Roppongi

Today we took a class trip to Roppongi to visit an art gallery. Roppongi is roughly in the middle of Tokyo (almost directly between Shinjuku and Shibuya) and I was delighted to find that the museum was at the TOP of one of the tallest buildings around.


From the top floor we were able to see a *fantastic* panorama of the city. Facing south I managed to capture a shot of Tokyo bay:

Tokyo Tower can be seen on the left, and the Rainbow Bridge in the distance to the right.

After our trip through the museum we explored some of the area around the building.

A cool fountain outside the nearby apartments.

A playground!

A bizarre spider creature!

When our exploring was done, Gary sent us off on a bizarre assignment: finding and photographing "life in Akihabara".

Harajuku adventure

Sunday means more weekend exploring time. So a group of us headed back to Harajuku (at the request of the ladies). When we got there some of us guys grabbed a quick meal and I got a glass pepsi bottle....

Never seen one of these in my life!

To my delight we found some more awesome signs. One of the funniest parts of being in another country is reading signs that have english text on them. Apparently in Harajuku "smorking" and "tout" are not acceptable activities.

No smorking, no tout.

We did a little bit of people watching from a balcony on a two story building while the girls giggled and did whatever girls do when surrounded by clothes. This girl was wearing a hat which displayed the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch...

Yes, the holy hand grenade.

Some crazy fashion.

As we headed back to the station it started to get busy (yeah it apparently wasn't busy before...). We picked a good time to leave I guess.


We then set off for the Tokyo Pokemon Center. At the time I had never really played Pokemon, so Candiece and I stopped at a cafe nearby instead.

Yummy soup.

Also I learned that in modern Tokyo, samurai fight fires! It's true!

When our Pokemon-catching comrades were done in the Pokemon Center, we headed to our third destination: Tokyo Tower. We had quite a few stops along the way including a little open-air market and a really pretty park.

Grilled Shellfish of some kind at the market.

Big Gatehouse.

The market basically went right up to the shrine at the base of Tokyo Tower.

The Tower itself.

Stairs in the park that stood between us and the tower.

Whats going on behind that sign?

That was the end of our trip, so we headed back to Atsugi. When we got back we were treated to a fashion show. Seems the girls bought some outfits in Harajuku!

Candiece.

The whole posse.

Candiece again.

After the fashion show was done, I headed back to my apartment and crashed.

Saturday again

Saturday yet again. This time we have plans to head to Akihabara with some friends from KAIT. Started the morning off with a walk through some of the small streets.


Then we got on the train and got ourselves down to Tokyo! Not as rainy as the last time we were there. This is good.

The sign coming out of Akihabara station.

The light store. Not a joke.

We grabbed some food at a place called "Pepper Lunch", my new favorite place to eat in the whole entire world. Apparently there is only one in America... somewhere in California. There needs to be a second one right inside my kitchen.

DELICIOUS

We stopped at some arcades and had at ton of fun. This was after all our general plan. Success.

Yamanote leaves Electric Town.

Of course, everyone knows that there are Gundams watching over Akihabara.

We hopped back on the train and when we arrived at Hon-Atsugi station, there was a musician set up on the courtyard with a keyboard. Her name was Zushi Tamami and she was very friendly!

Playing away.

We bought some CDs from her and she signed them for us!

Good adventures.

Ebisu

Wednesday field trip day! Today's trip is to Ebisu, our target is the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

The checkered walkway leading to the museum.

Unfortunately, no pictures allowed in a museum. So I don't really have anything to show from it here. Fantastic exhibit though. We only spent about an hour in Ebisu, so afterward we took a class vote and decided to keep the trip going with a stop to Shibuya. Most of the people in our group hadn't been there yet.

Heading across that awesome intersection.

Wall hacks.

Lots of umbrellas.

Checking out the big guns in a camera shop.

And thats all.

Yeah that was fast...

So the day after my adventure to the Imperial palace, I went back. This time I took Candiece with me because it was pretty obvious that she would love it. We jumped on the train and got there in now time. That was a relief. I wasn't yet sure that I could get around Tokyo without a guide.

The Yamanote coming in.

We got there pretty early in the day so that we would have time to see the palace gardens (I only got a glimpse of them the day before). It was a pretty sunny day with only a few clouds. Very good for taking pictures.

Crossing the bridge over the first moat.

Little admission ticket. This basically says "get the heck out by 4:30".

The gardens were like a whole different world. The grounds are roughly bowl shaped, going uphill toward the edge of the stone walls. Tall trees around the perimeter make it so you can barely ever see the city outside. It was like being in a magical forest. Pretty awesome.

Path to a pond.

Candiece in front of a little waterfall!

By the pond.

A raven, a heron, and a swan.

After we were done with the palace gardens, we decided to head to Akihabara (surprisingly Candiece thought it sounded pretty interesting). I guess Sunday is a big day there because we found a wacky assortment of music just outside the Electric Town exit of Akihabara station.

First up the singing, dancing bus-top girls.

Then this punk band that had instruments but didn't plug them in...
What?

Packed streets.

After we walked around and saw what there was to see that day, we headed back. When we got back to Atsugi some of the nice folks in our group put on a little birthday celebration for a few of us (myself included) who had birthdays in the first week of the trip. Yay!

A little birthday cake made from chocopan (chocolate chip bread),
nutella, and banana slices. AHAHAHA YESSS

All in all a very awesome end to a very packed second weekend in Japan.

To Tokyo

I'm going to start posting some more stories and pictures. These posts will be back dated (I was very busy in Japan and didn't really have time to blog :[

Now:

Today was our first trip in to Tokyo with our language partners. Michael and I set out with our new pal Koujiro to travel to a couple different parts of the (very large) city.

Our first stop was Shibuya station. Having heard the story of faithful dog Hachiko in Japanese class, I felt that it was necessary to visit the famous statue outside the station.

Hachiko (ハチ公), the faithful dog.

We checked out the intersection near this statue: "scramblecross" is what Koujiro called it. Apparently it was famous too. Afterward we grabbed some udon at a shop that we passed then hopped back on the train.

The signage on the other side of "scramblecross".

We took the Yamanote Line about half way around its loop course to Akihabara. For anyone who isn't into this kind of thing: Akihabara is a center of anime, manga, gaming, and general "otaku" culture. The whole place is packed full of anime/manga shops, game shops, camera and electronics shops... wow. On the top floor of Yodobashi Camera we found this little treasure:

Thats right. USB controlled tachikoma.
No idea what it does.

All sorts of wild sights to see in Akihabara. Street music performances. Random dances. People in costumes all over the place. Maids handing out flyers... wait what? Yes.

Just like that.

When we were done with Akihabara (for the day, definitely going back), we got back on the Yamanote in the clockwise direction and headed for Tokyo station. Tokyo station has been around for a while. When Japan was first starting to industrialize and coal powered trains were connecting cities, Tokyo station was there. Big brick building in the middle of towering skyscrapers. The old building is basically just sitting on top of a modern train station now. They are currently restoring the exterior so the whole thing was covered in canvas this day. Hope to get a picture of it later.

There's Tokyo Tower in the distance.

Anyway, our purpose in coming to tokyo station is the Imperial Palace. We're getting there pretty late so we didn't have time to see the gardens. This place is beautiful. Literally an island garden in the middle of the city. Promised myself I had to come back here and make a day of it.

The view across the moat. Wow.

City outside of the wall.

Well it was time to head back to Atsugi. So we headed back to the train and called it a day. What a day indeed. Longest post yet I think. Giving myself a medal for that.