Tag Archives: Tokyo SkyTree

29th July 2017: Shinjuku, Shibuya & Blended Fam {Japan, summer 2017}

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D****e and I were going to have a relaxing weekend, not leaving Tokyo [東京] and stuff, but she wanted to do some shopping. We started off in Shinjuku [新宿], at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building Tōkyō Tochō [東京都庁], which was as always great and on her subway line anyway.

Collage showing Tokyo from above - thousands of buildings that disappear in the background, and some forlone green parks

Afterwards, I wanted to check something in one of the Shinjuku fandom shops (it said to ask the shop assistant, and I can ask, but I was not sure I would have understood the answer, thus she offered to tag along with me). Unfortunately the item I wanted was already gone, life is tough.

Then we went to Shibuya [渋谷] for lunch, Tokyu Hands and Mandarake. Afterwards we walked in the rain towards Royal Flash to check Arly’s Jewellery Line – Blended Fam. Arimatsu, or Arly, is the drummer for Oblivion Dust, and used to play for VAMPS too. He also designs jewellery, and he makes very pretty stuff – unfortunately quite expensive. We chose to drop by this day because he was going to be in the shop greeting fans, and engraving his most affordable piece of jewellery, a pendant made from his used cymbals. Furthermore, if you got one while he was there, he would engrave your initials on it! Fun. I decided to get one, and he was mortified when “SD” was engraved upside-down, yielding to “DS”. He was mortified. Then I joked about it and I gave it a naughty meaning… making him choke with laughter. So… it was a win, I guess?

The artist engraving the pendant, and the material - old cymbals cut out in a heart-shape.

After the event, we headed off to the Tokyo SkyTree [東京スカイツリー]. We were going to see the nearby fireworks with a friend from there, and have dinner later, or have dinner with her if the rain did not stop. In the end only we had dinner – as it was raining very hard and we thought the fireworks would be cancelled, so we headed off to a nice Chinese restaurant at the SkyTree which had extra long gyoza.

Chinese food - dumplings, rice, sweet and sour pork, soup

When we were coming out we saw one last firework, as the show was not cancelled in the end. Live and learn.

Firework sparks behind the structure of the Tokyo Skytree

20th August 2015: Still life, moving life {Japan, summer 2015}

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As predicted, the 20th dawned rainy and not too inviting, so I headed off to Ueno Park to visit one of the many museums there. I heard that the collection of the Kokuritsu Kagaku Hakubutsukan [国立科学博物館], Tokyo’s National Museum of Nature and Science had been renewed and I wanted to have a look. In the end, not much had changed, but I still had a fairly good time, because I am a geek like that. There were about three million primary school classes there, though, and a few high school ones, which was a bit annoying – and loud – but nothing too bad.

Some of the wards mix science with mythology and culture, for example the earthquake science area has an ukiyo-e of the god Suzano keeping Namazu, the giant catfish which causes earthquakes, still. As much as the bio area is cool, I think my favourite part of this museum is the fossils collection – which is scattered in different wards in what I assume has some logic but I am yet to find it. I am particularly taken by the Dunkleosteous glass panel, and of course (insert everyone who knows me going ‘duh’ here) the Megalodon teeth.

But kinda a lot of things are cool. Like dinosaur fossils. Which make you giggle when you’ve recently watched Jurassic World. There is a plesiosaur (which, by the way, is not a dinosaur). What is a dinosaur is, of course, the T-rex (#TeamTRex) – completely irrelevant information: it is a cast of Scotty, the largest T-Rex ever found.

After finishing in Ueno and getting into the wrong station – of course, that must happen at least once when I am in Japan, I headed off to Tokyo Skytree [東京スカイツリー] in Sumida [墨田] just because I could.

I did not want to climb it up, but there was something there that had been on my to-see list, Sumida Suizokukan [すみだ水族館], Sumida Aquarium. Apparently there is a tacit agreement among Japanese aquariums so each one has a super cool thing that only they’ve got. So they are like pokemon, you gotta see them all if you wanna catch all the cool things. In this case I was aiming for the giant isopods. But of course, I never say no to sharks, even with annoying kids screwing up the pictures.

And then there was sushi, and that was goooood.

… Maybe I should have titled this post “fish in every form”?

5th July 2012: Gods of Old {Japan, summer 2012}

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Yesterday morning started with a much dreaded headache so I decided to try and take it easy, get some morning rest and fill the blog up. Later on I headed off to Asakusa – after a small adventure charging the Suica train card – and had a typical me moment getting lost around the building I had to walk around. Yep, turned the wrong way around said building.

Asakusa [浅草] hosts Sensō-ji [金龍山浅草寺], a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon and it is particularly famous for its giant lanterns (chōchin, [提灯]). Some drama actor I have a tiiiiiny bit of a soft spot has been… well… filming around here a couple of times. And I did not try to reproduce any camera angles *coughs*. Behold the main entrance, the main building and a close-up of the chōchin.

The entrance to a Buddhist temple. There is a huge (taller than a person) red paper lamp hanging with the kanji 雷門 on it, two demon statues stand on its sides

Another entrance gate, with another huge red lantern. The building is decorated with red, white and green

A close-up of the lantern, with 小舟町 written on it

I bought a Temple charm from one of the maiko, a mini lantern and a daruma. The sellers were very nice once they had no more option but to acknowledge my present and we got by in Japanese with calculator showing of totals. In one of the stands I was given an origami crane, which was really cute. I had been recommended a tayaki (sweet) stand but unluckily that they they had cleaning day and they were not serving.

“Close” (in Tokyo terms) to Asakusa is the Tokyo Skytree [東京スカイツリー], which has taken over television broadcasting functions from Tokyo Tower and it is about twice as high. Since I was “in the area” I decided to drop by, although I did not feel like climbing it. Although it has been recently opened, going up is super expensive and… is not Tokyo Tower XD Excuse the funny picture format.

Tokyo Skytree - a tower seemingly made out of grey scaffolding

Getting there I crossed in front of the Asahi Beer Group Building Complex, so have a picture too:

The Asahi building, with horns like a bull

And a system of floodgates, just because I’m biased:

A canal with a flooding gate system

I got something to eat from a Family Mart under the Skytree, and that included dorayaki, because I was starting to feel brave about interactions!

A pancake-like sweet, about the half the size of my hand

Then, I headed to Shibuya [渋谷] because I was getting tired and there was a nice, long, metro ride in the Ginza line. Guess what was the first thing I looked for? The Shibuya 109 building. Unfortunately, if there is an aquarium up there, it is restricted area. Sales day, too. Was crazy, so root me with the Angels for this one XD (X Clamp reference, for those who are hanya’ing right now).

Shibuya 109 building. It is a regular mall with a round tower full of advertisements

Since I had the time I stalked the infamous Shibuya Crossing, which serves about 3,000 people per green pedestrian crossing:

Shibuya crossing, empty of people and cars

Shibuya crossing as people flock into it

Then I did what one does in Shibuya… roam around and spend money OTZ. Though I was banned from Mandarake yet, there were many interesting stores, among them the equivalent to a FNAC / Virgin Media or similar with a HUGE Fukuyama Masaharu DVD promo poster; for the good of my wallet I forbade myself to walk into it. The funny anecdote of the day came when I was listening to KAT-TUN’s Peak and suddenly I heard Kame speaking. I was surprised because I do not have Peak live on my mp3. Then I realised that it had been Shibuya’s giant screen with their new car CM. D****e helped me find a few bargains in Book Off after we met.

A shopping street in Shibuya. One of the billboards on the right reads Book Off

And speaking of meeting, I kind-of was thrown into a nomikai [飲み会] with her volunteering partners that she met in Tohoku. A nomikai is a… typical Japanese drinking party with real Japanese people and at first I was a bit 0_0 about the whole thing. After all my Japanese is… more basic than basic. Surprisingly it turned out very enjoyable with me… making up Japanese as I went along and D****e helping me out most of the time. My random vocab was very surprising at some point for one of the girls because… yeah, I can’t ask for my food to be heated but I know how to say “typical Japanese paper screen”. The downside was coming home past midnight. The upside, was lots of fun.

And guys, romantic dorama weird plots happen in real life. There was a married couple there to prove it.