Tokyo, Japan
We LOVE Tokyo! We arrived at the airport yesterday morning and took the subway about an hour west into the city. The weather is perfect (cool, but sunny), the city is extremely clean (yet we can’t find a trashcan anywhere) and the people are so nice.
Yesterday, was a Japanese holiday (Thanksgiving Labor Day). It’s not thanksgiving, it’s not labor day. I don’t really know what it is but it meant that the subway and the sidewalks were basically empty – which was great as we got acclimated and figured out how to use the privately run subway systems.
We spent the afternoon visiting Tokyo Tower, which is a replica of the Eiffel Tower painted in orange and white, and Zojo-Ji Buddhist Temple constructed in the 1300s. It was used as the personal temple of the Tokugawa Shoguns.
The grounds also included a mausoleum where many of the shotguns are interned and a shrine honoring the deity who protects children and a memorial garden of sorts honoring miscarried and stillborn babies full of statues of babies wearing red hats.
After dark, we visited an Illumination Show. Is seems as though all of Asia decorated for Christmas on Nov. 1. All we’ve heard is Christmas music in shops and trees and lights are up everywhere. Japan is no different and all over the city, malls and buildings host illumination Shows made up of elaborate Christmas light displays set to music. The one we visited last night was Beauty and the Beast themed – which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Today was probably the busiest day we’ve had the whole trip. We were out early this morning and explored the Shinjiku, Harajuku, Shibuya and Roppongi neighborhoods. In Shinjiku, which is the more business-heavy area, we went to the top of the Tokyo Observatory in the municipal government building. The bay view from our hotel room is honestly better, but on a clear day (today was too cloudy) you can apparently see Mt. Fuji from the north side. The coolest part of the observatory was the shop featuring popular Japanese foods and drinks – things like dried squid, octopus and blowfish powder were on display for purchase. We looked around and tried to find the weirdest thing my brother would eat.
Next up was the Harajuku district (made famous for the fashion of the girls who paraded their wild outfits through the streets in the 90s). Now, the go to street is Takeshita Street, which twelve-year-old me would have loved (even more than twenty-nine year old me did).
Think a whole street of the store Claires. Everything was sparkly, frilly, girly, cupcake, tutu, strawberry scented and pastel colored. People in panda sweaters were eating giant cotton candy plumes. The sidewalk sang with up-beat pop songs being blasted from everywhere. It was like a carnival for everything bright and happy.
Josh was a good sport. He even joined me in a Cat Cafe on the street. Yes, a place you pay per minute to go pet cats. This one was Alice in Wonderland themed and all the cats are adoptable. They have tunnels and rooms where they can hide from people and you aren’t allowed to pick them up, but mostly they were just cuddly and playful. I found this loner one who had crazy hair like me and we became friends.
After reaching our time limit at the cat cafe and fueling up on some Japanese French fries (the ketchup had tomato chunks and hints of ginger in it. . .yuck!), we visited the Ota Museum of Art. The Ota Museum features ukiyo-e art, which is canvas art created by layered wood block printing. It is significant because it was some of the first art to feature common people doing every day things and was, thus, widely popular among common people. The collection was so large that the museum rotates the three-story display every few months. The current display featured mostly women (or beauties, as they were called in the art) and children.
Our last stop in Harajuku was the Meiji Shrine. The Meiji shrine is a Shinto shrine built to house the spirits of the Meiji Emperor and Empress who ruled as the first ruling family after the end of the shogun Edo era. Meiji came to power in 1868 and is the great-grandfather of the current emperor. Most of the shrine was closed for restoration, but we at least got to walk through to beautiful garden and see the fall colors which are at their peak for viewing right now.
In Shibuya we crossed the Shibuya Crossing, which is one of the busiest street crossings in the world. The crossing is a scrambled crossing, which basically means when the light turns all heck breaks loose and you have sixty seconds to get where you need to go anyway you can – even diagonally across the street.
Honestly, I thought it was a little silly how people freak out about it (especially coming from Bangkok where you took your life in your hands every time you stepped off the sidewalk), but this was pretty intense. Josh and I got separated in the masses and it is totally possible to get completely turned the wrong way, though luckily neither of us did.
Our primary reason for crossing was to visit the Tower Record Store which is the largest record store in the world, spanning across 9 floors with different genres featured on each floor. We especially enjoyed listening to samples in the section for Japanese Reggae (yes, it’s apparently a thing).
Though we did not wait in line to see the band itself, we got a kick out of standing back and watching their fans drool over how cute they are and wave their signed CDS around like crazy people.
We took some time to relax at the hotel for the club lounge cocktail hour (yesterday Josh and I got to pour our own drinks, but tonight we were “assisted” every time we got near the wine). After dark we went back out to the Roppongi district which is a big nightlife area. There were several more illumination shows we were able to check out. One was a recreation of the creation of the universe sponsored by Toshiba and it might have been better than the Beauty and the Beast themed show from last night. It’s late here and we’re both exhausted after such a busy day. Tomorrow’s plan is to visit the old part of the city and hit up some museums
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