9th August 2019: Pretty lights, 2019 Edition {Japan, summer 2019}

Posted on 15 September 2019 by JBinnacle

That morning I headed off to Ikebukuro [池袋], on my way to find one of the most important Tokyo [東京] graveyard – Zoshigaya Reien [雑司ケ谷霊園]. I wandered the graveyard for a while – it was damn hot.

However, there was one particular grave I was interested in, the restplace of Lafcadio Hearn / Koizumi Yakumo [小泉八雲], the 19th Century collector of ghost and mythology stories.

I decided to walk out the opposite direction from which I had come in because I wanted to see a park. I did not find it, but pretty much walked into Otori Jinja [大鳥神社] (and discovered a new stamp rally I should attempt at some point).

I continued on my way towards the station and sort of accidentally walked past Honnōji [本納寺].

And then this little guy drew my attention and I entered Zoshigaya Mimizuku Park [豊島区立雑司が谷みみずく公園].

The park holds Takeyoshi Inari Jinja [武芳稲荷].

And Kishimojin [鬼子母神堂] (which I saw before / later in Gokusen 2005 and I right about died laughing).

Afterwards I headed to Roppongi [六本木] to meet with M***chan and D****e for Chinese at Tokyo Midtown [東京ミッドタウン], and later we walked through the Midtown Loves Summer light festival.

Walked distance: 18686 steps / 13.3 km.

13th August 2018: Pretty Lights, Strike 2 {Japan, summer 2018}

Posted on 15 September 2018 by JBinnacle

I had quite a boring morning filing all the insurance and company flights hoping to get the money I had spent on clothes during the time my luggage was lost. Then a storm broke so I took the subway to Nakano Broadway [中野ブロードウェイ] to canvass the shops for a while. After shopping (mostly for my friend C*****, actually) I headed home to drop off the purchases of the day because my back was hurting and I did not want to run around carrying weight.

I had arranged to meet D****e in Roppongi [六本木] when she was done with work for two things – one was taking pictures with the dozens of Doraemon [ドラえもん] that were once again colonising Roppongi Hills [六本木ヒルズ].

Then we went to Tokyo Midtown [東京ミッドタウン] building, also in Roppongi. We saw Tokyo Tower [東京タワー] on the way.

We had Chinese for dinner and then we walked into the gardens for the event called Midtown Loves Summer which was a show of lights and music, which was the second goal of the evening. Pretty!

10th August 2018: Pretty Lights, Strike 1 {Japan, summer 2018}

Posted on 12 September 2018 by JBinnacle

I stayed in bed for most of the morning, and had conbini lunch at home. Mid-morning I received an email informing me that my things had arrived in Haneda and would be delivered the next morning. This confirmed what I suspected, that luggage had stayed in London due to the check-in issues, and left me free for the day, although I would have to fill an insurance claim or two.

Luggageless, and thus cameraless, I did not feel like going out to do tourism, though I did have a couple of places I wanted to visit, so what to do? Obviously the first hunting incursion of the day – first Shinjuku [新宿]’s Closet Child and Pure Sound, and then I headed off to Harajuku [原宿] and the Laforet Building, then I came up Takeshita Dori [竹下通り] where I bought a pair of sunglasses and fell in love with a couple of shoes (until I saw the price. It was an impossible love).

After that, D****e and I met up with M***chan at Meguro [目黒] to go to the Hotel Gajoen Tokyo [ホテル雅叙園東京] and dinner afterwards. Hotel Gajoen is a huge luxury complex in Meguro, with corridors that go on forever, fountains, bridges and jaw-dropping prices. That should give you a clue that dinner was not had there.

The hotel organises cultural events around their one-hundred step ladder, and this summer it was holding the WA NO AKARI × HYAKUDAN KAIDAN Illumination Festival 2018: Wa no Akari, The Aesthetics of Japanese Illumination [和のあかり×百段階段2018 ～日本の色彩、日本のかたち～]. This was an exhibition of interpretation of Japanese art using lights, and it was very beautiful.

Would you like to catch a glimpse of the luxuriousness of the place? These are the lobby toilets:

Since obviously we could not afford to have dinner there, we went for nikuzushi [肉寿司], which is basically sushi with meat, raw or cooked, instead of fish to a place called, of all things, Nikuzushi, in Ebisu [恵比寿] (albeit this is apparently a chain, so there are several of them around the city). This was unexpectedly yummy.