17 November 2018
Brief trip to Ginza for curry
The bright lights and Tokyo forum
I am a bit broken. Or more accurately, fatigued. No strength in legs. Not much mental capacity for make good sentences.
Conveniently then, my hotel is situated near Tokyo, Ginza and other places where there is lots of food.
After being in my hotel just long enough to make my pictures pretty from earlier and scrawl some words about them, I headed out again straight away. Sweaty, covered in sunscreen, hair looking like a pine cone mated with a hedgehog. So what better place to go to than Ginza?
I first pulled on my oldest, greyest black pants that look like something a Chinese coal miner might wear if he was sent to the dirtiest, scariest mines in Mongolia. These pants are very very comfortable, but so old the pockets have rotted through against my leg.
Time to go look at some Gucci in super fancy department stores then!
Ginza was surprisingly under construction. This was very surprising, I am used to it being the shining beacon of urban cleanliness. There were not even any plants planted. I think normally at this time of year they have ornamental colorful cabbages. Instead there was plastic screens erected on the footpath and flashing construction lights.
Now that I am back in my hotel room already I am ready for bed, or I was, but theres a teams ping pong tournament on the tv that features battling to music in fancy dress while playing ping pong! Possibly one of the stranger concepts I have ever seen. While some sort of screeching pop starlet song is playing, the disney characters are playing the power rangers. This is not animated, its a genuine televised cosplay ping pong tournament.
Just a regular old street light in Tokyo.
Here is Takashimaya. It is actually not in Ginza, the area just before there is also very nice big stores. The Mitsukoshi store there went for many blocks. I believe there is another one in Ginza itself just up the street and around the corner.
After my long day hiking and eating only a chocolate chip cookie and a cake, I was starving, so needed dinner immediately. Luckily the local 10 level bookstore, Maruzen, has a cafe that is famous for its curry sauce, according to the window display. So thats what I had, in the form of curry demiglaze mushroom omurice. It was very good!
My new tactic, make friends with the bears!
Here is the main street through Ginza, Chuo Dori, under construction!
Despite the construction I took a photo anyway. This is a heavy crop, these kinds of photos need a lens longer than 28mm.
All of the xmas displays in the windows are impressive. The polar bear is enormous and it moves.
Just another random street area somewhere quite near Ginza.
I have been here before, its the Tokyo forum. My new camera does a great job here at night. I was able to stop it down to f4 to get lots of the awesome roof trusses in focus. Yes, I am talking about my ability to focus on roof trusses.
Shot of the evening. Standing here is quite an unusual sensation.
Yeah, its a bus terminal. I had never actually seen the bus terminal before. I think its new? Or the building is. It is attached to the Tokyo train station and very large, especially the roof area.