8 March 2012
Ginza and a garden
Its grey, cold and threatening to rain. This has a strange effect on the throngs of people. Rather than standing and waiting politely at pedestrian crossings for laneways that no cars have come down this century, they charge blindly across 10 lane highways screaming in terror. Even though everyone has an umbrella.
I decided to play subway roulette, which meant I ended up somewhere west of where I am staying near the new opera house, then popped up in Ginza which I still dont think is anything special, followed by a rather large garden back near my hotel.
It never really rained but did stay grey and cold all day, this didnt stop me from walking/standing for a solid 6 hours.
Me and my robot somewhere in the new opera house.
This is skyscraper sector. Tokyo doesnt do skyscrapers well because of a justified fear that they could collapse at any moment due to any number of reasons, but mostly earthquake.
The main street in Ginza. If you want something French or American this is the place to be. Its full of French and American people. Its also largely deserted at this time of day.
Why plant flowers when a cabbage is fine too?
This is called the Tokyo International Forum. A very impressive construction, but as far as I can tell it has zero floor space?
Outside there were a lot of vans selling great looking street food. I wanted to have something for lunch but seating was outside and a bit cold for me.
When Sony released the Z series walkman I found it strange that they used the album cover from an obscure solo album by Dream Theater vocalist James Labrie. Hes the vocalist from a band famous for having songs with 20 minute instrumental sections during which they tell James to go and have a coffee.
Anyways, I assumed the press release was just a fan boy who somehow got it on the marketing brochure without anyone noticing.
It turns out that every Z series walkman has this song on it (and its the only song on it), and that everywhere they are for sale they are plugged into docks playing this song on permanent repeat, and its a terrible song.
Ramen for lunch again, this one was better than yesterdays. However the waitress girl tried to make an ass of me by attempting to tie a bib around my neck and giving me a fork. No one else in there had a bib...and neither would I!
She then looked terrified when I added chilli flakes, chilli oil and the chilli pepper stuff in massive amounts to try and give it some flavour.
Admittedly it was a bit more flavoursome than yesterdays.
I found the park and it was a bit cold, not to worry as vending machines are happy to serve hot drinks. Having already had 2 large coffees today I decided to have something else.
This drink is ginger ans sesame flavoured. I would say it tasted slightly worse than that sounds. It was however hot.
Lake in the garden shot.
This is a large grassed area, the grass has burnt off due to snow. This is not something I have ever seen before in my life, which is probably amusing to most people who dont live in Australia.
One thing I have noticed is that all the trees are pruned back very heavily and in a very uniform fashion. Not just in this park but every tree in every street.
This here is the very first blossoming cherry tree of the season. Its a hive of activity, theres actual news updates on where to find the blossoms etc.
I pushed in front of the people with tripods to capture the magic.