Just down the road from our hotel in the middle of Tokyo is the Imperial Palace most of which is closed to the general public but we spent quite a bit of time walking through the East Gardens (dark green on map) These gardens themselves are pretty substantial taking us a good 2 hours to explore. During the height of the 1980s property bubble in Japan the palace was valued to be equal to the entire real estate value of California.
Lunch today was a new experience, after surveying the plastic food replicas outside the restaurant we selected a dish, entered the number into a vending machine, paid, gave ticket to chef who about 2 mins later produced bowl of noodles.After this quick lunch we visited the Shinjuku and Shibuya areas of Tokyo. The first thing to greet you as you exit the Shinjuku station is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government towers all 52 stories. My photos didn't do it justice so here's one from wikipedia. There is a viewing deck at the top of both towers which gave us a great view over the city.
From Sinjuku we travelled South to Shibuya a trendy area of town and being a public holiday the streets were packed with shoppers, fighting our way through the crowds we made it to Yoyogi park, on route were quite a few buskers including a 10 year old girl playing an eclectic guitar singing (shouting) rock music and some sort of boy band surrounded by screaming teenage girls.
Whilst walking through Yoyogi park we came across some interesting sights including the people in the photograph below having a picnic.
After a quick brush up at the hotel we set off for dinner with a friend of mine Koichi and his wife Junko who live here in Tokyo.
We were very lucky to be able to sample some great Japanese food that we would have had no chance of ordering without Koichi and Junko. After quite a bit of Sake we were visited by a Japanese deitie know as Namahage
On New Years Eve each year the young men in each town dress up as Namahage and visit each house in turn asking if there are any badly behaved children in the house, quite a way to ensure that the children behave themselves for the rest of the year. After our brief encounter it was enough to ensure that I would be on my best behavior for quite some time.
The video below is work watching all the way through it goes dark after we are attacked by the Namahage but the voices are quite funnyHighlights: A great evening out with Koichi and Junko
1 comment:
Ahhh now i understand what is happening in the video!
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