| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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There were some computerized displays (design your own car, etc.), but you really needed to know Japanese to use them. However, a couple of presentations were in English. One, the Dome Theater, was a series of short films showing how a Toyota is assembled. One of the films used holograms, another had a robot in front going through motions similar to that in the film, and a third was in 3-D (polarized, not red/green, but not the new fancy 3-D stuff Sony has). There was also the Amlux Theater, with a regular-size movie screen in a small room that made it seem larger, very comfortable seats (which will never show up at our local multiplex), and some special effects like vibration or aroma-wafting at appropriate times during the movies. (The aroma stuff wasn't all that noticeable, at least to me.)
In addition to all this, there was a 'Patio di Frutta,' a coffee shop, and a 'player piano' (which was actually a Yamaha baby grand, not the old clunky upright you're probably envisioning). And what Japanese tune was it playing? Debussy's 'Claire de Lune.'
Having finished with all the excitement that Ikebukuro has to offer (except for the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space escalator, which we were planning to get to later), we took the subway to Shinjuku. Shinjuku Station is supposed to be the busiest in the world, with two million passengers going through it twice a day, but we got lucky (or unlucky) and took a line that terminated practically at the station exit, so we didn't have to wend our way through it.
People say there aren't many homeless in Japan, and this may be true, but there are some, and many of them live around Shinjuku Station. In New York, the homeless sometimes live in a makeshift cardboard box shelter, but here these are more elaborately constructed, with several boxes tied together to form a larger, more permanent home. What is also true is that passersby in Tokyo are not constantly approached by people begging for money.
We started with Western Shinjuku, not very 'user-friendly,' but having some of the tallest buildings in Tokyo, and some of the most architecturally interesting. One guide book describes the Tokyo Metropolitan Office Buildings as looking like something from a high-budget production of George Orwell's 1984. This is somewhat true, but they at least lack the heavy squared-off look of real Stalinist architecture.
All the guide books (and our friend Dale who had been to Tokyo several times) agreed that there was something called the O. A. Center in the Shinjuku NS Building that displayed the latest products from a bunch of computer companies. Well, the Shinjuku NS Building did have the 30-story atrium, and the giant Seiko escapement lobby clock, but did not seem to have anything called the O. A. Center. The information clerk did not speak much English, but did understand 'O. A. Center' and looked it up, then showed us on a map that it had moved to the Shinjuku Sumitomo Building a couple of blocks away. This also had an even higher atrium (52 stories), and an observation room on the 51st floor, but also failed to have the O. A. Center. Their information clerk wanted to send us back to the Shinjuku NS Building. We decided to give up instead.
The view from the 51st floor was impressive, and even more so when you realize that you are looking west, away from the center of Tokyo. (The observation deck in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices may face east, but we didn't get to it.) It's a pity it was cloudy and smoggy, but the latter is a semi-permanent condition, and the former seems to be so as well, at least so far on this trip.
Having seen Western Shinjuku, we now wanted to go to Eastern Shinjuku. It was about 16:30, the start of rush hour, and the most obvious route was through Shinjuku Station. Luckily, perhaps, we couldn't find this route: the entrance we came to had JR entrance gates the whole way across, and there didn't seem to be a way around them to get to the station itself. Mark suggested walking around the station, which took a couple of extra blocks because of tracks, but did work.
Eastern Shinjuku is probably what people picture when they picture modern Tokyo. Stretching before us was a long wide street of stores, restaurants, and so on, all with flashing, pulsating neon signs. Neon, neon, and more neon. If there's a neon shortage somewhere, here's why. (Well, here and Las Vegas.)
The area east of the station and north of this main street is called Kabuki-cho, and it is a combination red light district and general entertainment area. There are various hostess bars, massage parlors, and so on, with varying levels of discreetness (some of the pictures displayed are pretty surprising considering that this is such a general area). Japan is not a country with non-discrimination laws, and at least one club we saw said on the door, 'Japanese only.' One suspects many have this policy but don't announce it so openly, which is interesting since many (including this one) have American names or motifs. Oh, in Japan 'pink' has the same lascivious connotation that 'blue' has in the United States (as in 'blue movies'), so a lot of pink was in evidence. Well, as Mark pointed out, we do have the Pink Pussycat in New York.
We wandered around for a while, just taking it all in. We stopped in a CD store on the main street and got two CDs of Toho Films monster and science fiction movie themes. CDs are expensive here (about ¥2400 each), but we can't get these back home and they do make a nice souvenir. Now all we have to do is figure out which movies they are from the Japanese titles!
We decided to eat dinner and looked around for a while before deciding where.
We ate at a Mister Donut American Carousel.
It's not what you think.
It may be that there were donuts upstairs, but the basement of this restaurant was decorated in sort of 1950s American style. Elvis Presley songs were playing. Forks were used instead of chopsticks. The only thing not 1950s American was the food: Chinese dumplings and ramen soup. (At least what I remember of the 1950s in America did not include Chinese dumplings and ramen soup.) We got combination plates that each had a ground pork steamed bun, a shui mai dumpling, and a shrimp dumpling. Mine had ramen soup;
Mark's had noodles with a sort of vegetable topping. This came to ¥1030 total. (Things are reversed here from home. Food bought in a supermarket or department store is taxed; restaurant meals are not.)
After this we returned 'home' and collapsed.
October 12:, 1996: This being our last chance to get to the Tsukiji Fish Market, we set our alarms for 5:30, but didn't need them.
We left the Kimi at 6:00 and got to Tsukiji. This time there were a lot more people on the streets, many wearing rubber boots, and stores were open. And when we got to the fish market itself, there were fish. Boy, were there fish!
Tsukiji Market is 225,000 square meters (56 acres) and handles about 2500 tons of fish a day valued at about US$4,000,000. We didn't get there early enough for the auction, which starts about 3:00 I think, but there was still plenty going on, as wholesalers, retailers, restaurant owners, and others bustled about buying and selling fish. Huge frozen tuna were being cut up with electric saws, or hacked at with axes. Fresh fish was being sliced with knives as long as samurai swords. Who knows, they may have been samurai swords. Live fish flopped around. Eels swam in tanks. Crabs waved their claws. There were fish bigger than a man, and fish the size of a pin. Dr. Seuss's 'One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish' wouldn't even begin to scratch the surface.
There were also motorized carts whizzing around in the main aisles, making the side aisles, while crowded, much safer. The floor was wet, but the recommendation of one book to wear old shoes may have been a bit of overkill. Don't wear good shoes, but general walking shoes would be fine. Don't wear long floppy jackets, though-there are a lot of tanks of water and who knows what else.
We spend about an hour and a half wandering around taking pictures. Photographers would love this place, though it's difficult to stand somewhere very long to compose a picture without being in someone's way or having people constantly walk between you and your subject. (I also read that flash photography is not allowed during the auction.) National Geographic did a photographic spread on this a little while back, if you want to see what it's like.
After all this walking around looking at fish, we stopped at a stall for breakfast and had ... fish. Maguro donburi, to be exact, or raw tuna on rice with a bit of nori (seaweed), ginger, and wasabi, served with green tea. At ¥700 each this was more than we had been paying for meals, but still incredibly cheap by American standards for such a dish, and how could one not have paper-thin slices of very fresh maguro at a fish market?
Around the wholesale market was another market of restaurants and general stalls, although there did seem to be an unusually high number of stalls selling rubber boots. There is also supposedly a wholesale produce market here and, while we didn't see the market, we did see lots of produce trucks.
>From here we walked to the Hama Rikyu Garden to catch the river bus to Asakusa. There was a sign outside the garden which said 'Closed for Today,' but someone waiting there indicated that it would open at 9:00. I guess the sign was what they put up at the end of the day, but it's confusing early in the morning.
Since we had to pay admission (¥300) to the garden to get to the boat dock, we decided we would walk around and see it (not to mention that the first boat was not for another hour). In one of those strange 'gotchas,' if you take the river bus from Asakusa to Tsukiji, it's the same boat fare but gives you free admission to the garden. Of course, if you go in that direction, you arrive too late for the Fish Market, since the first boat is after 10:00. Normally we are not garden people (which I realize makes a fair amount of Kyoto wasted on us), but we do occasionally wander through one.
The park has a lot of ducks, cranes, and other birds. In fact, there is what used to be a duck hunting pond there, though I doubt it is used for that purpose any more. Above this pond we finally got a view of Tokyo Tower, known to us from many Godzilla films. It's sort of a mini-Eiffel Tower, painted red, white, and blue for some reason. Like the Eiffel Tower, it has a viewing platform, but is really more interesting to look at than from.
At 10:15 we caught the water bus, which had a pre-recorded description in Japanese and English of what we were passing. It took forty minutes to get to Asakusa and cost ¥620 each, pretty cheap for a sightseeing-type boat.
The same man who told us when the park would open was at the water bus dock and told us when the water bus would leave and how much it was (even though both were clearly posted). People say that the Japanese are very helpful to foreigners, and they are, with people often asking if they can help us find someplace or other. But people also say that the Japanese also feel superior to everyone else, and I wonder if these aren't related, and what we see as helpfulness isn't in a sense paternalism. (Of course, Americans often have the feeling of superiority without the helpfulness, so even if what I suggest is true, the Japanese are ahead of us.)
The Japanese also love things Western. The traffic lights play tunes when it is safe to cross, and one near the Kimi plays 'Coming Through the Rye.' As we walked through one of the shopping areas in Asakusa, we heard them announcing some sort of street festival and playing Elvis Presley songs, 'In the Mood,' and 'By the Bayou.'
The main sight in Asakusa is the Senso-ji Temple, also known as the Asakusa Kannon Temple. This is approached down a long covered alley of shops selling everything from crackers to Godzilla toys to clothing. It reminded me of the entrance to the Red Fort in Delhi, though of course here the vendors don't chase after you out of their shops. |
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| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
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