2 posts tagged “tokyo”

The best part of going up to the observation deck was the computers they had facing each cardinal direction.  It was this huge touch screen that had some of the major buildings highlighted, night view, time lapse view, clear weather view, in addition to an "address finder" which would point to directions on the horizon of other places in Japan.  This view is from the South West. 

Afterwards we went to Tamachi, the site of Keio University, for dinner.  It was rather late so we just ended up going to an izakaya.  Being a school night, there weren't that many students to see either.  A little disappointing.  We walked past Shiba Park that has a huge temple complex in it - yet another thing I'd like to go back and see in the day light.

Next month is going to be an exciting one.  It's my birthday, Arashi's new single comes out the day after my birthday, I'm supposed to go skiiing with teachers from work (we'll see) and Ohno from Arashi's art exhibition is at the end of the month.  I wish I could just take a day off work, go downtown and just spend the day being all cultured, exploring some of the temples and walking around Roppongi and Omotesando before going to show.  Too bad.  I think I'm looking forward to that the most.  It's been so long since I went to an artshow.  And it's kind of inspiring; he's only five years older than me and is putting on his own show.  Not to mention, he's extremely talented.  I'll go down one day after work and avoid the weekend crowds.

I'm supposed to head down to Shin-Matsudo tonight for dinner with Nikki and Amanda.  I'm tempted to have a nap while I wait for their email...

Yesterday was Nikki and my first Tuesday adventure: walking around the Yamanote Line in Tokyo!  The Yamanote Sen (otherwise known as the Lime Green Line) is one of the life bloods of Tokyo.  It circumnavigates all the goodies that any visitor to Tokyo could wish to see, connecting all of the major city centres, and brings you right back to where you began.

We trained out from Abiko around noon to Ueno Station to begin our tour.  Ueno is the start of the Joban line (our local JR line), and various other suburban lines.  Adjacent to the station is Ueno Park and a number of museums and art galleries.  Between Ueno Station and Okachimachi is Ameyoko.  Ameyoko stands for "Ameya Yokocho" (candy store alley), as candies were traditionally sold here. "Ame" also stands for "America", because a lot of American products were available on the black market.  This was the site of the black market in the Post WW2 era, and still remains largely unchanged.  There is an open-air market where you can get fresh seafood and other sundries, or a new pair of your favourite sneaks at a shoe store.  We saw some really interesting things in the market, and smelled some not-so-pleasant smells of fish as we walked through the crowded streets.  I was reading in one of our many guides on Tokyo that there is a section of Ameyoko that specializes in Korean food, but we didn't find it.
I had gone past Okachimachi on the train several times, but never knew what we could find there.  Okachimachi is the start of Ameyoko but also where you can find lots of jewelry stores.  We saw a monk outside of the station and Nikki took a sneaky picture from across the intersection.  He wasn't talking to anyone but was just holding a bowl and praying.  I kind of wanted to give him some coins but I didn't know if that was the correct protocol.  I know that Buddhist monks in Thailand aren't allowed to touch women,  but  I'm not sure if there is the same rules in Japan.  There wasn't much to see in Okachimachi, except for some pretty bad Engrish on the sign of a jeweler, so we just followed the train tracks further south to Akihabara.

Akihabara, or Akiba for short, is the electronics district of Tokyo.  Recently, Akiba has become synonymous with manga, anime and gamer culture, or otherwise otaku culture.  It didn't really strike me as such, like I thought it would, but we didn't delve too far into Akihabara.  We stopped outside the Yodobashi Camera mall to take a picture, right outside the station, and listen to a street musician.  We couldn't tell if she was singing in English or not, but her friend (we assume) gave us a flyer with a website and offered her CD for us to buy.  We wandered around the outskirts of Akihabara for a while, working our way further south.  I really wanted to see some manga cafes or maid cafes that I'd heard about, but alas we didn't.  "Otaku" kind of have a negative reputation so they probably wouldn't be where everyone could just walk past and look.  Well, maybe not negative exactly, but you are definitely not thought of as a well-adjusted, functioning individual in society.  I have been window shopping for a new camera for sometime, so I will head back to Akiba when I get paid and make a day of it with a trip to a cafe.  Maybe when Yvonne comes to visit...  She might have some suggestions of where to go!  (Side note: Nikki brought her camera so I actually have some decent pictures instead of my little dinky camera phone.  Are you happy, Jon?)

As we left Akihabara we began looking for some kaiten sushi for lunch (conveyor belt sushi restaurant) but they were getting scarce.  We entered the Chuo (Central) Ward of Tokyo, the financial seat of the city.  I had watched this show recently in which teams of 2 had to race around Tokyo finding buildings using an Edo period map.  It was really interesting learning about some of the history of Tokyo and I got really excited when I saw the sign for Mitsukoshi because I knew where I was.  I was telling Nikki what I could remember from the show, being the smarty-pants tour guide, but it was so surreal!  Like, I can really believe that I am in Japan now.  Anyway!  We were approaching the centre of Tokyo where Mistukoshi Department Store, among many others, and the major banking centre of Tokyo was.  I wanted to go see the Bank of Japan because its supposed to be built to look like the kanji en 円, the word Yen.  You can only see it from above, but it would still have been cool.  But it was a little out of our way, so I didn't drag Nikki there.  We did go into Mitsukoshi however to see what it was like, and also cool off in the air conditioning.  For those in Vancouver, Mitsukoshi is like Holt Renfrew.  It sells all designer brands and the major clientèle is upper crust housewives and rich senior citizens.  We saw a couple buying a cane and I hesitate to wonder how much it cost.  In the middle of the main floor is a giant statue of, what I can only guess is, the goddess Kannon.  It must have been 2 stories high, in the middle of the atrium.  Too bad there wasn't a plaque in English, I would have really liked to learn more about it.  We could have tried to ask some staff, but I doubt that they deal with touristy Western customers much.  I didn't really want to talk to anyone in case they asked us to leave because we clearly did not belong there in our sweaty states.  Mistukoshi was founded in 1673 under the shop name "Echigoya", after the Japanese province, by Mitsui Takatoshi.  They were the first to set up a stationary shop, as opposed to going door-to-door, where customers came to purchase goods with cash.  People would shop, and settle their accounts at the end of the year in cash. Echigoya was also popular for selling umbrellas, which became a sort of status symbol in Edo, at the time, and also the first to use price tags.  There is a famous ukiyo e (woodblock print) of Nihonbashi, during the time of Echigoya by Hiroshige.  If you were to look down the street, you would be able to see Fuji-san in the distance.  Unfortunately, the city has changed so much in the last 300 years that all you can see now is buildings.

Our next stop on the tour was Nihonbashi, or the Bridge of Japan.  The area where Mitsukoshi, the Bank of Japan, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange are located is called Nihonbashi, but there is an actual bridge where the name came from.  Nihonbashi was the jouka machi, or castle town, that served as a meeting place for merchants and travelers from all over Japan in the Edo period.  Not only is Nihonbashi the centre of economics in Japan, but also the centre of Japan on all maps as well!  We saw the "Zero Mile Stone" that is the starting point of the five major roads of Edo, and by which all distances are measured.  Distances on highway signs to Tokyo actually state how many kilometres it is to Nihobanshi.  Originally a simple wooden bridge, the current bridge that stands today was built in 1911 in the Renaissance style, but the "Nihonbashi" on the plaques on the bridge were handwritten by the last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, in the 15th century.  The overpass was built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, further obscuring the view of Fuji-san.  Apparently, according to Wikipedia which is the paragon of all information, citizens have petitioned to move the expressway underground, but that would cost over 4 billion USD.

Continuing our walk around Tokyo, and by this point hunt for lunch, we turned our course towards Ginza.  Ginza, named after the silver-coin mint that was in the area during the Edo period, is the notorious upscale shopping district with countless boutiques, department stores, art galleries, restaurants and cafes.  Apparently, Ginza is the most expensive real estate in Japan: one square meter of land in the district's center is worth more than ten million yen (more than 100,000 dollars).  We passed a map store that was selling old Edo maps (further reminding me of that show) but they were about 30$.  I really wanted to buy one, but I would probably be able to find them cheaper anywhere outside of Ginza.  We passed Louis Vitton, Chanel, Gucci, to name a few.  I actually wanted to see the Prada store because its supposed to have real cool architecture, but we couldn't find it.  We stopped at a coffee shop to refuel and recharge before sauntering down the expensive Chuo-dori Ave.  I almost felt like I was too poor to even be walking on the sidewalk in Ginza!  We didn't even tempt ourselves by going into any shops; it would have been like going into Holt Renfrew in Vancouver where the sales ladies look at you like a piece of dirt that came in off the street.  Definitely too rich for our blood.  Ginza is home to one of the famous Kabuki theatres but we didn't see that either.  I also found out that Ginza is where the all-female theatre troupe perform.  Maybe that will be another thing to do with Yvonne when she visits, since we read about them in our seminar!  As we wound our way out of Ginza, we saw the Yurakucho Center Building where the Asahi-Shimbun, one of the leading newspapers in Japan, is published.  We kept on our Westward course, and passed the Imperial palace!


We couldn't actually see the Palace, but we could see part of the grounds surrounded by the moat in the middle of thecity.  I was a bit disappointed that we couldn't seeanything, but I guess that makes sense.  Don't want to make the Imperial family easy targets.  It was a nice place to stroll, we saw some families and joggers.  It is a bit strange though, having a moat in the middle of the city, but I guess it dates back to the Edo period, as does everything cool and historic in Tokyo.  The residence of the Imperial family is built on the former site of Edo Castle, the seat of the Tokugawa Shogunate from 1603 to 1867.   After the Shogunate was overthrown in 1868, the Imperial capital was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, and a new palace was constructed.  The palace was destroyed during World War II, and was rebuilt in the same style. The gardens are usually open to the public but the palace is not.  However, twice a year people are able to go into the inner grounds and see the Imperial family and pay their respects.  I just submitted an application for a tour of the grounds, for September 18th.  Providing nothing dire happens, or some Palace obligations crop up, Nikki and I will be able to go see the palace grounds that day.  Unfortunately, the East Gardens are only open before pay day, so we won't get to see them.  If the gate house at Sakuramon Gate is anything like the rest of the buildings, I can guess what the Palace looks like.

A short jaunt up the hill is the National Diet Building.  We had ended up in the parliamentary district of Tokyo so everywhere we turned was some kind of government branch building.  It wasn't super interesting, but there was this sign at the intersection right across from the Palace grounds: a counter of how many deaths there have been recently.  I had seen a little counter like this in Shinjuku at a Koban (police box) but didn't think that there would be something so big and obvious.  Maybe there used to be a huge number of casualties here and this sign reminds people to drive safely.  Currently, the count is at zero.  The Diet wasn't that interesting; there's a library next door but we didn't go check it out.  We couldn't read anything anyway.  Security was pretty tight.  Not only did they have sliding gates, but also electronic blockades in front of the gate that raised and lowered at the touch of a button to prevent cars from driving in.  That was the coolest part!   We helped out a mom and her 2 kids by taking a picture of all of them in front of the sign, but didn't take any ourselves.  We were running on a tight schedule - we were heading to the Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku and had to be there by 5pm to catch the amazing view of the city.

In our new bible, "Tokyo for Free", it said that there was a free observation deck on the 45th floor of the Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku.  The last elevator up was at 5pm, so we left the Diet building around 4pm so we could have enough time to find it, but not before exercising our stellar Japanese skills with the security guards: "駅はどこですか?" Eki wa doko desu ka? "Where is the station?"  We hopped on the subway to Shinjuku and set off to find this building with the view.  I has asked some of my students where I should go in Tokyo and one of them actually told me about this place as well.  Tokyo Tower has an observation deck in the middle, but like any tower, you have to pay to go up.  However, our book was out of date: only the South Observatory closes at 5:30pm, the North one is open until 11pm so you can take in the night view as well.  That'll definitely be a place to go back to since we went during the day, and it was actually quite a smoggy day.  There were pictures and signs pointing out landmarks but some of them you could only guess at where they actually were.
I think Fujisan is in the distance in the 3rd picture, but I don't remember.  It's just amazing... the buildings just keep going and going and going... and the city isn't on a grid system at all.  All the buildings are just crammed up against one another.  It's pretty amazing.  It'll be less hazy in the winter time so maybe I'll come back with Andrew at Christmas and we can see Fuji then.  I took a picture of Nova just for fun.  That's the Shinjuku branch - where I could go to practice my Chinese (Nova offers more than just English!) if I wanted to.  Read: if Nova offered their staff any deals.  I think it's one of the biggest branches. 

Speaking of Nova, after taking in the view at the Metropolitan Government Building and visiting the Tokyo Tourist Information Centre to stock up on maps and brochures, we walked around the skyscraper section of Shinjuku, stopping at the NS Building.  Here lies the Eastern Japan Nova Headquarters.  Nikki told me that in some of our guide books the NS building was mentioned as something to see because of the clock inside.  The building is constructed with a giant atrium inside, with this 4 story-or so high clock that doesn't actually tell the time, as far as I could tell.  It was nice to look at for a minute, but that was it.  However, there was a kimono shop on the second floor.  We went up and had a look, but didn't dare go inside: you had to take your shoes off at the front door, discouraging people from "just browsing".  If you go into a kimono shop (or at least, this particular one), you mean to spend money.  And lots of it.  I wish I could have gone in and looked at the garments up close, but I just looked through the window.  The picture doesn't do anything justice - everything just looked so luxurious and beautiful.  I don't think I'll ever be able to afford one, not that I would have occasion to wear it either, but I can hope...  I want to save up for a nice yukata though.  That would be more practical as well, if I ever wanted to wear it.  And I wouldn't be so afraid of ruining it.  Nikki told me that a friend of hers has relatives who live in Kyoto that make traditional kimono and she's welcome to stay with them when she visits.  And I am invited by virtue of being her flatmate so that would be AMAZING!

We have finally reached the end of our tour: Shinjuku!  I have been a couple times with Andrew, but Nikki had only been to collect her paperwork from Nova and then jumped on the train to Abiko so it was her first real time.  We wandered around on the "recommended course" of a pamphlet I had picked up and perused a couple shops along the way.  Nikki had gotten the biggest blister I have ever seen on her foot so we were trying not to walk too far.  I pointed out where I think Ni-chome was in the distance - Tokyo's gay village - and various other places that I had been to, which in all honesty, weren't that many.  I wish it were a bit busier so we could have gotten a picture of "typical" Tokyo: what everyone thinks it is with people everywhere crossing the street.  However, I'm kind of glad that it wasn't super packed because it was hard enough trying to navigate around everyone as it was!  Wandering around, I noticed people carrying boxes from Krispy Kreme - and I remembered that I had heard of the first outlet in Japan opening up recently.  Following the stream of donut-laden people, we found the first Japanese store in Japan, nestled in busy Shinjuku.  I remember when it came to Canada, people were lined up out the door to get their fat hands on donuts.  It was exactly the same here!  I had to take a picture.  Oh the nostalgia...

Andrew came back from Korea yesterday and met up with us in the evening.  We went to an izakaya for dinner (and spent more than we were hoping) and had some drinks and really delicious food.  It was called "Mom's Izakaya" and the lady who owned the place was a riot!  She kept talking to us and asking how we liked Japan and suggesting things to eat.  She really was like a mom when she kept bugging me to eat more of this fish: it was really delicious, but really fatty so we left quite a bit behind.  It was cooked right on the bone so there was a big bone left over.  I wish we had gotten a picture with her.  If we go back, maybe she'll remember us.  I don't think its very often that she gets some western customers.  Although she was telling us about her trip to San Fransisco and how times have changed.  You used to be able to buy beer for 100 yen ($1).  Wouldn't it be nice to be alive in those days...

I also experienced my first rain storm in Japan last night!  As we left the izakaya, it was pouring so we went and sang karaoke for 2 hours.  We tried a whole bunch of different drinks during our "all you can drink" hour.  Andrew was just picking stuff off the menu - some of it really good, some of it not so good.  In the end, he just called the staff and said "Bring us 3 of whatever you like".  Hilarious!  What a great end to the night.  On our way back to the station to head home, we stopped and I got my fortune read.  She wouldn't let any pictures be taken of her, because she's "famous".  Haha.  Apparently, I am like a guy and my love life is "asleep" until I turn 25 and then I'll have a chance for love/marriage.  But if I want it to work, I have to quit my job.  But I could be a company president!  She kept calling me "onna shacou" (female company head) through the whole thing.  She also asked Andrew and Nikki to draw cards - Andrew and I have no chance of love between us (haha, how right she is) but Nikki does, but he can't be energetic.  All this for 10$!  I don't know how seriously I take it, but I kind of like the idea of being an lady president.

Nikki and I made it back to Ueno to catch the 2nd last train of the night and almost slept on the train home.  She had her monster blister, and I was just bone tired from our crazy day.  We had been walking for about 10 hours!  We made it home around 1am, showered and proceeded to pass out. No problems with the heat tonight: we were too tired to even care.  I slept in til noon today - something I've been wanting to do for a long time.  I spent the day doing laundry and running errands: picked up my gaijin card and got some groceries.  I found the cheap super market, and even some brown bread!  Tooled around the mall for a bit, looking for shoes or maybe a new shirt for work, but left empty handed. 

Well, this entry has taken me about 3 hours to write so I hope you enjoyed it.  Comments/emails are always appreciated!  Justin and I have planned to hang out on Thursday, we might go out and see what Kashiwa has to offer but otherwise nothing epic is planned.