Another fine day, have had really good luck with the weather so far. Pollution starting to become apparent though, which is a side effect of fine weather.
It is also the last day of golden week, which means tomorrow people go back to work.
In the morning I headed to Ginza, which was on a different train line, with different tunes, it was also on the metro which is different to the metropolitan, JR and subway lines and the various private lines. Thankfully with a suica card it doesnt matter anymore. What it does mean is it goes underground so you dont get to see anything out of the window.
When I got off at Ginza station it was a bit underwhelming, it was also pretty much deserted at 9am. I am generally too early everywhere, but today I am really early as nothing is open.
I found the main street with all the fancy brand shops, not sure of the appeal really as they are mostly European shops, and theres a lot of European (or more specifically Russian) people wandering about. There is also a lot of tour busses full of Gaijan (whitey) and amusingly, an obnoxious American stepped off one, complete with multiple fanny packs, baseball cap, obesity, he said loudly 'I dont see what the appeal is of this place, its just like New York but with funny writing', he then looked to his left (stay with me here), saw no oncoming traffic and stepped out on the road with his camera, with his back to the traffic which drives on the left here. He was almost killed and the driver of a small truck thing yelled something including the word GAIJAN!!! The American looked terribly embarassed, said something about how he forgot these fools drive on the wrong side of the road and got back on the bus.
I wandered around a lot and some sort of marching band contest was going on (see pics), I also had coffee out of a machine at family mart, and ate some take away sushi that was pretty good.
I decided that Ginza wasnt for me, or wasnt for me at 10am anyway, so I got on the train and headed to Ikebukuro, which was much more interesting.
Its another mega shopping district but seems a bit more Japanese flavoured than Shinjuku and Shibuya for example. No European brands to be seen. There were lots of signs pointing to Sunshine City so I headed that way with the crowd, through alleyways of Pachinko places and karaoke bars. When you get to Sunshine city you are initially confused as its an escelator with a huge line heading underground, with pictures of fish and planets. I headed down and discovered that it is nothing more than a shopping mall that features an aquarium and planetarium, both of which had lines stretching for days.
Anyone still reading at this point? 2 weird things happened on the train, A girl had a bag full of stuff that fell over and it was rolling around the floor, so I helped her pick it up, which did not please her at all, despite my apologies for helping her, she ran away into the next carriage!
Then later the train was empty enough for me to have a seat, eventually it filled up and I offered my seat to a lady, and she refused and gave me some sort of lecture, so the seat remained empty. I wonder what ettiquitte rules I have broken by being helpful.
Finally, I have a new favourite drink, Calpis Soda, which is a white milky colored ion replacement drink thats also carbonated, very refreshing.
This is the main street in Ginza (well theres a few main streets), I am not convinced anyone buys stuff from along here, seems to be for window shopping, then go buy it from some place cheaper. Even starbucks doubles their price for coffee in this area.
This bunny type creature was doing a dance routine to a boom box out the front of the toy store before it opened. I considered doing a video because it was pretty ridiculous, but I didnt, so a picture is all you get.
Crazy kit kats are real, here you have wasabi, soy sauce, intense roast soybean, among others. I wish they were available as a single bar, I am not about to buy an entire box of soy sauce kit kats to try.
Like all stores, the toy store was 10 storeys high with a restaurant on the 9th floor and a live performance space on the top. Near the top I played slot car racing which was great fun. Cost about $2 for 10 minutes. I crashed badly once, the car went flying right off the track, the attendants applauded this.
Some sort of giant cosplay event was forming in the backstreets.
Turns out it was a marching band competition, not sure what for, I saw a sign saying 'willow festival', pretty sure this was set to go for a few hours based on the lines of marching bands in the back streets, meanwhile traffic was out of luck.
This is in Ikebukuro, the interesting thing here is the giant monolith building poking up for no reason. Its enormous and seems to only have windows about once every 10 storeys. What could it be for? Do lasers come out of the windows to destroy godzilla?
A typical street in Ikebukuro, the signs on the lamp post are for sunshine city.
On the roof of a 12 storey electronics shop (top 2 floors were restaurants), is 5 a side soccer. I had no idea, I just kept going up the stairs and ended up on the roof. The people playing soccer seemed concerned by my presence.
One of the main tourist attractions in Tokyo is the free viewing floor on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. I took a photo of this when I arrived but today I am going to go up it. I thought I might have to line up for ages, the internet suggests this would be the case, but when I got there it was so quiet I thought it was closed.
I walk in the door, its pretty dark in the lobby, its only then you appreciate how huge the floorspace of the building is. I spot some security guys and wander over, theres no line at all, you get in the lift, it has one button for the 45th floor.
Once you are at the top it is pretty impressive, but its a shame about the smog. It seems I attract smog wherever I go. The atrium is huge and theres a number of tourist shops selling crap, and about 30 vending machines, same price as on the ground.
I have to wait a while for it to start to get dark, so I venture off to find the bathroom, which is quite a distance through dark concrete hallways.
Now, this is the second time this has happened, but in Japan its not unusual for a girl to be in the bathroom cleaning it. If I was the only guy in the bathroom I might have thought you are supposed to come back later, but no, they are all using the urinals, so when in Rome....Only this girl really has no shame, as shes on hands and knees cleaning between the urinals, I thought she was going to clean my shoes.
After the building experience I headed to Roppongi, which is where most white people hang out. This is a strange place, its even cleaner than the other areas of Tokyo, its really not crowded at all, but then theres black african guys trying to give you cards to bars where girls try and convince you to go to a love hotel where a black guy informs you that you now owe about a million yen. I dont mind these guys talking to me and trying to give me a card or whatever, but a couple of them grabbed me, which is an asshole move.
There really wasnt anywhere interesting in Roppongi to eat, so I decided to walk back to Shibuya, which took about an hour, and my feet are suffering for it.
Had a nice dinner in Shibuya but the pictures below can tell that story.
The Tokyo Metropolitan building is two towers but its one huge one for about half the height.
The typical skyline shots, enjoy the smog.
Despite all the best camera brands being Japanese (actually every camera brand?), a lot of Japanese people are clueless about how to use cameras. One guy has a full on expensive looking tripod, various lenses on his huge DSLR that has every add on like battery packs and the biggest flash I ever saw, hes got his whole family up there with him and hes taking photos behind glass with his huge flash firing. He seemed really dissapointed with the results.
I sat my little camera on the case against the glass and set the timer, and a number of people then followed my lead with lots of oohs and aahs.
Roppongi, stock standard shot of the lights of the area.
Tokyos copy of the eiffel tower off in the distance.
The hard rock cafe is off in a back street and is deserted. I saw another one some place and it was also deserted. I think the photo is great though.
There are lots of nice cars in Tokyo, nearly as many as London, so I dont bother taking photos, but then when you see an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, you have to take a photo. These are not available in Australia.
For dinner I went to Pepper Lunch in Shibuya, theres one of these on George Street in Sydney but I have not eaten there. At the Sydney one you do not pay a vending machine though.
I have realised the advantage of having a vending machine inside a restaurant, your minimum wage staff never get to handle money. Hence they have no ability to rip you off if you happen to own the business.
The setup is a lot like last night.
Dinner arrives raw on a sizzling plate so you can cook it yourself to your liking. Its pretty delicious, the pepper sauces are very nice as well. The rice goes nice and crispy as it keeps cooking as you eat. For 680 yen its about $7.50, so pretty good value I think.