Welcome to the first 2011 update! I couldn’t even make it a year without getting the travel itch again and this time I had a couple of friends, Steph and Mon, to help me scratch it. As such, to Japan we go! First stop: Tokyo!
Tokyo is hard to sum up in a few words. Everyday we’d take the metro, ascend from the subway and look around, and it would feel like entering a new city. Each district had its own feel that it really didn’t feel like one city, but several cities occupying the one space.
Typhoon Season
Arriving was fun. Checking our weather reports, we knew we were in for thunderstorms day one. So we land at Narita airport, and move through the regular routes and arrive at the immigration queue. Here, a woman greets us and asks us where we are travelling. When we say Tokyo, she tells us that a typhoon is about to go through the city. As such, being the cautious people we are, we travel promptly arrive at our accommodation, drop our stuff, and visit the closest district to make sure we can get back. That happened to be Akihabara. Sadly, I think the rain and wind warded off part of the charm of Akihabara. It was meant to be the old electronic district, now filled with cos-play, anime, and maid cafes. But it all felt rather underwhelming. That’s not to say we couldn’t make our own fun. Arcade Taiko drum off!
Do you know Sumo?
The typhoon settled down by the next day, and to be honest, the only effect we felt from it was that we were wet and we heard the trains stopped for a little while. Also, the next day was a scorcher. Apparently the day after a typhoon is always very hot and humid. So we went and had a look at the Sumo tournament that was on in Ryogoku. The tournament goes over 15 days, each day every Sumo has a match, starting with the most inexperienced and ending in the best Sumo in the tournament. There also ceremonies between divisions and between each fight. While all are large men, some do look more muscular than chubby. Regardless, they’re all far more flexible, and probably more agile than me anyway.
We took a midday break between the rookies and the professionals for lunch and a look at historical life in the Edo-Tokyo museum. It was a huge space-age looking building with enough space to fit a few traditional houses inside, filled with historical goodness to look through, including my favourite: clockwork automatons, designed to be geishas, that would walk over to you and serve you tea, then when you place the tea back on their tray, they’d walk back where they came from.
Stop, Shop, and Stroll
The next day was Ginza and Roppongi. Ginza is posh central, with the Cartiers, the Ralph Laurens and the Louis Vuittons. It wasn’t all super-priced, there were some other interesting shops including a 6 story stationary store. Then there was Roppongi. As a district we didn’t actually see it, because we never left the Roppongi Hills shopping center. In part because it had the sky view of Tokyo, but also because it was a rabbit warren of intertwining walkways, and so it was difficult to figure out which way was out!
First day of the weekend, we decided to go to Harajuku, where the kids hang, to see them all dressed up. The main street was a stream of people flowing each way and every now and then you see a fantastic outfit. Not too outlandish, but just enough to actually look really cool. The stores lining the sides were just as eclectic and outrageous, adding to the charm of the area. This was probably my favourite shopping district. Even though the main strip was a bit crazy, as you circle outside it, the shops got less eccentric while maintaining their hip style. At the end of the day, we went to Shinjuku. More shopping. I was probably a little shopped out by here. Steph and Mon were getting a bit tired too. But as the sun went down, the area lit up, and we found a nice Japanese diner to sit down and soothe our overworked feet.
The Future…
Our final morning was spent in Odaiba, Tokyo’s futuristic district. Slightly separated from the rest of Tokyo on a man-made island, it holds the Miraikan, their souped-up science centre, holding their pride and joy Asimo. This amazing little robot can walk, run, kick a ball and DANCE!
I will insert dancing Asimo movie as soon as I have my own computer to do it on.
The science museum itself was quite impressive in itself, going into quite a lot of detail. As Steph said: “I just learnt about that this year.”
And so we collected our gear and set off for Kyoto and to see a little of the other side of Japan…
