Tokyo Day 3

On day three I was woken up quite early by a rather pleasant surprise. My friend Jane from Liverpool University was finally finished visiting mount Fuji and asked if I wanted to join her and her mate Jonathan in exploring Tokyo. My own pans to summit Fuji had sadly been dashed by bad weather so I was more than happy to.

Jane also informed me that she’d heard that there would be a firework display somewhere tonight. Before heading to Shinagawa I asked about the display at the front desk, never thought I’d need to use the word “花火“ (firework) but well there you go. The clerk told me that it was one of the biggest of the year and pointed out where it would be on the map. It sounded good and was something to look forward to later.

 

After telling my parents where I was off to I started the journey to Shinagawa. It was actually a bit of a pain to get to. Whilst it is well serviced by the JR lines it is nowhere near the underground stations. Never mind I’m learning to love trains now.

Shinigawa was a pretty imposing place. It had recently undergone a regeneration and so was filled with giant skyscrapers, looming down on me from all sides. I headed over to the hotel Jane had told me she was staying at.

What she’d failed to mention was that it was a giant complex, with over 30 floors and multiple towers. In fact it also contained a cinema, an aquarium and even an indoor rollercoaster. I think the Japanese believe in go big or go home.I basically went the wrong way, ended up on the wrong side of the building in the really posh area. After a lot of confusion I managed to get to the hotel lobby where Jane and Jonathan were waiting.

It was really nice to be with some people my own age again and very nice to be chatting with some people from home. It sounded like they had been having a good time so far, although they hadn’t seen much up Fuji, confirming my fears that I wouldn’t be going up.

After a brief chat about where to go we settled on heading for Shibuya, I wanted to go back anyway and the guys were interested in trying to see some of the quirky clothing. We had a few hiccup trying to get train tickets, I’ve had an Icoca card so long now I’d totally forgotten, but were soon on our way.

Shibuya was just as sprawling during the day as it had been last night. In fact there seemed to be some sort of rally on the go though I’ve no idea what it was all about. We checked out the two 109 buildings which are the homes of all the quirky fashion shops. It was a good laugh to be honest some of the brand names and slogans where hilarious ‘engrish’.

Admittedly there is only so long that this can entertain and soon tiring of it we moved on to Akihabara, back to electric city. Wandering with no real purpose just sucks up time with not much gain though. Whilst I was happy to be with a friend I did want to see other things also.

I Showed them round one of the massive arcades, that are pretty much everywhere in Japan, and pointed out a few of my favouites. Jane I think wanted to see if anyone was playing ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ but I couldn’t find any of the machines. She rightly pointed out that Akihabara seemed to have a major male bias.

About an hour later Jonathan and Jane needed to leave to check into their hotel rooms. I opted to stay in Akihabara a little longer, I wanted to find an electronic dictionary. Talking to a few clerks though I was a bit disappointed, they seemed to all be in Japanese and incredibly expensive, not really worth it.

I had planned to see a bit more of Akihabara, there is a lot more to Akihabara than I managed to see but I just ran out of time. I needed to get back to the hotel to meet my parents before we went to see the fireworks. On the way back I stopped of briefly at the Gundam café. That's right a Gundam themed café where all the meals are inspired by the series. I bought a Gundam “taiyaki”, shaped like a mech rather than a fish and very tasty.

 

Rendezvousing with the rentals I jumped in the shower quickly before heading back out towards the location of te firework display. I was really looking forward to this. Apparently they would be setting off 10,000 and it sounded pretty exciting.

As we ot closer it looked as though all of Tokyo were coming as well. The trains were rammed as where the streets. There were people camped out everywhere, it looked like they had been there all day, grabbing the best spots. We headed towards the baseball stadium, there seemed to be something going on in there but as it was over 4000yen for a ticket we decided against it.

The fireworks were pretty impressive however we had to constantly battle not only the security but also the waves of people jostling from side to side. In the end this plus the heat of the night just got a bit too much for my Mum and Dad and so we headed back to Ningyocho. I said goodbye to Jane and Jonathan, agreeing to meet up again tomorrow, whom also headed back to their hotel.

Ningyocho was pretty dead, I guess everyone else was at the fireworks. The upshot is that we had a pick of the resteraunts. We went to the resteraunt nextdoor to the hotel which turened out to be a “すきやき“

 (sukiyaki) resteraunt. Essentially you are iven a mini gas BBQ, some slices of meat and vegetables and you grill your own dinner.

What was really unusual is that this place was serving lamb, something I’ve not come across in my time here. Very lovely, although my Dad joked it was a bit of a rip off since we were cooking everything ourselves. The waitress was alo very entertaining and I even managed a short conversation. The whole holidy has actually proved to be pretty good practice.

Ja mata minna-san.

Tokyo Day 2

So at 5am we arose from our beds to head towards the Tsukiji fish market, I said it was an early start didn’t I. My mum had read about it somewhere on the Internet and was intent to go. I won’t lie I was knackered and almost didn’t bother, but then when would I have another chance, so off we trundled.

Tsukiji was only a few stops away from Ningyocho by the underground and there were a rather surprising number of people already up and about. I guess Tokyo really doesn’t sleep, or if it does it only gets a couple of hours. Either they have an exceptional work ethic or they are chronic insomniacs.

The exit of the train station was right up alongside a rather large and very impressive Buddhist temple. I can’t remember what it was called, you’ve seen one temple you’ve seen them all,  but there were many large banners being set up for some sort of festival. I noted the dates but it would have been after we had left sadly.

Onwards to the fish market anyway. As we got closer the streets started to become much busier, it seemed many people whom we had seen on the tain were headed in the same direction. There were all manner of motorized carts hauling produce down the road.

We entered through the main gate dodging around many trucks, motorized carts and middle aged Japanese mean hauling large freezer boxes from place to place. My mum had been banging on about some kind of fish auction but it seemed as though it was already over. Still the place was a hive of activity and, with a few close calls, we made our way to the main hall.

 

Surprisingly the smells of fish where not as overpowering as I was expecting in fact it the air was pretty clear, barring the ever present buzz of activity. People were scurrying all over the place unpacking all manner of things from the earlier purchased freezer boxes.

The broad variety of fish on off was truly staggering. The usual like salmon tuna and squid where of course in attendance. However there were some other much more obscure marine denizens on offer. There were many sea urchin, I advise never trying these, giant squid, huge crabs and by valves, eel and what I’m pretty sure where slabs of whale meat.

We wandered around taking a few snaps before being collared by a security guard. Apparently we weren’t allowed into the main market and there was a designated tourist area that would open from about 9AM. Whoops. We quickly scampered back outside.

Upon exiting the market I found a sign with some guidance for visitors and we had broken pretty much every rule we could have, sadly we did not have a baby in tow or we could of broken all of them. We also discovered that there was a designated tourist area for viewing the auctions but they occurred around the other side of the market and they were long over.

 

Never mind we had seen something that very few visitors get to, sometimes it’s alright to flagrantly disregard (that ones for you Arnaud) some rules. In fact I’ve later found out that the market used to be much more open but they tightened up security following an American tourist whom insisted on touching everything. Bloomin Americans always spoiling it for everyone.

So with no desire to head back for the 9am tourist fest I went back to bed for a few hours I’d only managed to get about 4 hours that night. My parents wanted to check out a bit more of Tsukiji and we agreed to meet up a little bit later. We had agreed to head to Shibuya, fashion capital of Tokyo and the place that had been top of my list to visit, for predominantly geeky reasons.

We started our journey through the very lovely and trendy Omotesando.  A quick wiki has revealed the name means “frontal approach” and refers to the fact it leads toward the meiji shrine, more on that later. In reality Omotesando is an exquisite boulevard with all of the top worldwide fashion brands lining it’s streets.

The atmosphere was really chilled with all the trendies sauntering along at a leisurely pace from shop to shop. We stopped in a mall called Omotesando hills that was an awesome example of the quirky architecture on display in the area. We had lunch at a place called Kurruku 3, which was the nicest zaru soba I’ve eaten so far.

Moving down the road we came to the end of Omotesando and into Takeshita Street. This is another famous shopping district within the Shibuya area. The street was ram packed with people and had many interesting and bizarre fashion boutiques. I dawdled along taking in all the weird sounds and also bought myself a new hat. One of my favorites was definitely the  ‘fireman-sheik’ shop.

Sadly I was taking far to long, I really need a watch, and my poor sense of time meant I once again left my parents waiting. They were pretty hot and bothered and stopped in an ice cream shop at the entrance to Yoyogi Park whilst I wandered ahead to check out the Meji shrine.

Now my dad had said many times ‘you’ve seen one shrine you’ve seen them all’, and whilst I mostly agree I was pretty impressed with this one. The “明治神宮“ (meiji jingo) is dedicated to the emperor Meiji and his wife and is very befitting of an emperor. It lacks many of the vibrant reds that seem to predominate Shinto shrines but I think it’s understatement provides it’s beauty.

I pad my respects in front of the shrine and also purchased a charm for my parents, it was supposed to bring happiness to couples. I said it would hopefully bring them luck to stop them killing each other, to which they quickly responded that it was my life that was in danger since I was always keeping them waiting. It was a fair cop I’m pretty doo lally when it comes to time.

With the Japanese daytime heat beginning to peak the rentals were at their limit and opted to head back to the hotel. I decided to stay out and press on towards the centre of Shibuya. First stop on the way however was the NHK studios.

Shortly after leaving my parents my phone battery died, again, I always seem to forget to charge it. I was pretty gutted to be honest, it was my main means of taking photo’s, which is probably the cause of my rapidly draining batteries, and my main goal in Shibuya was to get picks of the quirky fashions.

Upon approaching the NHK studios my despair deepened. On the way up I’d noticed a few cosplayers and wasn’t sure if  it was just a normal thing or not. It wasn’t. I can only guess there was an anime convention on because the whole are was full of young adults in costume. Absolutely amazing and no pics to show for it, damnations.

I left pretty quickly since I couldn’t actually enter the NHK building and I couldn’t take pictures. It actually wasn’t far to go till central Shibuya actually. On the way I happened upon a small contemporary art studio. It was interesting although as the explanations were all in Japanese I can only guess at the meanings. Next I stopped off in a large “book-off” (best second hand book and music store name ever) and finally got my mitts on some J-rock CDs.

Central Shibuya is loud, bright and crowded. Totally crazy and I was loving it. Once I got to scramble crossing I began my computer game pilgrimage. I’d played a game a while back set in Shibuya and I wanted to see how many of the sites in the game really existed.

Remarkably quite a lot of them do and I had a little geek out. I was particularly happy to check out the statue of Hachiko. This is a statue dedicated to a dog that is a bit of an Icon in Japan due to his remarkable loyalty. Apparently a professor of agriculture took him in and Hachiko would wait for him everyday outside of Shibuya station. In fact he waited for him even long after his death, for nine years in fact until he finally passed away.

So after checking out a few sites I purchased a battery powered phone charger and called the rents. We agreed to eat separately that night, as I wanted to stay in Shibuya a bit longer. I found a really nice teishoku restaurant but sadly everything on the menu contained milk, go figure, I went next-door to a resteraunt called “niniku” (garlic) something or other. I got another very tasty Bibinbap, very garlicy unsurprisingly.

I wandered around a bit more but places were starting to close and I didn't want to risk missing the train. I really enjoyed Shibuya, I definitely needed to go back during the day for a better look around.

Mata ne

 (again a lot of credit to my dad for his fantastically fishy photo's)