We're making significant progress in getting our behind-the-times posts out. This one is last really egregious one, but we have Christmas break coming up and plenty of plans for that so maybe we can be behind again soon.
Jason McSheene, a friend and fellow fraternity member of mine from RIT spent two weeks in Tokyo this September, on vacation from doing unspeakably scientific things at Princeton for his PhD program. Given that I sort of don't actually have to go to work during September because classes aren't in session (though the whole department and I do go to work that month anyway because this is Japan) I split for a couple of days to go say hi and see some of Tokyo With Mr. McSheene. I took the night train on a Sunday night, hung out Monday, stayed at KIT's condo overnight, hung out Tuesday morning and then took the train back Tuesday afternoon to work Wednesday-Friday.
After hitting Tokyo Station at around 6:30AM, I took the subway to Akasaka and grabbed a shower and claimed a room in KIT's condo. Nobody else there, as usual. Feeling a lot more awake and alive, I went to meet Jason at his hostel in Asakusa, which required spending some time figuring out the subway map as it was not immediately clear to me how to get to the station he recommended. Here's a subway map of Tokyo for your reference.
His directions from the station were perfect so I found the place without any trouble. Based on what I heard in the lobby the primary occupation of at least some of the foreign youth staying there was staying up all night every night partying as hard as possible, leaving me to wonder why this would not be possible slightly closer to home.
The plan that Jason was using was to basically hit every major neighborhood of Tokyo one at a time over his two week stay, and on the Monday that I was in town the neighborhood that was up for review was Odaiba, so we headed down there to look around. Note that most of the pictures were shot by Jason as his are better. A few items of high priority were immediately dealt with.
100 foot tall robot "statue": Check. That's a crane right next to it.
Odaiba is an island right off Tokyo, accessible by train, boat, and if you don't mind walking a looong time, bridge. We took the train and grabbed brochures of the attractions of the area. It's kind of a touristy area, highly developed, with many museums and parks and the like. To our amusement it is also, apparently, a major date spot as pretty much every other group we saw was a couple or couples. Here are a few things in Odaiba.
This is unfortunately a TV studio and not a Bond-villain hideout.
This one is a maritime museum, built to look like a boat.
We wandered around some enormous malls, five stories tall and stretching for blocks at a time. Since we weren't looking for shopping, these weren't so exciting. Some of them had things like entire small theme parks inside them, but we didn't feel like spending the money to go in. We had ice cream for lunch, and then hit a science museum. Yes, we're nerds, we know, moving on.
The science museum interior, with giant suspended LED globe
Their space section had a test capsule signed by Buzz Aldrin, which was awesome.
The ASIMO demonstration was kind of creepy.
We found the science museum to be a little dry, more so than the American science museums I've been to. Some of the science they were trying to teach was really high-level stuff, beyond what could reasonably be picked up by the public I think. There was a twenty page picture book explaining photosynthesis that documented and created cute characters for each molecule or particle involved, kind of like if Sesame Street tried to teach quantum physics. They had a few cool things though, including the test version of the Japanese ISS capsule (signed by Buzz Aldrin) and a demonstration of the ASIMO robot, which rode the line between looking comical and looking two versions away from trying to enslave mankind. Fortunately, admission to the museum was cheap so we didn't spend much to see the cool parts.
Inexplicable miniature Statue of Liberty, Tokyo waterfront in the background
Sculpture, I guess.
After the museum and some more wandering around Odaiba, we got a late lunch / early dinner at an all-you-can-eat place serving mostly Western food. We strove manfully to get our $20 worth and I delighted in the greasy, cheesy, heavy, non-Japanese-ness of the food.
After dinner, I wanted to see Akihabara, the legendary Tokyo computer/anime/video games/nerd district, and Jason wanted to play some Street Fighter 4, so we went and wandered around. I found out that, yes, indeed, you can get a deal on nearly anything electronic in Akihabara, from obscure games published back in the day, to obscure lightbulb forms (whole shops selling strange lightbulbs), to custom cut-to-length computer cords, and all of the latest components. You can also find towering, cacophonous arcades. We went in so Jason could play Street Fighter and he got his ass handed to him by some Japanese player. These arcades had some games from decades ago that apparently are still hubs of competition and prestige, at least in Akihabara if nowhere else. They also have women in maid costumes every ten feet trying to convince the otaku (explanation of otaku) and the regular passers-by to patronize their very expensive maid cafes where you basically pay through the nose to have a cute girl (frequently in costume) talk to you. Since I wasn't actually shopping for components or cute women in maid costumes, and Jason was done with games, we went to find a good bar.
We opened up Jason's travel guides and picked out a British pub, run by a British expat, that was recommended by the guide as a fairly calm place with good non-Japanese bar food. One interesting thing about Japan is that the streets don't have names, so it can be quite difficult to find a given place, especially since a restaurant or shop is more likely to be several stories up than at ground level. We went to the correct subway station for the pub, and then wandered the neighborhood in a search pattern for maybe half an hour before we found a map with a breakdown of the local block numbering system. With that we managed to find the right building, but the pub was closed despite the hours in the travel guide saying they were open. We were proud of ourselves for finding the place, but it would have been better had it been open for our trouble. We found another pub about two blocks over, though this one was only inspired, rather than run by the Brits. Had some serviceable fish-and-chips and good whiskey, and talked for a couple hours and caught up.
The next morning we went out to Roppongi, which is pretty much the foreigner's district. Walked around, enjoyed the correctly-spelled English signage, and went shopping at the National Abazu supermarket, which is a real house of wonders for foreigners from outside the city. Got 128 ounces of peanut butter, 8 ounces of authentic Old El Paso salsa and some tea that Ana wanted. Didn't get so very many things - its easier to forget about things that can't be had regularly than to miss them. Finshed up with lunch at the same Mexican place Ana and I went to last time and headed home.
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