I took the (K)night bus and at 7 A.M. I was at Tokyo Central Station. I took a train to Narita Airport and spent a very nervous hour waiting for Jarek I finally met him and startled all Japanese present by jumping on him and then spinning him around like a crazy person. Weird gaijin, really. He was totally exhausted, but very excited and this fueled him until around 19:30, when he promptly passed out.
The next day we started the exploration; we lived in a cheap hotel in Asakusa, so first we walked around this district, and then headed for Akihabara - a place Jarek was dying to see (and so did I, but you wouldn't catch me admiting that :)). We saw and did a lot of geek stuff - you can get any manga, anime, action figure or techno-gadget there, so we spent quite a lot of time running around like crazy. We even went into a sex-shop once, not knowing it was a sex-shop. It was 6-stories high. (Photo: Jarek with Son Goku and Jarek... Hmm...)
Next we walked to Maru no uchi part of the city - you can get a cramp in your neck, because all the buildings are so tall...
As I said, we walked all the time - at first we thought that Tokyo is a little bit smaller (at least it looked like that on the map), so we figured - why pay for the subway? Big mistake. My feet hurt until now.
The second day we visited the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka - we saw a great short movie that you can see only there, plus bought a few Ghibli-related souvenirs - I can never get enough of Totoro! (Photo: me with Totoro and Jarek with a robot from "Laputa - castle in the sky")
After the Museum we took the subway to Shinjuku and walked south to Shibuya and Harajuku. That last one is indeed a place where all the weirdos go, even we felt out of place... (Photo: a fine example of Engrish in one of the Harajuku's shops and two girls dressed as... something.)
The last day was spent mainly on Odaiba - a man-made island connected with "mainland" Tokyo by Rainbow Bridge. It took us about 30 minutes to cross that bridge, and then we got to the "city of future" - you really feel like you've transported a few decades to the future. We visited the Miraikan Museum of new technologies and I met the cute baby seal robot. We also saw a 3-D movie about the beginning of the Universe, and the cool thing about it was that the screen was round and above our heads (the seats were tilted so we were practically laying down), so it looked like real sky...
There was an "installation" (I don't know how to call it, really) that gathered your pesonal info and then composed a song for you - it also took a sample of your voice to use in the song, but it was only after I heard a nice, Polish "DUPA" ("ass") in the speakers did I realise that the damned machinery was actually using my voice it recorded! (Photo: Rainbow Bridge)
Then we moved to Omote-sando to admire some contemporary architecture. I really liked the GYRE and Jarek's favorite was Tod's (photo below).
We finished with visiting Akihabara once again, so Jarek could buy himself some geek stuff, and then boarded the night bus to Kyoto.
Tokyo needs more than a meager 3 and a half days, but I'm glad I was able to see it at all. Perhaps I will return someday and get to know it better - it certainly deserves it...
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