Tokyo Whirlwind

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Trip Start Jun 30, 2010 Previous
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Entry

  Tokyo, Kanto, Japan
Tuesday, August 24, 2010

*POST NOTE: On 11 March 2011 a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami that devastated communities along this coastline. The UK Red Cross has reported: "The massive earthquake and resulting tsunami... have caused widespread destruction and suffering, relayed on television screens around the world. More than 8,000 people have died in the disaster, thousands are injured and at least 12,000 are missing. Many people are living in evacuation centres as 14,000 homes have been destroyed and around 100,000 are damaged." Please help the relief effort by visiting the Red Cross website and donating to the Japan Tsunami Appeal: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now/Make-a-single-donation/Japan-Tsunami-Appeal

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It was a smooth twelve-hour ferry crossing from Hokkaido along the east coast of Honshu (*above), and uneventful but for the entertainment provided by our cabin mates, a lovely young Hokkaido mum and her two young sons, or rather by their reaction to Phil who they thought was quite extraordinary. We docked at the sunny port of Oarai and hiked through the town to the train station, the increase in temperature from Hokkaido was palpable and were very glad for the A/C onboard the dumpy local train to Tokyo.

After a few connections we arrived at central Jimbocho station and found Sakura Hotel, nestled among Tokyo‘s tower blocks, with ease. With its friendly welcome, cosy café plus internet, and sensible price (for central Tokyo) it was clear why it is such a popular stay-over, but it was a real shock to see so many western faces. I’m guessing many had just got off a direct flight from home to Tokyo and were finding Japan a bit of a challenge, but the hotel staff must be congratulated on their patience in dealing with a nearly continuous flow of the most inane questions, one of the best we heard being ‘what do you think I should eat tonight?’
 
With only three days to spend in the capital we poured over the guide books and put together a whirlwind highlights tour. Day one was an eclectic day. We visited the Imperial Palace East Gardens, a large, tranquil garden with museum exhibiting ancient art work on tigers (not native to Japan, but depicted for many centuries to intimidate and awe-inspire). We then strolled through Kitanomaru Park and chanced upon a mass gathering of Tokyo’s teenage goth-lolis waiting outside a stadium for a ‘Nightmare’ gig to begin. It was then on to Japan‘s most contentious shrine, the Yasukuni Shrine which commemorates Japan’s war-dead dating back to 1869, including a number of Japanese war-criminals (upsetting for many, not least to Japan’s neighbouring countries on whom it inflicted heinous atrocities). Nearby is the Japanese War Museum which houses a bomber plane, steam train and, most macabre of all, a human torpedo. In a similar vein to the Kamikaze fighter pilots, young men were launched in these torpedoes, successfully sinking ships. In the evening we ventured over to Akihabara or Electric Town, so named for its huge electronics stores, and three hours just disappeared in an electric haze. 

After a poor night sleep (wired from Akihabara) day two was more chilled. We visited the ever-busy Shibuya Crossing to people watch. With a change of the traffic lights people pour from all directions across this giant crossing and Japanese teens chill-out with their friends, posing in their latest outfit (generally very short and very tight). We cruised the large stores before returning to Jimbocho to look around the book shop district and that evening for dinner, in preparation for the next, imminent leg of our big trip (as if anything can prepare you for India!), we had a curry.

Day three started at 4:00am with a phone call to the UK to wish my mum 'happy birthday', before heading off to the Tsukiji Seafood Market, the largest of its kind in the world. We were keen to catch the dawn tuna auction, to witness the speed and scale of the event. We just managed to dodge the guards and catch the end of it. The adjacent market was frenetic. Stallholders were laying out trays of seafood, selecting the choicest specimens for display and securing sales on the phone in the back room. Thankfully they were unperturbed by us gawping tourists as we dodged the trolleys piled with polystyrene boxes or halves of tuna, lively hosepipes and pools of briny water. We couldn’t help but marvel at the diversity and quality of species, but baulked at the fact that this wholesale market takes place everyday, with this same quantity of fish, mollusc, crustacean and cephalopod being hauled out of the sea day after day. We’re avid seafood eaters but seeing this definitely made us think, especially about tuna; an incredible fish which we really should not be eating (blue-fin (internationally protected species), yellow-fin, or any fin). [A few months after our visit we heard that, at the first auction of the new year a Bluefin caught off the coast of Hokkaido had been priced at a record 32M. yen (243,285 GBP). That makes you realise how few there are left!]

It was still early morning and much of Tokyo still slept so we headed across town and sat in the garden of the peaceful Buddhist Zojo-Ji Temple, listening to the sounds of insect life and human life build with the days’ heat. We were first in line to ascend Tokyo Tower, an Eiffel Tower mimic but in red and white, and we gazed out over a bright, slightly misty Tokyo; the glinting river and Tokyo Bay drawing the eye. We then took in Hama-riku Gardens, the only surviving Edo-period waterfront garden and an oasis of serenity, made all the more striking by the backdrop of silver Tokyo tower blocks. En route back to the hotel we stopped off at various sights including the Sony Showroom to look at their yet-to-be-launched gadgets, and the Tokyo International Forum where we stumbled across a Mr. Donut’s 40th anniversary-come-market research event where we just had to take part in their new chocolate donut feedback exercise!

So, a busy, fun and interesting three days in Tokyo. It's a great city, but on reflection, our expectations of Tokyo, raised by guide books, the media and stories from fellow travellers, had not really been met. We'd expected a bigger, brighter, nosier, busier, more sophisticated, hi-tech Tokyo, and of the people, we expected more unconventional and avant-garde in this very structured, ordered, conservative country. We were left feeling slightly flat. It had been fun but not exciting. I’m sure this was due to our limited budget and time restricting our explorations and preventing us from really letting our hair down, and of course we would have gained so much more had we been able to read Kanji or speak Japanese!

Best wishes
Nickie

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Imperial Palace East Gardens	Imperial fish	Giant bamboo at the Imperial Gardens	Tokyo Goth-Lolis
Entrance to the Yasukuni-Jinja Shrine	Fortunes at Yasukuni Shrine	Ramen bar	3 of Japan's 5.5 million vending machines
Akihabara (Electric Town) at night	Knackered Tokyo businessmen	Shibuya Crossing	Shibuya Crossing
Tsukiji - the worlds largest seafood market	Tsukiji tuna auction	Tsukiji tuna auction	Carving up tuna at Tsukiji Seafood Market
Not a good day to be a tuna	.......or a squid	Zojo-Ji Temple & Tokyo Tower	Shrines at Zojo-Ji Temple
Aerial vew towards Tokyo Bay	Peaceful Hama-riku gardens	Hama-riku gardens	Wildflower meadow, Hama-riku Gardens
Man, it's hot!	Nickie on TV with the fish in the Sony Showroom	'I'm helping with their market research!'	Departing for the airport and India

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