Spring Vacation part 7: Tokyo

東京

Last but DEFINITELY not least: Tokyo. I don’t even know where to start. Tokyo went by so fast, I’ve seen so much and yet so little of this very exciting city. I loved every minute of my time there, despite the freezing cold sometimes. Right from the start it was exciting. In the shinkansen we had a marvelous view of Mt. Fuji, of which I took way too many pictures but I just couldn’t let the chance slip. Arriving in Tokyo and seeing the huge huge buildings everywhere was really awesome. After checking in to our very nice hotel in Ueno we got right down to it and strolled through Ginza, a high-class shopping area. Neon signs all around, and then in the midst of all that we found (despite a long way round I must admit) the Kabuki theatre where immediately went to see part of a performance. I loved it, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the costumes were briljant, the play funny, and the English commentary very helpful ;).

Our hotel was in Ueno, a rather central part of Tokyo if you want to go places, but we first decided to explore the surroundings. Ueno has the famous Ueno park where the cherry blossom was just starting to show. Just walking around we bumped into a sand sculpture, found a taiko shop, checked out the drum museum (storage room would have been a better description but hey, who’s checking anyway). Having spent time on my new found hobby it was only fair and definitely expected that we head to Akihabara, the electronics area of Tokyo. So technology ‘freak’ are not just associated with stores full of only wires and cables, but also lots of cosplay, ranging from outfit shops to café’s and goodness knows what. The most amazing part however was, Luuk bought nothing. We ended the day with a visit to Yasukuni Shrine, yes, back to what Jennifer wants to do. Somehow less impressive than what I thought it would be, maybe I was distracted by the topfit young Japanese male runners, but I’m glad I got to see the place that is discussed, oh so much.


Not having seen enough yet, we headed over to Roppongi Hills, and headed straight up to the 53rd floor or so to wonder around the Mori-museum for several HOURS, before going down a floor to enjoy a Tokyo-at-night city view and then going for a delicious yaki-niku meal. The next day we headed first to Heian Jingu, seeing a lot more green and peaceful part of Tokyo before heading to Shinjuku where after taking a walk down Takeshita-street we met up with Masa! Yes, Masa from Leiden. It was realllly good to see him again. He showed us around Shinjuku a bit (too bad it wasn’t a Sunday – not a lot of cosplay) and then showed us various architectural works of art. He’s into architecture apparently. He then showed us where he works (UN University!) before heading to the Tokyo Government towers for a very expensive coffee and a splendid, though foggy/smoggy daytime view of Tokyo. Last up was Tokyo nightlife. A nice bite of Monja (tastes better than it looks. Trust me), before touring Shibuya, more “downtown” Tokyo and of course paying a visit to Hachiko the dog. After a very decent nomihoudai that almost had me peeing in my pants of laughter when Masa fell asleep in the middle of a conversation (he was doing the talking!), we shot one more purikura and had one last game of arcade taiko before calling it a night, ending our vacation on a very high note. It was great.


THE END