Thankfully we decided to have our outing yesterday – the weather would be too bad to go today. We hopped on the Odakyu line along to Shinjuku, about a 25 – 40 minute subway ride, depending which type of train you’re on. Shinjuku station is absolutely, completely mad. It’s in the Guinness book of World Records as the busiest train station in the world – easily achieved with over three million passengers going through it every day. The station has 36 platforms, and connects 12 different subway and railway lines. There are also, can you believe it, more than 200 exits from the building, so you can see how we got confused when trying to work out where we were. Not exactly the kind of place where I’d normally be found hanging out, but the Shinjuku area is a very typical example of Tokyo (tall buildings, flashing lights, etc) so I thought I should go and see it.
Once we scrambled out of the rabbit warren of Shinjuku station, we had a walk up the main street to the park, which was closed but we’ll go back sometime when it’s open. From there we circled around and headed towards a small temple, which looked like it had fallen out of the sky and landed smack-bang in the middle of all these monolithic sky-scrapers. It was peaceful there, even being in the middle of the city centre. We stood and watched people going to up pray – here, the procedure is something like ‘bow twice, clap twice, bow once’. I liked the little prayer tablets that looked like wooden postcards – people had written their messaged on them and they were bound together in a frame, clanking together in the wind like a Jacob’s Ladder toy.
After leaving the temple, we wandered down to the bar district, where rows of alleys are crammed with tiny bars – some with only enough seats to host a handful of patrons. Most of these places have a table charge, and others will charge exuberant prices to anyone apart from their regulars. But still there are some places where it’s safe for a foreigner to have a drink without getting ripped off, and the layout of the area means there are dozens to pick from within a stone’s throw from each other.
En route to the main attraction of the day, we walked past Omoide Yokocho. It means “Memory Lane,” but the place is more commonly known as “Piss Alley” – in days gone by, patrons of the little bars and restaurants didn’t have public facilities nearby, and would relieve themselves in the street. Thankfully this practice has gone out of fashion, but now instead the street is overflowing with smoke from the yakitori – a type of BBQ that is popular in Japan. It usually refers to skewered chicken, but also to skewered meats of all types. The billowing smoke chokes the whole alleyway, with the low ceilings making it difficult for the air to clear.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is a great place for tourists to go to, not least because of the Tourist Information Centre on the ground floor. We picked up dozens of leaflets (in English) to cool places around here, such as the Tama zoo (one of like three zoos in Tokyo) which I am very much looking forward to visiting. The government building itself is amazing – with twin sky-scrapers each standing at 245 meters tall, it’s a colossal building. Both of the towers have observation decks on the 45th floor, which are free to the public and open late, which is handy because the best time of day for a great view is after sunset. The view was immense – on a clear day you can see all the way to Mt. Fuji and other mountain ranges in the area, and of course, all the thousands and thousands of buildings in between. It wasn’t too busy on the observation deck, and I was surprised that such an interesting tourist attraction was free.
Going to a busy tourist spot on the weekend isn’t usually my idea of fun, but sometimes you’ve got to bite the bullet in order to see something that really sums up a city. Tokyo is the most populous metropolitan area in the world – the total population of the prefecture exceeds 13 million. The area of Tokyo that we live in isn’t at all like the bustling Shinjuku area (thank goodness) and it was nice to return to the quiet, bland suburb after our day out.
To end this post – another luncheon update. Today we went to the local Coop this morning to do our weekly shop and bought ready meal lunches. I had a box set with rice, pickles, sweet egg, salted salmon, deep fried white fish and fried squid. 380 Yen, so about £2.20. Not bad! Sayonara for now.
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