End of Week One

Hi,

We'll make specific posts about specific things in the next couple weeks but I thought we'd also make weekly recaps, so you know what we've been up to.

Thursday: Though we left on Wednesday Morning, it was already Thursday here. After setting ourselves at the Aizuya Inn in Minami-Senju (near Ueno), we went out to Akihabara to grab a bite at Mos Burger. It was most excellent. We've then browsed the busy busy streets. I never thought there would be a day where I would be annoyed by forthcoming nubile girls dressed as maids until now. The fact that one pops-ups with every three steps you take, to give you a pamphlet or whatnot doesn't help much. We went back home after a while and slept like babies.

Friday: We woke up pretty early and went exploring Ueno, especially Ueno Park. A mix of trees, shrines and food stands, it was a pretty interesting experience. Even more so at the entrance, where you could look at deep forested roads on one side and a very busy neighborhood on the other. From there, we returned to Akihabara by day and found ourselves in Super Potato. I geekgasmed with every step. They have EVERYTHING. If only I understood Japanese... Finally, we took a power nap and hit Roppongi, the Ste-Catherine/St-Laurent of Japan. Hit a few bars, had a (very) pleasant time and found our way back to the Inn completely drunk. Mission accomplished!

Saturday: We went to Harajuku. What a busy place! People everywhere, strange (but awesome) stores. It's like the Plateau but better, stranger and friendly. And crowded like hell. Unfortunately, most of the fashion "avant-gardists" congregate on Sunday, so we didn't get to see much of them. We hit Harajuku Park, another very humble and spacious green zone. It's like every neighborhood needs its giant park, which puts our parks to shame. Old monuments and landmarks, gigantic trees and shrines. It's beautiful, even to a city boy like me. We left for Shibuya and I witnessed what every movie and picture shows when talking about Tokyo: The Shibuya Crossing. It's pure madness. The light turns green and hundreds upon hundreds of people cross both ways. Imagine a Habs game riot in downtown Montreal, except that no police cars are burning and everyone's happy. We also found the Hachiko statue, the "Puck" of Tokyo; it's the meeting spot for most people and it showed.

Sunday: We took it slow and went to find the Godzilla statue in the Ginza district. It's a hidden and not quite known monument erected to the king of all monsters and its diminutive size makes it a hard to find. Nevertheless, with the aid of the Internet, Google Maps and logic, we prevailed. We then realized that we were pretty close to the Imperial Palace, so we went. Unfortunately, most of it is closed most of the year. We still got to snap a couple of good pictures. We decided to drift a bit aimlessly and found ourselves at the Kabuki-Za Theater, where a bunch of kids were posing for the crowd in full regalia. Again, an amazing moment, both for the kids obviously against the idea and the crowd mysteriously finding themselves with cameras, tripods and other equipments and hogging the street like maniacs in dire need of a good shot. We went back to the Inn, preparing ourselves for a return to Roppongi; we liked the first experience (well, my first and Mat's third) and wanted to go once more since it will be our last weekend in Tokyo (we will be in Osaka next weekend).

So this is it. Not going to edit typos or anything before my return to Montreal. I'll add pictures when I can. We don't really have much time to spend online. (why would we want to waste our vacation on the internet, anyway?)

For now, you can see my pictures here and Mat's pics will be coming soon. We've also made videos, so that will be up when we have the time to edit them.

-Pat