Blog For Free!
Archives
Home
2004 October
2004 September
2004 August
2004 July
2004 June
2004 May
My Links
City of Fuji Site
tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images
Sponsored
Blog
|
| Tokyo!!! |
| 06.21.04 (3:23 am) [edit] |
I got lost.
Well, technically, we all got lost - there were five of us on our little expedition, and nobody spoke fluent Japanese, and only one of us had been to Tokyo before. Still, we wandered around the subways quite a bit, and we saw a whole bunch of cool stuff. It was a great trip.
Took the shink in and got to Tokyo station by noon, and man is that place huge...there are so many subways and trains that go through there. Subway map is insane...so many coloured lines representing different subway routes, but there are an incredible number...and most of it is in Japanese, so we have to play `Match the Kanji` to try and figure out where we`re going.
I should note that Tokyo is a big city. Really big. And spread out. Like, we`d get on a subway for a half hour and still be in the downtown core of the city. It is just massive.
So I met up with Amanda, Shannon, Jeremy, and Adam, and we first went to this great big temple/shrine complex. It is the most visited shrine in all of Japan, and there is a huge marketplace near it and a beautiful park with lots of stone Buddhas around it. The temple itself was beautiful, with all of its ornaments and decor.
Then we took the subway and went to another covered street filled with shops...and nearby is this bridge that is one of the coolest things I`ve ever seen. I guess this bridge was the hang-out spot for a lot of high school kids, especially the alternative crowd, so there were always a lot of rather oddly dressed teens in the area. Anyway, it`s really close to this big tourist/shopping complex, so lots of foreigners ended up seeing them, and I guess were so amazed by the way some of these alternative/Gothic/punk rocker kids were dressing that they started taking pictures. At first the kids hated it, but over the past ten years they`ve really played it up and enjoyed their notoriety. Now this bridge is known world-wide, and it`s in all the guidebooks. You go there, and there are people dressed in all sorts of odd costumes...some are dressed like punk-rockers, some like Goths, some are dressed like Anime characters and ninjas...and all around are tourists snapping pictures and chatting with them - they love the attention and getting their picture taken. It was quite the scene...I chatted with this anime/ninja girl who had orange contacts and a sword, and we got our pics taken with her.
Then we hit up Shubuya, which is like the Times Square of Tokyo; the place you`ll recognize if you`ve seen any movie about Japan. If you`ve seen `Lost in Translation,` or even the poster for the film, it is where there is the huge TV screen with the dinosaur walking on it...it`s actually the biggest TV screen in the world. There`s people everywhere, and it`s such a great atmosphere. We had a coffee, then went to dinner, then just hung out. Eventually we drifted into this all-night club/bar, and just waited in there for a few hours until the morning, when the subways and Shinkansen start running again. I was really tired when I got home this morning, but it was an incredible trip. What better way to see one of the biggest cities in the world than to hang out all night in the downtown core?
Here`s some pictures!
Jeremy, Adam, and I in front of the big temple complex
Jeremy, Adam, and I with the ninja/anime girl
|
|
|
| |
posted by: tiara (reply)
post date: 07.22.04 (10:03 pm)
Ooo...pictures!! i can't wait 'til more of them come... and i can so understand about the subway/train system. it was so confusing and complicated. i wouldn't venture on that thing on my own.
|
|
