Skytree

Day 20

Sunny and warm day today. Pity I felt sick all day. I'm blaming it on yesterday's dinner...

Our local train station in Shinjuku station, which is also the busiest train station in the world with 36 platforms, an average of 3.64 million users a day (2007), an underground arcade that stretches far with over 200 exits. Saying this, it comes with no surprise that it is packed with people day and night and it is extremely dificult to find your exit. It took us a while to manoeuvre the extremely complicated exit's plan and to find out that there is a subterranean subway that leads almost to our hotel. 

High expectations we had for the Skytree, the 2nd tallest structure in the world and the tallest in Japan at 634m and the tallest free-standing broadcasting tower in the world.

As we are just using our JR Japan Pass, there was plenty of walking from Asakusa train station to the Skytree, almost an hour. Asakusa is the oldest part of town and however we have seen some old buildings, it wasn't anything like Kyoto.

Skytree is pretty high... and pretty expensive! You can buy the ordinary ticket at around ¥2000 and queue for about 60-90min to get to the lifts or you can pay almost ¥3000 to get on the express queue which takes less than 30min. Funny enough this queue is for foreigners only! As we are not keen on queues we took the express route.

We were escorted by a suited man straight past the ordinary queue to the lift queues. There were some unhappy looks from the chinese waiting on the other queue.

There was some queuing on the lifts but we went up fairly quickly. Each lift's decoration represents a season, we went up on the spring one. Fastest speed was 600m/min and it counts how many meters it's already done.

We bought tickets for the 1st platform, 350m high, and it is indeed a very broad view. Unfortunately the horizon was misty (dust, pollution?) so we couldn't see Mount Fuji as advertised by the inumerous photographs. Jorge wounders if it is possible to see it at all considering the distance and pollution of such a big city. 

There were sections of the floor with glass and many tourists taking pictures and dramatising the situation. All you could see was buildings, and the thickness of the glass doesn't let you feel scared. The walls are also made of glass but they are far from you so you can't get vertigo.

Manuel went up to the top platform at 450m and 100m higher than the 1st platform. The view wasn't much different so we decided not to spend an extra ¥1000 to go up. Manuel was happy though, all he wants is to say he was actually there.

There is a huge shopping mall in the Skytree building and when you come down from the tower you have to go through 3 floors of shops. It's all very comercial!

Takeaway sushi and bento box from a convenience shop and we sat by the river, and literally under a bridge, to have lunch. We found out that there aren't as many pigeons in Tokyo as in London or Lisbon. However, there was a boat cruise stop on the other side of the river with many more people sitting at the riverside. That might provide more substance to the pigeons.

We walked back to Asakusa and past Nakamise street, a pedestrian shopping street 250m long packed with tourists and where you can buy everything from souvenires, kimonos, kitchenware, etc. Some of these stores have been operating for centuries although they don't look that old.

As we were not far, we tried to find Jakotsu-Yu, a public bath house alleged to have  painted murals of Mount Fuji in the walls of the bath. Our last chance to see Mount Fuji. Alas, we couldn't find it!! We walked around the block a while and couldn't find anything resembling a bath house. There were some closed shops so I wonder if it is closed. Again, guidebooks don't always provide the most up-to-date information.

That meant no Mount Fuji at all on our first trip to Japan. How disappointing! On the other hand, it is a good reason to return.

Ginza was our next stop. A shopping district that has a very european feel. Wide streets of department stores, expensive stores, clean cut buildings and with off-street parking (something extremely rare in Japan). I glanced at Mikimoto pearls window, checked the price, and kept going. As much as I like them, I only have money for kimonos and yukatas this trip. 

There is a crossing in Ginza which is bigger than the one in Shibuya. I still don't understand why the other is more iconic!

Kabukiza Theatre was at walking distance. There are 2 kabuki shows a day, morning and afternoon, but each is divided into single acts. You can see the whole show (a stagering 4.5-5h!!) or just a single show. They are obviously in japanese so we can't understand but watching a single act could be considered a taster.

Kabuki is a tradicional form of theatre involving elaborately designed costumes, overdone make-up, flashy wigs and exagerated performance by the actors. All actors are men. The stage staff that changes sets and scenarios during performance wear black and are to be ignored (not seen) by the audience, they are the origin of the ninjas's trademark look.

We got there 20min before the next single act (Narikomaya kabuki no nigiwai). We had no idea what it was but it was only 25min so it couldn't be too bad. We bought the tickets and waited at the queue to go in.

Single act tickets are the cheapest tickets (¥1000) and you get the top level tickets (level 4) so you are way up there, but seated. It is so high it doesn't show in the seating plan! Seats are not allocated, it's first come first serve. There wasn't too many prople so we were ok. 

The theatre is quite modern looking inside and the stage is quite wide, with 2 plank-like entries through the stalls. There are lateral balconies as in western theatres but they are not separated into boxes. There were people in the balconies having bento boxes during break. When you consider how long the performance is, a meal or two will surely be needed.

During the show the lights are not completely turned off, just dimmed. We could see some of the people in the balconies sleeping! The single act was quite boring and I almost slept. The actors playing women were quite ugly, you could tell they were men. They project the voice very well and acting and body posture is over-emphasised. It's all very theatrical!

We weren't the only foreigners, other western-looking people were also in our level. Some japanese as well, one of them very entusiastic, he cheered every time a specific actor talked. A fan I suppose!

Good experience the kabuki, but next time we ought to understand japanese! 

We are sorry we came to Japan outside Sumo season. It would have been great to watch a match!

Akihabara was our next stop, Tokyo's electric city. A block of shops with electric products, but mainly anime, manga and game related products. 

We found a store with new and

2nd hand anime and manga items and it was a whole building with a theme per floor, called Mandarake. From toys to dress-up, books, games, CD's, DVD's. We found some well know ones from our childhood: Sailor Moon, Evangelion, Samurai X, Dragon Ball. Awsome!

It also had a floor for soft porn aimed to the female market and another of hentai (porn) where there were only male costumers in the floor. In all floors, books and magazines are sealed in a plastic cover so you have to know what you want before buying. It also protects the items from being damaged.

An interesting fact about japanese is that they seem to love books. It doesn't matter if it is manga (comics), books or magazines, bookshops are always full of customers. Considering how technological the japanese society is, it is remarkable to see that the print industry is still holding strong.

Around these shops there were plenty of girls dressed in french maid outfits calling out for costumers. Yes, it sounds dodgy but they are actually waitresses in Maid Cafes. These are very popular in big cities and the maids serve drinks and cute looking food whilst engaging in conversation and also playing (usually childish) games with the customers. They can apparently be frequented by both men and women but the boys weren't in the mood for puppy love so we didn't try. Besides, it is unlikely they would speak english.

Hunger was setting in so dinner was in order. We were in need of a break from japanese food and keen on pizza so we set off looking for a pizza restaurant. Of course you never find a pizza place when you want one! There are plenty of italian restaurants with pasta on the menu, but they don't always serve pizza. Perhaps japanese don't like pizza as much. Some of these restaurants have japanese-style plastic menus (the pictures below were taken elsewhere in Tokyo).

So pizza was a no no but we found McDonalds. I know... shameful! Manuel had a Big Mac which tasted as usual. Me and Jorge had teriyaki chiken and pork burgers. They were good, but the chicken was better then the pork.

Last stop of the day was the Tokyo Metropolitan building. Yes, I know we have been there already, but we wanted to see Tokyo by night. Our opinion is that it is much prettier at night. What do you think?