Day 3 (August 13)
OK, had a bit too much whiskey the night before so we were a bit sluggish and vampirish when it came to the sunshine, but we managed to get up and out the of the hotel by about 11 after enjoying the hotel’s breakfast (well, its just toast and coffee). Our first destination was to a water taxi stand in Asakusa area (North and east). We had our first view of the soon-to-be tallest structure in Japan, the Tokyo Sky Tree. It will almost double the current tallest, the Tokyo Tower – I believe it will be over 600 meters tall. The picture is pretty neat, as the cranes sitting atop it give you a sense of the scale of the project.
The water taxi was an OK ride, I can’t honestly say the canals we took were breathtaking, although the bridges offered some variety in their color and structure. Once we hit the financial/ government area though, the scenery changed a lot for the better! The cityscape changed from the Seoul-like ubiquitous 15-20 story apartment buildings to a gorgeous variety of skyscrapers mixed with carefully tended greenspaces. The green space we jumped off at was a wonderful garden called Hama rykou (spelling?)(south and east), which used to be a falconry/ falconry hunting ground for royalty several hundred years ago. Very, very beautiful, well kept, and not very busy. An interesting part of it was an explanation of how they would hunt for wild ducks, using domesticated ducks as “lures” and then unleashing their deadly falcons upon them! Viscous, I know, using birds against their own cousins…but come on, it would be a pretty neat way to hunt. Imagine if bird warfare were used to settle disputes instead of guns today!
After the gardens, we hopped on another subway and traveled over to the “Electric Town, ” Akihabara (slightly north and eastern). OK, so up to this point, Tokyo has been really really chill, well kept, and all-in all, not that busy. Nothing like Seoul, where there are a million people, every where, all the time. But you are now saying to yourself, “But Jamie, I thought it was totally different. I thought Japan is absolutely CRAZY!!”. Well, you are RIGHT! This area is what sort of defines the image that I had of Japan before coming, bright lights, people in ridiculous costumes, anime characters just draping buildings, throngs of people, crazy sex shops, cracked out arcades. Oh man, it was kind of awesome. We only could handle an hour or so of the madness, but we got our fill!
After crazy electric town, we headed back to our first hotel, as we had only booked two nights. We moved out to the Ikebura area (North and west), and Dave moved to a place in the government area (West and central). Well, we had our first travel woes of the trip, as the map we had for the hotel (on the back of a business card) led us very astray! After a 45 minute parlay into an area that looked mysteriously like Newton, MA, we eventually had some help from a nice police officer and a sushi delivery person who directed us in the right direction. We’ll stay just tonight and head out to Kyoto in the morning!
After a little break, we headed out once more to one of the government buildings in the middle of the city (very close to Dave’s new hotel), which happens to be a skyscraper! They offer a free observation deck from the 52nd floor which was quite beautiful, and the rain held off for us to get a clear view.
We said goodbye to Dave after he gave us a quick tour of his new digs (very nice find Dave, very nice indeed!), and we headed back to our area. Being a little hungry from our activities, we found a cute little Hong Kong restaurant (they had cheap drinks…), but what a find it turned out to be! Some of the best fried rice I’ve ever had, a delicious sweet and sour fried cucumber dish, and a super black-pepper chicken dish. Unbelievable. Food for day 3? 100% success (I’m discounting breakfast, it doesn’t really count).
So here we are, a little after midnight. We’re doing laundry right now (yeah yeah, I know its only day 3, but its just so hot and humid that we’ve been changing during the days so we already have a full load). Our new hotel (which is the same company as our first one, by the way, but we got a really rotten deal on a price this night because we hadn’t booked in advance), has a nice little outdoor eating/drinking area. Very relaxed.
Overall impression so far of Tokyo? It’s just all around great. Language barrier really hasn’t been so much of a problem (hell, we’re kind of used to it), and while the transportation system had us initially flabbergasted, it is a model of efficiency and it’s just super easy to get to all of these places. The food as I mentioned has been great, and all the Japanese people we’ve encountered have just been super nice. The city is super clean (well every part we’ve seen) and just all around nice to walk around in. I’m just really happy with it. We’re also really excited to stay in Kyoto with our Japanese friend and her family for the next few days, we’re heading out on the bullet train tomorrow afternoon. Until then, good night!
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