Statue under a bridge in Tokyo
What a contrast from Vietnam. Everything seems new and efficient*, nobody tries to sell you anything... Just as well, because it's expensive in any terms! It's a real modern metropolis and paradise for a committed city-dweller and shopper like Lilly.
* Having said that, the straw for my carton of orange juice is too short and has fallen inside the carton, so they still have things to improve.
Part of the attraction of Tokyo is just wandering, rather than just ticking off lists of sights... or so Lilly told me as she explained which region she wanted to shop in next. Like LA, Tokyo is often described as a range of mini-tropolises*, and it's easy to hop between them on the metro with our handy Pasmo cards (just like London's Oyster, although various lines are run by different companies and some of the interchanges are very large). We braved the heart of the famous rush hour yesterday... and got seats on every train. Maybe we were going contra-flow, but I think Tokyo-ites should try the Northern line sometime. One of the interchanges was very busy but it had nothing on King's Cross or Victoria. As seasoned tube-travellers, this has been a breeze. (Um, apart from the time we got separated when a door closed quicker than I expected. Shush, you're undermining my point.)
* I've made that word up but it's often described in similar terms.
I really like the Japanese aesthetic so it's a treat to see temples and shrines dotted around - although we've picked a bad time to visit as two of the best temples had their facades entirely covered for renovation (and a few museums are closed for a few days to change exhibition - hopefully we'll catch up with these when we get back).
The Imperial Palace has lovely grounds - a fairly sparse look, with tarmaced roads, but still powerful and elegant. Very enjoyable, and the watchtowers along the moat give a good idea.
(Though as Lilly says, we went to a bit of trouble to get a tour of the inner grounds - normally one or other of us would find something good in this but the extra buildings are fairly dull, apart from a better view of a tower that you can see from the public gardens. Don't bother.)
Speaking of things that are difficult to book... Studio Ghibli - known to us for animated films like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke and near-legendary in Japan - has a custom-built museum, one of the most charming I've ever been to. A great deal of thought has been put into every exhibit. There is a small cinema showing an exclusive short film (a new one each year, I think, ours said (c)2010 - in Japanese but all we missed was some narration, the story was perfectly clear) - as an example of nice touches, the ticket is a little filmstrip with 3 frames from a Ghibli film, for you to keep. Sadly no photos are allowed inside but they do have a great robot on the roof:
The trip was worth it just for their amazing three-dimensional zoetrope. A big tree with bats, catbuses, mice and other assorted creates forming circles around it (about 30 bats in a circle, 30 catbuses in a circle, etc) starts to spin, they turn on a strobe light so that you are seeing individual "frames" rather than a blue of movement, and the creatures come alive and start to move, and you realise that the 30 bats are 30 different poses of the same bat that together form movement... I cannot describe how impressive this is. I've never seen anything like it. [Edit to add: we later saw Pixar's version, inspired by this - video here: http://paulandlilly.blogspot.com/2010/01/hong-kong-phoolery.html.] (We could also have spent a fortune in the shop... without buying very much, since it was not cheap! Just as well we have limited baggage space.)
The only problem with Ghibli is getting tickets! You can buy them from an authorised agent in some countries including England but not as far in advance as we would have needed to (and, um, I forgot to check this anyway before setting off). In Japan you have to buy a ticket in advance from a machine in a Lawson convenience store (we saw 2 of these in 10-minute taxi ride to our hotel but it then took us 2 days to find one on foot). And the machine is entirely in Japanese. Fortunately I had been to the Ghibli website and noted which buttons to push in sequence. We were ready to cross our fingers and hope this was right until we got to the payment page and our cards weren't suitable. Help!
The Japanese seem a very friendly folk and do by reputation hop to the assistance of foolish gaijin so we tried looking helpless and confused for a minute. Nobody leapt to our assistance. Eventually I tried speaking to a woman browsing magazines next to us, who did not speak any English but lived up to reputation by being incredibly helpful even though I could only say "Konnishiwa [hello]" and "Ghibli?". It transpires you can pay at the counter but only if you put in a phone number and international numbers are too long... Eventually she put her own number in! What a sweetie. I hope nobody rings her... Anyway, it was well worth the trouble.
The one downside about Japan is that food is a little more difficult, mainly since you can't tell what's in things. (Buns tend to be booby-trapped. They also have a prediliction for deep-frying.) some menus have a little English, many do not. But a common way to order here is from a photo menu with no text at all, or even by pointing to plastic models of the dishes in the window. So you have to hope that the photo/model is good enough to identify key ingredients (and, in my case, avoid obstacles like fish and tofu). It's hard work.
Sake barrels
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