Day 2 - Tokyo: Rain, Robots & the Redundancy Men
Missed breakfast at the hotel though Japanese breakfasts are pretty gross to my cereal munching palette. Found a local café and ordered coffee and a croissant though for some unknown reason I couldn’t have it through language confusion which was the start of many similar incidents. Plan for the day was to take the boat trip to view the skyscrapers along the way reaching the futuristic island of Odaiba. Again we had to tackle the Subway to reach Ueno then Asakusa. Quickly learnt that you can use the Fare Adjustment machines if you bought a lower priced ticket and pay the difference. Quite a good system and proves how honest Japs can be.
Before our boat was due to set off we had time to look around the market. Stalls were full of fans, waving white cats statues, yakatas and fake samurai swords. The Himiko was our futuristic ferry and was designed by the manga artist who did the Daft Punk videos for the second album. Weather was turning crap by now so the photos I took looked miserable. Along the river were loads of tents and temporary shelters built by homeless. Inside the boat every time we went under a bridge the neon lights came on whilst the Japanese audio commentary guided us to the sights (well, I guess it was).
Odaiba arrived after going under the massive Rainbow Bridge (2 layers of roads and a couple of railways). A short mono-rail journey later we went to the Museum of Emerging Science. We had missed the Asimo demo, the Honda robot but hung around for the Aibo football team. They were quite cute but useless at football as they either keep trying to hump the ball or backtrack on their arse.
Next was the Fuji TV building looking like a mother ship from Blakes 7. There must have been about 10 flights of escalator up to the entrance with a lift to the observation lift. By this time it was getting dark but the city was just lighting up and was rewarded with some great views of the bay and Rainbow Bridge. Downstairs next to the most expensive cafe yet was both an expected gift shop and an unexpected tour of the public TV studio. Didn’t recognise any shows but fell in love with the Kids TV character that looked like a goofy teethed gherkin doing extreme sports. Saw a cooking programme being filmed then walked over to Aqua City, a sort of lakeside without the chavs. A lot of clothes, home ware, and Sony shops were here as well as strangely enough Next, the UK store. Prices were well expensive as if they were trying to be a high premium brand!
Harajuku was last place to visit before we crashed hoping to see some open shops. We’d missed them by about 10 minutes (shops close at 9pm in Tokyo!) so wondered around noting any good ones when we return on our second visit. Passed some roadworks where another ‘redundancy man’ was waving past traffic and pedestrians but being helped by his mannequin friend who was warning traffic!
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Before our boat was due to set off we had time to look around the market. Stalls were full of fans, waving white cats statues, yakatas and fake samurai swords. The Himiko was our futuristic ferry and was designed by the manga artist who did the Daft Punk videos for the second album. Weather was turning crap by now so the photos I took looked miserable. Along the river were loads of tents and temporary shelters built by homeless. Inside the boat every time we went under a bridge the neon lights came on whilst the Japanese audio commentary guided us to the sights (well, I guess it was).
Odaiba arrived after going under the massive Rainbow Bridge (2 layers of roads and a couple of railways). A short mono-rail journey later we went to the Museum of Emerging Science. We had missed the Asimo demo, the Honda robot but hung around for the Aibo football team. They were quite cute but useless at football as they either keep trying to hump the ball or backtrack on their arse.
Next was the Fuji TV building looking like a mother ship from Blakes 7. There must have been about 10 flights of escalator up to the entrance with a lift to the observation lift. By this time it was getting dark but the city was just lighting up and was rewarded with some great views of the bay and Rainbow Bridge. Downstairs next to the most expensive cafe yet was both an expected gift shop and an unexpected tour of the public TV studio. Didn’t recognise any shows but fell in love with the Kids TV character that looked like a goofy teethed gherkin doing extreme sports. Saw a cooking programme being filmed then walked over to Aqua City, a sort of lakeside without the chavs. A lot of clothes, home ware, and Sony shops were here as well as strangely enough Next, the UK store. Prices were well expensive as if they were trying to be a high premium brand!
Harajuku was last place to visit before we crashed hoping to see some open shops. We’d missed them by about 10 minutes (shops close at 9pm in Tokyo!) so wondered around noting any good ones when we return on our second visit. Passed some roadworks where another ‘redundancy man’ was waving past traffic and pedestrians but being helped by his mannequin friend who was warning traffic!
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