A Day in Tokyo

Yesterday (Monday 5th May) Jurate, Naoki and I went to Tokyo....for a day that has probably been one of my most exciting days of my stay in Japan so far.

We left Tsukuba at around 10.30am and first went to Asakusa to see Sensōji (or Asakusa Kannon), the largest Buddhist temple in the Tokyo area.

Later we went to Ueno Zoo, had a look around and also lunched there. Pics are worth a thousand words so they are here. From Ueno we went to Shinjuku to enter the 45th story of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building where the South Observatory is located. From here, one gets a panoramic view of the skyscrapers of Japan. We saw this ingenious advertisement in a station and had a good laugh over it.

Shibuya was our next stop at around 6pm where we had also dinner at an Indian resaurant. Later, we walked around the streets as Jurate wantetd a glimpse of the teen fashion that Shibuya is reowned for. As it was Golden Week, there were even more people at the intersection than I had previously seen. Roppongi was our next destination and it spelt class from the moment we sat foot out of the station. Roppongi Hills, a massive daprtment store lies just in front of the station exit with a humongous replica of a spider outside. We entered Roppongi Hills just to how it`s interior looked like but found out that an admission fee applied if we were to go any further than the first floor so we came back. Just outside Roppongi Hills, we could see Tokyo tower and we decided to go there on foot. Not one of our best decisions, we spent around 40mins trying to reach Tokyo Tower. Although it looked close, we later found out that it wasn`t so simple as we had to cross through countless streets and sidealleys and at times we found ourselves in narrow, unlit streets.

On our way to Tokyo Tower, Naoki saw Tiffany and Co. and we decided to enter it, just for fun...one of the rings I saw there carried a price tag with about 7 or 8 digits (in Yen) so we quietly made our exit. Further ahead we saw three Aston Martin V8 Vantage cars in a showroom....one was exactly the same type as the one used in the movie Die Another Day......I can only dream about driving a car like that........so the next best thing we did was to pose in front of the cars and have our pics taken!

Finally about 40mins later, we reached the foot of Tokyo Tower and I　still retain that first image, of the foot of the tower, in my mind,,,,what a marvellous feat of Japanese engineering...333meters of steel standing upright, self supported....50 years old and still holding the record of being the highest self supporting structure in the world.....I had been to New Zealand`s Sky Tower before and at 186meters, I thought that was impressive until I saw Tokyo Tower.

We went to the first level which is 150m high and saw the entire of Tokyo and its surrounding areas lit up with lights. So amazing was the sight that I only took a few pics as the views were something that no cameras could ever capture. We then wanted to go to the next level which was 250m high but found out that we would have to wait for 70mins as only a few people at a time can go to the second level...because the tower gets quite thin that high up. Undecided initially because not having anywhere to stay in Tokyo,we had to catch the last train back from Akihabara at 11.30pm and it was already about 9pm. We still decided to join the queue to go up as we thought we might not come back again to see one of the finest views in Japan. Luck on our side, it took was only about 30mins and we went to the second level....not before having some fun....there was a drunk couple ahead of us and they started talking to us....things I didn`t understand......they were so drunck that at the ticket counter, the lady lost her balance and crashed on the floor!

After seeing around the second level of Tokyo Tower, we rushed to the nearest station to go back to Akihabara. It was around 12.20am when I reached my dormitory.