Tokyo Day 4

[c9]

Day four started with a need for a more western breakfast - and we found it! Starbucks has taken over Tokyo, so competitors have sprouted everywhere too, mostly in large chains with near-English names ("DOTOUR"). They offer overpriced coffees, scones, and almost entirely recognizable sandwiches. I had scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese, or something like that. The next day I had a Croque-Monsieur, which I'd never had before.

The coffee shops are pretty western, but in a distinctly Tokyo (and/or 1980s west) way: smoking sections! So rather than smoking everywhere, concentrated smoking in half the place instead. Unfortunately we noticed this too late and ended up in the smoking area, and beat a hasty retreat once we were done.

Next, we wandered down the street to the Tokyo Municipal Government Building, billed as resembling Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. If you squint at the right angle, I guess. :-)

It has free observation towers on the 50th floor (ish), and is higher than the deck of the Tokyo Tower we were on previously. Unfortunately the day was a bit hazy, because on clear days you can see Mount Fuji! We found a brochure with a picture so we knew what we were missing.

After the tower (which we managed to leave without taking any photos from, oddly) we headed for a park we'd spotted from the observation deck. Noisy noisy cicadas, a water fountain, a garden, some sculptures... very peaceful. We also spotted a temple from above and tried to make our way there, and finally found it next to ... a tarp-based tent city? Homeless people and/or religious people, I guess. I'm trying not to make too many assumptions based on what it would mean in North America.

The temple grounds looked very quiet and deserted so we were worried about trespassing, but spotted a sign and another tourist, so felt a bit more emboldened.

The temple featured fortunes just like in Shibuya the previous day, but these had no English whatsoever. I purchased on anyway, and decided to tie it to the rack beside the fortunes box, hopefully leaving yesterday's awful fortune behind too. :)

At right you can see ropes used to ring bells, at the entrance to the main building of this area. I have no terminology for the buildings, unfortunately. Shrine and temple seem too vague and overused.


Here's another view, from farther away, of the same entrance and building.

It was this deserted the entire time we were there except for one guy and a monk doing a photo shoot. Not sure for what, probably Teen Beat.

One of my favourite things about being in Tokyo was how often we saw something or someone that just didn't match with anything I'd seen before in my life. Normally when you see someone on vacation you recognize their role or their livelihood or something, but occasionally we'd see someone who we really didn't know what they did or why they were dressed in a certain way.

On the subway, this woman (at right) boarded wearing a full-length gorgeous silk kimono, bright white stockings, and wooden sandals. And yes, she's texting.

The subway was great fun for people watching, and I'm sure we were being watched even more than we were watching. It was funny how quickly other foreigners started to stick out obviously, where I never noticed them in the first couple days.

At our next subway stop, there was quite the climb to the surface. Luckily, we didn't have to make the climb ourselves - there was an escalator with its own landing! The escalator went up, leveled out, then continued up again for another flight! I'd never seen that before. Vin was amused by it enough that he went right back down the stairs and rode it again.

We didn't spot the escalator when we came back into the station, so I guess we went a different direction for our return. But I'm glad I took a photo!

The station we were at was Akihabara, or Electric Town. It's described as an electronics shopping mecca, with dozens of stores and self-contained stands selling anything and everything, theoretically at incredible prices. 'twas not so. We visited six different stores, and I visited many stands, and found the prices to essentially be the same as Toronto. Maybe I'm just cheap? My other theory was that the guide books are written for people without a wealth or electronics options for shopping, whereas here in Toronto we practically have our own Akiba (short form) at College and Spadina. It's only 1-2 stories, but still.

Pictured at right, just two stores -- each several stories tall! Every store seemed to cover their ground floor with cameras and lenses, then PCs on 2nd floor, then gaming, stereos, TVs, iPods, etc etc ad nauseum. But the prices in many different stores (even off the main drag, where the deals are supposed to be) just weren't that special. I bet you could find some neat stuff if you hunted for longer -- I could have stayed for another several hours, but I knew that Tyler Kristopher and Vincent would mutiny if I didn't finish up quickly. :-)

There was one section I walked through that was composed primarily of plastic bins in the street, each filled with one item-- VGA cables (!), PS2 mice, RAM... but nothing that startled me with its price. The iPod clones were cheap, but they were also *cheap*, so no interest there.

I also walked through something that resembled a farmer's market a bit, with hundreds of 6'x6' stalls each run as a separate business, and each selling a small selection of circuit board pieces, wiring, LEDs, and all sorts of other stuff. I was hoping to find something crazy in there, but it was all kinda dull. Maybe I'm too jaded.

Back to our neighbourhood after a day of wandering, and Tyler stopped me at the smoking area to show me signs he knew would amuse me. He posted more in his albums on Facebook, but this one was the best I thought. There was another one with an elephant that I just didn't understand, but this one's pretty clear.

I mentioned before that smoking on the streets and sidewalks was restricted to small official smoking areas, but of course that's not what reality was like. People still smoked all over if they could get away with it. Why wouldn't they get away with it? The cops!

Well, not the cops. Pseudo-cops. There were (as near as I could tell) retired salarymen, possibly retired cops, dressed in security uniforms with badges and glowing batons all over the place, directing traffic, blocking roads, escorting people at cross walks, and catching people smoking. They carried little envelopes into which you were supposed to put your cigarette when they caught you. It was a hoot.

Another night, another night out! This was a great bar-hopping vacation! I leave you with a photo I took of an event happening on Vinny's birthday called Shangri-La. Tasty!

More writeups to come, but the Facebook album covers days 4-6: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=308547&id=618435510&l=51b37bff8d

Comments

[c9.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would have helped. I didn't find that store, so that would have been very fun.

[bartok.livejournal.com]

There were a lot of them, but I seem to remember they were a few blocks away from the train station. Also the giant Akiba-Camera store we found was incredible, if shouty.