Went out for my last night of eating in Tokyo. I went to some random sushi place underneath a train bridge. It was ok although I couldn’t get the image of the guy getting fish out of the tank and then butchering them to death whilst I chewed on the most rubbery scallop I have ever eaten and then having fish roe exploding in my mouth as well as eating a load of other fish based stuff that I have no idea what it was. I also had what looked like yoghurt but had octopus in it.

As a treat (because lets be honest I’ve been having a really hard time lately) I bought this -

IT IS THE MOST DISGUSTING ICE CREAM I’VE EVER ATTEMPTED TO EAT. If there was only some way out of here..

A little video of all the highlights from Tokyo -

Rick Click Save Target As (Requires Sound)

Thanks

One thing wrong with Tokyo. I can’t find anywhere to buy fruit. I can’t find any where that sells food with fruit in. I managed to find a bannana at Starbucks. That is the only fruit I have eaten since Australia I think.

Whilst in Japan let me make special mention about a site called Yongfook.com. A website about some guy living in Japan who is from UK. He reviews crazy Japanese food products, like a recent entry for a product called ‘Dairy Sour’. Here is a excert of that review - ‘Am I the only one to whom, the word “sour” when coupled with “dairy” instantly conjures up an image of rotten, fetid milk, the kind that you keep in your room at university because your crap student housing doesn’t have a fridge and the solid parts have all curdled and separated from the murky, “milk water” which floats at the top, making you dry heave when you imagine touching the cheese-gas-expanded carton and the volatile liquid erupts out and explodes all over your face, eating away at your skin like that virus in The Rock? THAT is dairy sour.’ Some people won’t get/like the humor but I love it, it’s really funny. I also know what he is talking about now (as I sit here munching on some Choco Flake [crunch] biscuits and looking at the box of ‘Morinaga’s Milk Caramel’ bar that I just bought which turns out to actually just be hard fudge. As for coffee shops, in India the difference between Cappucino and Latte was the size of the cup, here there doesn’t appear to be a difference, they both seem to be identical (no chocolate powder on the cappucino).

So last night I went up the Tokyo Tower, as shown in the last entry pictures. It was pretty cool, its not very high but the night time view is great. I wanted to head to Roppongi to get something to eat afterwards and after seeing how close it looked from up the tower I decided to walk. Distances obviously look closer from high up as it took a while to walk there!! I was surprised to see so many western faces! It appears Roppongi is the party capital of Tokyo. It also appears to be the place to ’score’. I wasn’t really dressed for a night out (black coat, beanie, Frommer’s Guide to Tokyo) but I did seem to be a target for the drug pushers. After being offered drugs by about 25 people I deceided to make a sharp exit.

I got back pretty late so today was a late start. I walked up to the Emperors Palace, you can’t really get into it, its closed off to the public except for two days a year. This is the best shot you can get of it -

I then headed to Ikebukuro which my guide describes as ‘less refined, a bit rough around the edges’. It was nothing of the sort. Although I did get the crossed arms from a worker in the arcade, because you are not allowed to take pictures. Here is the picture (haha in yer face) -

Arcades in Tokyo aren’t the futuristic place with all the new stuff that we don’t get in the western world for another two years that you might expect. They still play Street Fighter 2, fighting games are like spectator sports. There’s typically about 10 people watching two people play on a big screen separate to the main playing screens. Then there’s the gambling rooms, in one arcade there was a huge screen with computer game horse racing and about 30 consoles which people can sit at and bet on virtual horses to win real cash. Then there’s these games where you pretend to play guitar (you have to push three buttons on the neck of the plastic guitar in time with the computer screen) as well as drumming machines and pretend turntables. It makes you wonder why the people playing them don’t actually get into playing guitar/drums/dj mixing for real though. The arcades also seem to be the place to bring your date/girlfriend - “Do you want to go out tonight darling? I’ll fight you on Tekken, best of 5?” must be how it goes.

The great thing about my new camera is the lens. I can use it to spy on people, here is a shot at 200mm of a guard -

Not sure what to do tonight, maybe get an early one so I can hit the fish market early tomorrow morning for my last day in Japan.

Anhdres told me about this great tool from the University of British Columbia, it is called AutoStitch and is a free program and there are no complicated things you need to do. All you need is some pictures that have some kind of common connection to one another to create a panorama. These two shots are from two different locations. The day time shot is from the goverment offices I visited the other day. The night time shot is from Tokyo Tower. Click on the image to enlarge.

In the night time shot the white lights on the right is Ginza, where my hotel is and the white lights on the left are Shinjuku, where the day time photo was taken.

I also created this 360 degree panorama myself, the city looks never ending in all directions -

Welcome back to G2007!!! At last I have got it working again to its normal state. Thanks very much to Mr Anhdres for making the Japan orientated banner for the site. It rules, take a look at his site it is truely amazing.

So last night I ate this -

Andy would call it a ‘Tuna Bomb’ as it was purely different types of Tuna. I ate it sitting around the table where the chefs make the Sushi and also where the fish tank was. I felt the fish in the tank give me very strange looks as I swallowed their cousins (all except the dead one floating upside down). I think I broke every Sushi eating rule whilst in there (like not dipping the rice into the soy and biting into a piece and then not eating all of it). I was too busy wondering if ‘elbows on the table’ was also looked at with dismay.

This morning I went to the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno to check out some Japanese ceramics, Buddhist sculpture, samurai armour and swords. It was pretty good, lots of things to see, there’s 5 different buildings each with different things in, this is a picture of the main building (Honkan) that is devoted to Japanese art -

I took my brand new camera but then realised I had left the battery for it at home!! DOH!!!! So I went back to get it and headed for Asakusa to go and checkout the Sensoji Temple. I went a bit camera crazy here, so here are some highlights. This is the road that leads up to the Sensoji Temple, can you spot the guy with the face mask? -

This is a side road in Asakusa, this Taxi pulled into shot out of focus but it gives the back of the shot a nice feel -

I ended up on some backstreet that was getting more and more seedy by the minute. Lots of gambling going on, so I hopped into this little arcade where they were betting on horses going around the table -

I am going to go up Tokyo Tower now and try and get some night shots (without a tripod), non-stop-japan.

This is my electronic shopping finished. I have a new camera, a Nikon D70s, its beautiful. Although I am still working it out….

I really like Tokyo and I don’t really know why. Maybe it is because the people don’t seem to hassel you and the service is great. You can walk into an electronics shop and play with all the stuff and no one will bother you unless you talk to them, its great. Also there’s no one here that looks menacing and there seems to be little or no theft. Even my tourist guide book says that if you leave something somewhere, like a wallet or a camera, chances are it will still be there when you go back. This may be the reason why everyone walks around with mobile phones hanging off their neck in full display. No one is going to steal it from you. Talking of mobile phones they seem to be light years ahead, it makes my Nokia look like something from the stone age (which incidentally doesn’t work here).

Last night I managed to stay awake long enough to go out in the evening. I decided to go back to Shibuya because there seemed to be a lot of stuff going down there. Here it is at night time -

Tokyo is one big Picaddilly Circus (or Kings Cross for Australia) with neon lights flashing and blinking at you everywhere. They also like the sort of music you get in old games consoles. When you put the two together you get a head spinning combination of sound and music. I noticed today that when the train doors are about to close they play music a bit like what you get in Super Mario Bros when you are running out of time to kill the end of level boss.

After having Sushi at lunchtime I decided to have something different for evening food, so where better to go than Outback Grill. A traditional true blue ozzie streak house -

True Ozzie Dinner, brought a tear to my eye

I met a Japanese girl in there who told me she wanted to come to England and meet David Beckham and was training to be a psychologist. I didn’t understand anything else she told me!

Today I went to Electronic Town Akihabara to pick up some electronics. Here is some little electronic market which pretty much had everything you needed to build a robot that could destroy the world -

Here is a car parking building, which rather than housing people houses cars. You drive into the building and an elevator takes you and the car up to your floor where you leave it.

After the dizzy experience of walking around all the electronics shops I decided to head for Shinkuju to go to the government building and have a look at the view. It is free (where Tokyo Tower costs money) and it is on the 45th floor so the view was going to be good. Unfortunetly it started to rain so the view was a little bit obscured. On a clear day you can see Mount Fiji. Here is the view looking towards Mount Fiji (which you can’t see) -

And there’s no street names?

I then headed to the Shinjuku shopping area, I found this tourist information sign that showed me my location. Unfortunetly it appears you have to be in another dimension to be able to work out where exactly you are -

4 Dimensional Location Map crossing mutiple space time boundaries

That is it for today, going to go out in Ginza tonight to see what is going down. I need to rest again now, this place is crazy!!

I know I thought I did not have jet lag but that was clearly wrong. After having a lay down at 18h00, I thought I was in for a 1 hour nap; I woke up 7 hours later! So I have still not seen Japan at night, that is planned for tonight!!

Today I went to Harajuka where I had a look at the Meiji Jungu Shrine, that was very nice -

I then walked down a famous street called Takeshita Dori (pfff) apparently there’s no one under the age of 25 who goes down this street. I saw loads of funnily dressed Japanese teenagers/young adults down here, they have a very strange style. I also found a lot of surf shops which I went in and cried my eyes out looking at the beautiful surf boards. They are so expensive here though, ¥116,000 for a 5′10 board (about $1500 AUD) double the price of Australia!

I found loads of clothes that I wanted (and bought) 55DSL t-shirts cost ¥1000, about $12 or £5 so I bought loads of them!

Who said Tokyo was expensive? A Latte and a croissant comes to ¥232 in a normal coffee shop (not starbucks) which is about £1.15 or $3 AUD - I am sure Sydney and London are excessively more expensive than that!!

Cola doesn’t come in cans, they come in these weird little bottles, it tastes the same though -

I had to go into one of the arcades here, it is such as Japanese thing that I thought I would try it. I had a go on Tekken 5 and was playing against the computer (and doing pretty well) but then ‘NEW CHALLENGER’ flickered onto the screen and I was playing against the guy opposite me (who I couldn’t see). I got beaten pretty much KO PERFECT each time.

The surf culture here is huge, I did not expect that. I spoke to a guy in the Quicksilver shop (I was wearing my Quicksilver - Australia t-shirt) and he gave me the names of a few places you can surf in Japan. If I find time / work out how to use the train system I might give it a look. I wish I had my surfboard with me, but realistically it would have been absolutely impossible.

I had Sushi for lunch today (thanks to the guy who prevented me from putting something that wasn’t soy into my soy dish). It was pretty much the same as it was in Australia, although less expensive. Here are some Sushi USB devices (not edible) -

Right, I am going to do a major suitcase sort out now. I have bought 2kg of stuff and I am on the maximum limit I am allowed for the plane. This is going to get interesting.

So this is the temporary home of g2007 as that is broken for the forseeable future. Which is ashame, but I will port all these entries over to it when I get it working again!

The night before I left a load of us went out to the Fitzroy and East Sydney for a couple of farewell drinks, which was great fun! Cooster and myself somehow managed to wear virtually the same clothes again, obviously it was not a problem -

Some People think Andrew is my Brother

This was the whole gang that came out on the last night, thanks guys -

Katja took me to the airport in style the next day. She managed to get a black landrover off her boss so that was cool rocking up in that!!

Katja and myself with landrover in background

The flight to Singapore was uneventful, I watched some films on the plane and read a bit about Tokyo in my little book. I got to Singapore and bought a Coca-Cola from the shop. They sell them in 330ml the same as the UK in Singapore, they look like children’s sizes. I got so use to the 375ml cans in Australia! After about 1 hour wait I was on-board the plane to Tokyo Nariata airport! Woo!! I slept pretty much the whole way which was great, I have no jet lag at all because the time difference between Japan and Australia is one hour, but takes 16 hours to get here!! Arriving in Japan was pretty uneventful I am pleased to say. The airport was so quiet it was weird. I got my bag searched by the customs. They gave me a booklet with pictures of every type of illegal drug you could imagine and I had to say ‘no I don’t have any of those’ to all of them, it was funny. I then had the scanner that looks at body temperature pointed at me to make sure I wasn’t carrying some virus that could wipe out the population of Japan. I booked a train ticket as recommended in my book because of the holiday rush (golden week). There was no one around! I had to buy another ticket because I was out of the airport and at the train station by about 08h00 and my ticket was booked for 11h16. The train cruised into Tokyo and everything seemed easy. Then when I got to Tokyo station I had to get the train to a place called Shimbashi (thanks to Henrietta for all the directions), this was a little bit more complicated. It is easy to find the line that the train goes on, however, knowing if that train goes to the station you want is purely a guess. No one else seems to know neither. I started to get concerned about the amount of people wearing face masks as well, as ifthey were trying to stop the spread of SARS or something.

When I finally found the right train it reminded me a lot like London in rush hour (shame I have a 32kg suitcase and 10kg backpack to carry around) -

So I found the train station and then spend the next 30 minutes walking around tryin to find the hotel. Henrietta gave me great directions but I couldn’t find the exit that she had given me, so I asked some one and he pointed at an exit and said “RIGHT, RIGHT”. I tried that but I didn’t get to the hotel, so I asked someone else and they pretty much showed me the entire way there.

So I have spent most of the day looking around Ginza, there’s loads of shops here. I visited the Sony Centre which has the PSP handheld games console that I was going to get but after actually having a go on it I’ve decided it would be a waste of money. In the morning the streets were lovely and quiet and it reminded me of the City of London at the weekends; a little bit too empty its freaky. This changed as the day went on, Japanese people don’t seem to be early starters -

Tokyo isn’t really that much different from London, in a city sense so far. However the biggest difference is the language. I got a map from the hotel but it is useless, getting lost seems to be the only thing to do, you are better off using a compass here. The characters they use in their language are far too complex for my feable western brain.

Helpful train map

One of the coolest things I’ve seen today is the Earthquake simulator. I think it is designed to make kids feel safe. I made a video of it that I will organise another time when there’s more time.

Earthquake Sim (the truck shakes)

Some other highlights of the day are the Sony Center and the Apple Mac shop which looks like a G5 -

Well I am going to have a lay down now, my head is spinning from all the weird characters/electronics/face masks.

Thank you Henrietta for giving me directions to the hotel. I think McDonalds is going to be my base from where I measure all distances and locations. Check out this funky map!! -

I have come to the decision to leave my surfboard behind in Australia (thanks Charmaine for looking after it) - logistically it just wasn’t going to work carrying it around the world. No worries though, I’ll buy a new one in England and use the Dalhberg when I get back!!!

Next update from Japan I expect!!