. for an order form. Children's tickets are 2,000 yen, adult's, 3,000 yen.

Another institution for you to add to your list of places to visit is the Yokohama Archives of History. It is located on an historic site, where the first treaty of amity, the Treaty of Kanagawa, was signed in 1854 between the U.S. and Japan. The museum's extensive archives, with a wealth of information relating to the opening of Japan and the Port of Yokohama in the mid-19th century, are open to researchers. There are also exhibits from those early days that show us how people reacted to the changes.

Two years after signing the treaty, a 77-man mission arrived in the U.S. for a ratification ceremony. Imagine their wonder at their first view of the Western world after more than 200 years of isolation. Imagine the curiosity of the Americans seeing Japanese for the first time. A picture of the signing ceremony shows the Japanese in formal kimono and topknots, the Western representatives in dress clothes. I wonder if there are records of how the documents were signed. Did the Americans hand the Japanese a quill pen? They would have been as inept as Westerners are when they first try a signature with a brush.

Foreigners were soon a common sight in Yokohama and the museum has a number of books that include large sections in English depicting those early days. There is a large, three-volume set in French with an in-depth text and remarkable sketches of Japan from 1843 to 1905. The first volume deals with Japan's early internationalism, its wars with China and Russia. There is a prophetic photo of the young Crown Prince Hirohito on a white rocking horse. A scene from an early production of Othelo is set in a Japanese-style room, the players are in kimono. There are records of early experts who came to help modernize Japan, such as Henry Spencer Palmer, who brought waterworks to Yokohama and designed its first international port, and R.H. Brunton, who was known as the father of lighthouses. Here, too, is housed the extensive library of Paul C. Blum.

The current exhibit, on display until Oct. 31, shows the life of Yokohama residents during those early days. The Japanese, now better informed, were hoping to change the unfair treaties they had signed; the Westerners were learning the ways of the East. Look for the print of a Japanese lady dressed all in ruffles for the ball, her escort with a long pointy mustache in tails. Call (045) 201-2100 for directions and a map.