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Tokyo - Monday 10th - Wednesday 12th November
We catch the speedy Shinkansen to Okayama, and walk quickly down the road to have a look at the black castle and its gardens, before jogging back to the station to meet a friend from home - we've arranged to meet Gaz, who has been living up in the hills near Okayama for the last few months.
Gaz looks a lot thinner than the last time I saw him back in Wolverhampton, and now has long, wild hair and a beard, but seems happy to see us and is quite excited to hold a conversation in English for the first time in a while.
We settle into a cafe, and grill Gaz on various aspects of Japanese life that have been puzzling us, as well as catching up on news from home - although since Gaz left England in May 2007, and has been living without internet until very recently, we end up piecing stories together from collective snippets we've each heard.
After a fortifying latte or two, we wander the streets looking for a noodle bar to eat some lunch in. We persuade Gaz to take the lead, and he chatters with the pretty waitress while we busy ourselves settling into our seats. The noodle bar is empty, save for a couple of men in the corner - it is almost 3pm after all, and the Japanese appear to be very punctual about mealtimes - and the simple wooden tables and stools are clean and comfortable. Gaz has ordered us meat and egg udon, which comes as a meat and egg broth in one bowl, and thick, steaming, lovely udon noodles in another. We've all learned to slurp in appreciation (it's difficult not to), and we enjoy a tasty and cheapish meal, whilst continuing to catch up.
Too soon, it's time for our train to Tokyo. We hug Gaz goodbye, as he sets off again on his lengthy journey back to the mountains, and hop onto the speedy Shinkansen towards Tokyo. In what seems like the blink of an eye later, we arrive at Tokyo station, and another quick hop and a walk down the road later, we arrive at our next hostel.
Still trying to balance budget with privacy, we have reserved a double Western-style room with a shared bathroom... however, when we actually arrive in our room, we find that it's a Japanese-style room with en-suite - we're not complaining! We have tatami-mat floors with roll out futons and beanbag-like pillows, and everything is at a low level -the chairs have no legs and the table is at calf-height. However, we are glad to have the opportunity to stay in a different style of room, even though it's not exactly the traditional Japanese style of old (those fancy rustic style hotels are definitely out of our price bracket!). I am especially pleased to discover that we have a bath, albeit a short but very deep hip-bath... I plan a four night bathing extravaganza for myself, while Dave is happily immersed in his Lord of the Rings book. Bliss.
The following day, feeling well rested after a lie-in, we catch the train into the city and spend the day exploring Shinjuku, hopping over later to Tokyo central to do some more looking around. I spot the Tokyo Tower in the distance (it looks suspiciously like an over-lit up version of the Eiffel Tower), and insist that we walk to it... although it turns out to be a few kilometres away. We get there eventually, and walk around it in a circle before heading back to the nearest train station and back to the hostel, feet protesting, for another bath, picking up a cheap and cheerful 7/11 sushi meal and a couple of vending machine tins of hot coffee on the way.
Planning a slightly busier day today, we start off early and catch the train to Hongo to visit an antique shop belonging to the brother of the man who owned a shop in Okayama, where we had popped in with Gaz on our way back to the train station but not had time to browse. Following the directions on his card, we found the tiny shop and, introductions made, we browsed the shop. Whilst most of the stuff was lovely to look at, it was well out of our price bracket, and after a polite thank you and attempt at a bow, we left - I think the shop owner may have been a bit puzzled as to why we had come all the way from Okayama to see his stop and then not bought anything, although he didn't let on.
Next stop on the itinerary is Harajuku. We see a few crazily dressed kids (think a richer, Japanese version of Wolverhampton's Man on the Horse, or Market Square in Nottingham), and lots of too cool for school shops, but it's a weekday and raining so we aren't expecting too much. Instead, we spend an hour or so wandering around the grounds of the Meiji-Jingu shrine, a post-WWII rebuild of the original 1920's design, created mostly from authentic Japanese cypress, although the wood for the huge torii (gate) was brought in from Taiwan. The entrance to the shrine is a tall, wide wall of hundreds of white lanterns, with a long curving pathway through the torii, past a chrysanthemum display, before reaching the busy shrine itself. I spend a while reading the prayers written on the wooden wishing tablets, while Dave takes some photos round and about, before we walk back into town, via a couple of recycled clothes shops, towards my favourite shop ever (or at least this week) - Kiddyland!
As the name suggests, Kiddyland is a children's toyshop. However, it is home to an eclectic collection of the vinyl figures and other brightly coloured plastic tat that I so admire over five floors of kitsch... my mastercard gets a work out, although I don't go too crazy, since everything I buy I will have to pay to post back home. Poor Dave is not exactly having the time of his life, but he does eventually get into his role as hunter-gatherer, and proudly finds a few treasures for me to add to the basket... he even throws in a set of tofu bearbricks for himself.
It's getting dark by the time Dave manages to drag me out of Kiddyland, and we move on quickly as we have plenty more to see. We walk past Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi and the like, squishing our noses up at the glass to check out the huge prices, and then hop into Subway for refuelling.
Our next stop on the train is to Shibuya, home of the world famous Shibuya Crossing - a four-way pedestrian crossing over a busy traffic intersection. Firstly, we watch it from above in the station building: by the time the pedestrian lights change to green, there are hundreds of people waiting to cross, all but the tourists ignoring the enormous bright and loud video screens covering all of the surrounding buildings; and they swarm over from each direction en masse. It's very busy and very ordered, even though it's unsupervised, and apart from a few people darting across just as the lights are changing, everyone makes it safely to the other side. After watching a few times, we walk down to have a go ourselves - we do actually need to cross the road here, so we're not just adding to the traffic for no reason - and find that the only problems are when everyone converges in the middle, going their different ways (a few speedy side steps here and there, and everyone is soon back in order), and that an unlucky car who chanced the lights gets stuck in the middle of the mish-mash - he probably wishes he didn't, but no damage appears to be done as people squeeze efficiently around him.
We have a mooch around Tower Records, barely managing to resist the urge to buy everything, and Dave is excited to spot a Japanese version of the new Bloc Party album, Intimacy, with super-special extra Japanese bonus tracks (he decides to bide his time and buy it in Kyoto if he still wants it). We cruise past the sadly closed-for-the-night Bathing Ape shop, a zillion fancy department stores, and then get a bit lost looking for the extravagant 'love hotels' as described in our Lonely Planet.
We eventually find them, and take a few furtive photos of the frontages - we realise that the customers who frequent them probably don't want people with cameras hanging around outside. The tariffs are clearly posted outside each hotel, advertising that one can stay for the following: either a 'short rest' from 7pm-9pm, 9pm to 12am, or overnight from 12am until 9am...
The rooms in these hotels are said to be fantastical in luxury and opulence, and the rates for overnight stays are actually not too expensive; however, like the old school Japanese hotels, a trip to the traditional Onsen (hot baths), and a stay in a capsule hotel; this is something that we've had to forgo for the sake of sticking to our budget and having the amazing opportunity to visit the country to start with. Ah well. Feet once again aching, we catch the train back to our hostel and a welcoming hot bath.
On our last day in Tokyo, we're up super early at 4.30am for a train to the Tsukiji fish market. We arrive in plenty of time to catch the action, although we still manage to miss the main fish auction. However, bracing ourselves against the strong fishy pong, we wander around the busy trade stalls, bobbing and weaving so as not to hold up the serious buyers and sellers, and also trying our best to avoid the numerous tiny-but-very-speedy mini-forklifts with barrel steering that are careening around everywhere we look, ferrying sold fish to their waiting delivery trucks.
The market is a densely packed arrangements of lots of rows of stalls, all filled with a massive variety in enormous quantities of fish: giant beheaded and betailed frozen tuna, octopi, squid, fish stomachs, and plenty of things that we have no idea about identifying, all vying for a quick, fresh sale. It really does stink, and the floor is squishy with a combination of rainwater, melted ice, blood and guts. Since we don't have wellies, we roll our trousers up and hope for the best...
Most stall holders are mega-busy wheeling and dealing, and don't have time for nosy tourists like us (there are brochures made especially to point out the rules of the market in English - probably because even the super-polite Japanese got tired of telling people where they could and couldn't go, and how to behave while they were here). However, we do find a few who have mostly sold their wares and have time to pose for a photo and to have a bit of a chat (neither side having the faintest idea what the other is saying, but with a lot of the universally friendly smiling and nodding being thrown in).
Feeling a bit self conscious about our fishy shoes, we tramp away from the market and towards the nearest train station - we are glad that most people on the train appear to have been to the market too, and are hopefully therefore temporarily immune to the smell. We hop off at Ginza, home to some more flashy shops (Louis again, a small version of Harrods, Tiffany), and the Sony Building. There is another toyshop here, but it's rubbish - the main amusement turns out to be the relatively recently opened H&M store: in England, apart from when a new 'designer' collection is released, there isn't much fuss and bother about going into what we see as being a regular clothes shop (although hands up, I was excited to see one in Hong Kong). However, the chain is pretty new here, with only two or three branches open - and it's amazingly busy. We walk past the door to H&M, and notice a queue outside - we think that maybe something special is happening. It turns out that it isn't, unless you count the shop being open for normal trading, mid morning on a weekday as a special occurrence. We walk at least five blocks down the same road, and the queue carries on... and on... at each road crossing there is a man in a doorman's outfit with a cap, white gloves, a whistle and a polite sign, motioning for the excited, three- and four-abreast shoppers to inch forward in safety. It's madness! Evidently the world wide credit crunch has not yet hit these keen consumers.
We walk back to the Sony Building, expecting to be wowed by a technological vision of the future... however, we are a little disappointed when the best new invention they have on display is a 'dancing' MP3 player. Rubbish. We examine all of the products on offer, and half heartedly test out some noise reduction headphones (none of the demos are working properly), and video cameras (nothing special). Maybe they're gearing up for a new product launch, or consolidating their current portfolio (or whatever big businesses do in times of economic crisis). Sorry Sony, although we're hardly your biggest customers, so no harm done.
Moving on, we do a walking tour of East Shinjuku, grab another budget Yoshinoya for tea, and catch yet another train back to our hostel, ready to truck on to Kyoto tomorrow.
We thought we'd seen the last of Tokyo, for a while anyway, but can't resist taking advantage of our paid-for rail passes to zoom back in for the day on Sunday - solely for the purpose of catching some of the Cosplay-Zuko action in Harajuku. We are lucky, and as well as the teen photo-fest of unusually dressed young characters, we catch a performance in the rain by a group of rockabillies; all aged at least thirty and above, and equipped with towering quiffs, leather jackets and too-tight black jeans with an obligatory comb in the back pocket (the men), and bobby socks, 50's style bowling jackets and flared dancing skirts (the ladies). The men go first with an energetic routine that wouldn't have looked out of place in Grease, and are later joined by the ladies, all apparently oblivious to the by now huge group of tourists that are busy photographing them and clapping along. It's definitely worth the trip back, as is a chance to visit Kiddyland for the second time for some last-minute purchases (sorry Dave).
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