A Bit of Tokyo

I was in Tokyo for five days. In addition to going to Comiket, I wanted to spend time in the biggest city in the world because I hadn't yet, really. When I first came to Japan, I stopped briefly at Narita Airport before getting a short flight to Osaka. Narita is in the general Tokyo area but it didn't really feel like I'd been to Tokyo.

I live in Kashihara, which is a small city in Nara Prefecture, less than an hour away from Kyoto and Osaka. They say the grass is always greener on the other side but actually I like this grass the best. I mean, Kashihara is small but big enough that I have everything I need. If I want to do some serious shopping, Osaka is easy to get to. If I want to see some beautiful historical buildings and swanky restaurants, Kyoto is easy to get to. It took me three hours to get to Tokyo by bullet train. But Tokyo was pretty great.

I had two guides. I knew about all the famous parts of town from all the Japanese movies I've seen. And I also asked my students to recommend places to go and things to do.

My hotel was a cheap APA hotel in Minato, around 4000 yen a night (so less than 40 dollars). There wasn't a whole lot to see around there, though I did have incredible chicken kebob at a corner restaurant one night. But my hotel was in easy walking distance of Tokyo Tower.

It was surprisingly expensive to go to the top deck--3000 yen! I ended up just going to the middle deck for 1200.

It was still a good view.

Many of my students recommended an old part of town called Asakusa. I'm not sure why. It was nice but nothing to write home about. I guess I should have visited the temple. They'd asked me to eat monjayaki but, despite searching high and low, I could not find a monjayaki restaurant that was open. Maybe it was a Covid thing but I don't know why just monjayaki restaurants would be closed.

I did see a lot of wanted posters:

I ended up just having chashu ramen for lunch.

If you like really tender pork, I strongly recommend chashu ramen.

It was after Comiket, on Sunday, that I really started exploring the city in earnest. The first place I wanted to go to was Shinjuku because I really like this Keiko Fuji song;

Shinjuku is yakuza headquarters in Tokyo so, unsurprisingly, it basically turned out to be a red light district filled with gambling dens and strip clubs.

It was in Shinjuku I found a restaurant that served edomaezushi, another thing my students recommended.

Edo is the old name for Tokyo and "mae" means before or in front of. So this is sushi made from fish, roe, and shrimp from the Tokyo area and treated with vinegar in a way that served to preserve the meat in ancient times.

It was good, very tender with a subtle flavour. And expensive--5000 yen, which I gather is relatively cheap for edomaezushi!

After Shinjuku, I visited Harajuku and Shibuya, the fashionable shopping areas of Tokyo.

I didn't buy anything. And it was tough to resist temptation. For, behold:

I took this picture from a little window across the street because I wanted to show that this Tower Records is in fact a tower. Yes, it's the whole building. That's nine storeys of music, CDs and vinyl mostly. On the floor dedicated to rock music, I found a two disk set of Nine Inch Nails performing with David Bowie. On the floor with soundtracks, I found a three disk extended edition of the Bram Stoker's Dracula soundtrack. Every section I looked at had something ranging from rare to ultra-rare. In the vinyl section, I spotted a whole Dalek album, the first Doctor Who merchandise I've seen anywhere in Japan.

After Shibuya, I went to Ginza. I remembered how cool Ginza looked in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs and I wondered if anything remained of that chill bar scene from the 1960 movie. Now it appears to be a very expensive shopping district.

I saw a lot of foreigners here, I didn't feel special at all. I'd say 30% of the people I saw were white and I heard a lot of English being spoken. Some of the buildings were really beautiful.

I didn't get anything in Ginza, either. But after Ginza, I stopped in Akasaka and found another meal my students had recommended.

Menchi-katsu is breaded, deep-fried meat. I started eating before I remembered to take a picture. It comes with a bowl of shredded lettuce and there's an assortment of sauces you can choose to add to it. It was pretty good and thankfully cheap, less than 1000 yen.

On the way back to my hotel one day, I randomly decided to stop in a place called Nakano. I'm glad I did because it turned out to be Otaku-central, containing a huge mall for anime, manga, video games, cosplay, and various other hobby and nerd goods.

So that's some of what I did in Tokyo. This entry is getting really long so I think I'll save the rest for another time.

Twitter Sonnet #1613

The volunteer could drive us up the wall.
Abysmal business charred the building black.
A crooked man was yet surpassing tall.
Corrupted boys began to build the track.
A normal hour took the cloudy day.
Revolving eyes were ever right at noon.
We crammed a ransom 'neath the choc'late bay.
The smuggler's fleet departs before the moon.
The growing brick was yet a coffin shape.
Diverse examples tried the yankee plant.
A puppet's teeth could never cut the tape.
Recall what butter does and jelly can't.
The stacks of stuff arrived in varied hues.
The rare and common blend in vibrant blues.