Japan Baby!

My initial thoughts of Tokyo were that it reminded me a great deal of London. In fact, I initially felt a little underwhelmed as I was expecting culture shock, but at first I just kept feeling like we were back home. Even the weather was (satisfyingly) fresh, and the sun nice and low, in an English autumn-type way: An insanely welcome break from the humidity we've been drowning in for the past 6 months, but it definitely contributed to my weird feeling of being back home. From this starting point though the week just developed into one long culture crescendo! The more we saw the more different it felt and the more we fell in love with Japan.

Tokyo was a mixture of frustration and pleasure. Frustrations as despite our best efforts, we kept missing things. First we arrived too late at the famous (world’s largest!!) Tsukiji fish market, then we arrived too late for the Imperial Palace (it closed at 4!!). We went to the famous Ueno Park on a Monday when not only all the museums were shut, but all of the cafes too. Not the cafes!!! We then woke up early to watch some Sumo training, but after trekking across town, found out that wasn’t on that day, and then we went back to the fish market at the right time, but it was a public holiday and was shut. On the plus side, the little sushi restaurants that everyone had raved about at the fish market were still open, so we ate incredible, practically-still-flipping fresh sushi and still enjoyed the buzz, and these fruitless jaunts actually led us to some marvellous little corners of Tokyo, so we shouldn’t complain too much!

We also had some fab experiences-we enjoyed going up the Government Office Tower to see incredible views over the city as the Sun went down. We walked across Scramble Crossing-the famous intersection with thousands of pedestrians crossing every hour. We sat and watched everyone else walk across Scramble Crossing.

Sushi on the night we arrived

Scramble crossing

The views from up the City Hall tower

We explored the surreal and quite-simply mind-blowing Akihabara area-a crazy, garish assault on your senses in the shape of sky-high tower blocks emblazoned with neon lights, crazy sounds from everywhere-every doorway, lamp-post, street-caller and even from buses. There are entire sky-scrapers set up for entertainment… a floor for bowling, a floor for table tennis, a floor for darts, a floor for cinema, THREE floors for karaoke (and every room filled up at 2 in the afternoon-insane!), a basement floor for adult entertainment (!!) and literally countless floors of endless arcades adorned with zombie-like Japanese men and women sat pressing buttons like their lives depend on it. We tried to take photos but got told off, so I really can’t capture this but just take my word for it-these places are like nothing I’ve ever seen before!..

A cartoon DVD store...(adult section downstairs)

An Anime car

An action figure store (full of adults)

Vending machines are EVERYWHERE!!

You probably can't make out form this picture, but school girls in tiny tartan skirts with knee-high socks stand around on the street in Akihabara touting for customers for all sorts of entertainment establishments...(they didn't want photos, so you have to make do with a distant one!)

This was a 6-story technical store!! It was massive!!

...And…we ATE SO MUCH JAPANESE FOOD! Ah man it was SO good!!! I’m not even going to try to describe it but just saying- I’m going to be bereft when this week’s over.