Isn’t she very cute? I asked permission but she still blushed!
Awake at 03:42 this morning; teatime at home in Bangor, following a seven hour sleep. I used the time to write the previous blog post featuring short videos of the area around Ueno, where I’m staying. Breakfast isn’t served until 07:00 so I had THE BEST SHOWER EVER, and then got ready for my walking tour of Shinjuku. I’ve still no wifi but I’ve managed to FaceTime Mrs P and the kids twice now which has worked out very well. Amazing technology!
Breakfast was a little strange, with shredded lettuce, some form of scrambled eggs that looked like tagliatelle pasta and some Japanese salad dressing that I could still taste three hours later. At least the coffee was good!
My next stop was Ueno station where I bought a Suica card (works like an Oyster card on the Tube) from a very friendly girl behind the counter in the Eastern Railways shop. Having mapped out mentally the changes necessary to get to Shinjuku station, I managed it without much drama, and some of the pictures I took on the train are in the link below.
Shinjuku has to be seen to be believed. Swarms of people move in every direction constantly. It is the busiest railway station in the world serving 3.5 million travellers a day, and has seven railway companies and three subway rail companies feeding it with passengers constantly. It’s a bit overwhelming at times. Hundreds of thousands of people, all quietly making their way to work, dignified and seemingly having some sort and anti-collision radar built in. I’ll be posting a video of the station in the next few days.
I’m writing this [my journal earlier] from the outside dining area of a Starbucks near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. It’s an incredible structure with a free observatory on the 45th floor giving commanding views on a 360° basis. Visitors’ bags are checked by the two politest security guards on this earth, who bow to every lift passenger before and after searching their bags, and then you are guided in and out of the lifts by female assistants. In the gallery itself, I spotted a baby with it’s father and his eyes followed me across the room. It may have been my shorts! He had a wicker pram – see links below. I noticed that many Japanese attractions supply rubber stamps for stamping journals, pieces of paper and whatever else you have to hand. This is a thing in Japan, and it’s a great idea, IMHO.
Once outside, I crossed the road into the Shinjuko Chuo-Loen park and visited the temple in it’s grounds, along with what seemed like a dog walking area fenced in and with not one turd in sight. There was also a series of named flower beds. I imagine that each one belongs to a neighbouring apartment building or individual families and they were very well looked after. This part of the park was alive with butterflies, and was very impressive. Further around the park towards the back, I saw a number of gerry-built tarpaulin shacks housing homeless people. As I walked past, a guy on a bike cycled up and left packets of bread and pastries with one of the residents – it may have been a donation of some sort.
There were also about twenty various homeless people living on cardboard under trees. Without exception, they all looked very dignified, many with what seemed like all of their household goods in large bags wrapped in plastic.
Crossing the road and walking towards Shinjuku station again, I noticed further homeless people with huge bags of aluminium cans that they had collected to trade for cash and some of these were attached to railings next to the TMG building.
Next on my agenda was lunch. My guide book suggested a number of options but I plumped for a nondescript small restaurant on the far side of Kabukicho, the red light district. Buying off a picture menu could have been problematic, but I was very pleased with my Chicken Satay with noodles, boiled rice, pickle and some other white goo. The owner was very quick off the mark suppling me with green tea and refilling it each time she passed. A younger waitress, who may have been her daughter noticed my crappy chopstick skills and walked over unsolicited with a fork and a smile. well, at least I tried. An impressive place, overall. (tainan-taami.com)
Piss Alley was next. It’s in Shomben Yokocho. If you’ve been reading this blog from the start, you will have seen an interesting video which shows live salamanders and eels been grilled and eaten – this is the spot! A very atmospheric place built around 1948 and many of the tiny food serving buildings have been continually owned by the same families since then. Apparently the yakitori is excellent and inexpensive. US bombers flattened most of Shinjuku on 23 May 1945 and this was part of rebuilding the area. From there, I walked up to Kinokuniya, the book store which has a floor of English language books – I bought Factotum by Charles Bukowski, for the flight to Sydney. This area is full of the most fashionable young people I’ve seen since coming to Tokyo. I must say I looked very much the gaijin in my daft shorts and Pawnography (chess geek) t-shirt. I think I stood out too much and felt out of place among these guys and the thousands of salarymen. Jeans tomorrow!
Apart from a harrowing twenty minute search for the Marunouchi Line in the wrong part of Shinjuku station, I got home safely and vegged out for a while before heading out around 22:00 for a bite to eat. Of course, Mr Fuji came along and the results are the night shots at the end of the Tokyo Day Two Flickr set below.
Tomorrow will be a take it easy day as my leg is playing up a little and I’ve some blisters now – I reckon I walked seven or eight miles today around Shinjuku and Ueno – Â if it wasn’t for the Salomen hiking shoes, it could have been much worse.
Hiroshima on Thursday, I think!
The Flickr Tokyo Day Two set
Me And Mr Fuji 