Akihabara #2 - June 8 2007

Today I had the opportunity to meet one of my very good Japanese friends that I met back in Montreal. From Tokyo, she used to work at Tokyo Disney and now works in a fancy pub in the Shinagawa area of Tokyo.

I first went to Akihabara for lunch and had extra spicy curry and then met up with my friend at the Ueno station of the Yamanote line. Then we decided to go to Akihabara to have a truly Japanese experience: go to a maid café. Going to a maid café means that you are a master to the young waitresses in their French maid costumes. Apparently this is a big fantasy for Japanese geeks, or Otaku. This was a funny experience, but I still don't understand why it's a big thing. Also, my Japanese friend had lots of trouble explaning the "MOE" word in Otaku culture so that is also a mystery to me. Anyone knows?

I ended up joining her at work and had extra spicy potatoes.. they were too spicy, I started having hiccups. The bartender was quite friendly and kept making jokes about Osaka people because I told him I had stayed in Osaka most of my time in Japan.

That night I visited East Shinjuku under a different light in the ni-chome area until late... I wandered in the streets and found myself feasting on Takoyaki watching transvestites, gogo boys and drunken samurai passing by. They seemed to be remnants of a party I had missed. It was time for me to go back to the youth hostel. Only now, I was alone, well not exactly, I had seen a roach hiding under my futon when I turned on the light, so that night I slept with the lights on with all my clothes on.

Ghibli - June 7 2007

Today was the last full day that my friend was in Tokyo with me, and in Japan for that matter. After spending one semester in Asia he is going back to Utah. I am going back to Quebec in less than a month.

We had a real nice treat for us today. To continue the museum treck we went on yesterday, we visited the Ghibli Museum. For those of you who are not familiar with Japanese Animation, Ghibli studios is responsible for some of the most popular animated movies from Japan. Few of them have been distributed by Disney, such as Spirited Away and Howl's Moving castle. I suggest you to look into those movies if you like magic and fantasy.

The museum is a real charm and the exhibits are surprising, some being very simple but still astonishing. One of them features a recreation of Hayao Miyazaki's office (the director of many popular Japanese animations). The main point of the museum is the life-size statue of a robot in The Island in the Sky.

Of course like every respected museums, you will find an overpriced boutique for tourists. This really got me in the mood of buying Ghibli merchandise and I ended up buying 2 card holders, 2 keychains, 1 fridge magnet and 1 figurine. My craze also sent me scrambling for Ghibli merchandise in different boutiques and Toys R Us stores all over Tokyo.

Museum day - June 6 2007

We were busy visiting museums all day: the National Museum is in fact 5 museums in the Ueno area. They have a vast collection of national treasures ranging from ancient tapestry to samurai armors!

The other museum we visited was in Odaiba, another place coming right out of sci-fi flicks. We visited Miraikan (The museum of the future) in this was one of the coolest places I have seen. The most impressive exhibit was a robot-controlling simulation. My friend and I learned how to control a small six-legged robot and then we were lead into a large room with an imax screen. We had 3d glasses and then we were at the commands of the same robot we were learning to pilot. The simulation makes you feel like you were miniaturized and inside the robot because cameras and mics are installed on the robot and the sound and image is used in the large room for the simulation. Not only that, the whole room is placed on a hydraulic system that recreates the movements we order the robot to do in real time.

We ended the day meeting up with a Tokyoite friend to have a few drinks and end up completely drunk and talking about the greatness of Japan to local salarymen.

That night we slept in the comfort of a Capsule hotel... It wasn't that comfortable, but we had to try it! This one was in Akihabara.

Central Tokyo & Roppogi - June 5 2007

Another long day - 9 hours of walking around in the Capital of the country of the Rising Sun.

Our day started off around the imperial palace, which we got to see a corner of! The imperial palace is secluded in a central garden and only 3 times a year can the general public enter the garden and see the emperor say a few words. The site is beautiful though and provides for a peaceful stroll in the middle of Tokyo urban mayhem.

Close to the imperial gardens are the main federal government offices. The Diet (Japanese parliament) is also there, but my friend and I thought that the building is not representative of Japan at all.

Next we visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine which is about 30 minutes walking distance from the Diet (kokkai). This shrine was repeatedly in the international media when former MP Junichiro Koizumi paid regular visits during holidays. The problem is that 16 enshrined soldiers are people who are accused of crimes against humanity because of their atrocious crimes during the war. This enrages China and Korea and marred the relationship between those countries.

The picture at the top with the airplane was taken at Yasukuni shrine, and this is the model of plane that was used for kamikaze during WWII.

Later that day we visited Roppongi, a district known to have a lot of expats and some violence. There are two parts to Roppongi: the party area with many overpriced clubs and restaurants, and then the administrative area with high rise buildings, where you feel like you are projected into the future.. also with overpriced restaurants. We were hopping to find a nice place to have dinner here, but we gave up and went to Shinjuku to have dinner because we were tired of eating at Wendy's.

Toudai and shrine - June 4 2007

Today we visited a nice shrine that stands in the middle of a large swamp with many tamed turtles getting a sun tan! We also walked to Toudai (Tokyo University), the most prestigious and known university in Japan. The architecture of this university was very European. We were to shy to talk to some of the students.

We also walked to Akihabara, the electronics district of Tokyo, a sanctuary for geeks!

Akihabara is not as surprising in the first visit. You have to go back a few times and discover the little shops and capsule hotels that are quite discreet, but when you find you are in for some surprises!

The highlight of this visit in Akihabara was finding Quebec's national Poutine! (puuchin in Japanese).

These days we are walking around the city about 8 hours a day so in the evening we are so dead we just rent movies at Tsutaya and watch them at the hostel.

Asakusa Matsuri - June 3 2007

On Sunday morning we woke up to some soft drum songs and melancholic flute music. As we were heading out for downtown Tokyo we saw that a group of people wearing traditional Japanese clothes were slowing walking down the streets, carrying a small Mikoshi (portable temple) with children beating the drum. It seemed like a procession. How ever, as we walked further in the neighborhood we saw other groups each wearing their own colors and chanting, dancing and drumming happily. We then understood we were staying at a hostel were there was a festival right beside. We did arrive at the right moment. It was very impressive to see the massive mikoshi being transported by a few people, it seemed like a daring stunt in the summer heat. We also found the central place for the festival and this was quite nice too. We had the impression that were walking through a carnival maze with concessions of all kinds. There was also a Taiko group scheduled to play but we decided to head out for Harajuku to see the Harajuku girls.

It was difficult to find the Harajuku girls. We thought we would simply find them by going to the harajuku station of the Yamanote line, but when we got there we did not see any group of girls wearing outlandish outfits. We asked a few locals and they were all saying contradictory directions. We finally found them near the Yoyogi park where there is some sort of square near a pedestrian overpass. This was also quite interesting, but I was disappointed because I was expecting to see hoards of Japanese girls wearing gaudy outfits. There were a few, some cute, some scary!

That same day we visited the very nice national gardens and the Meiji shrine where we had the chance to witness a traditional Japanese wedding.

Arrival in Tokyo - June 2 2007

The bus ride was, OK no leg space and no comfortable position to sleep for more than 1h straight. When we arrived in Tokyo we realized why some people told us GOOD LUCK when we told them we would arrive in Shinuku in the morning. This train station is HUGE it has over 20 platforms from different train companies and the maps (contrary to Osaka) are only written in Japanese so we have to know the symbols in advance. Our first task is to find out how to get to our hostel to drop off our bags (and especially Cody's because he is carrying ALL his luggage since he is going back to the states from Tokyo). I ask for instructions at the information booth but I hear platform 5 instead of platform 15 so we wait at the wrong platform for almost an hour. Then I go back and ask and this time I here JUU go (15). So we hop on the Yamanote line, probably the most popular line in Tokyo because it does a loop around the big neighborhoods of Tokyo and has frequent departures. The size of the stations and number of wagons (15) are astounding here compared to Osaka.

This is a hot day and we barely manage to make it at the hostel with all the heavy luggage. We drop everything in the room and take a power nap. When we wake up we are ready to take the train back to city center and properly visit Tokyo. During this very long walk we visit Shinjuku west, where the administrative buildings and huge high rise skyscrapers are. We also go down to Shibuya, the most busy intersection on earth (estimated 3 million pedestrians per day cross here). I take a great picture while people cross, that looks like there is a demonstration, but it is just many many people crossing the street.

We continue down to Yoyogi park and around the Harajuku area and in the Yoyogi park we encounter many young Japanese going crazy on their guitars, drums and mics... It was interesting to be in a nice park but from behind the trees hearing 10 different bands competing on decibels.

We tried to contact two American friends that are also visiting in Tokyo.. but no response until now.