{"id":350,"date":"2006-10-21T17:18:36","date_gmt":"2006-10-22T01:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/guapacha.com\/2006\/saturday-in-tokyo\/"},"modified":"2006-10-21T17:18:36","modified_gmt":"2006-10-22T01:18:36","slug":"saturday-in-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/?p=350","title":{"rendered":"Saturday in Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On Saturday, Rolf, Patrick and I set off to the district of Shiodome to check out the Zojoji Temple<\/a> and to get views of the city from the Tokyo Tower<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nThe subway system is very well designed and easy to navigate for English readers. We too a couple of different trains to the Akabanebashi station and walked to the Zojoji Temple. The temple is the main temple of Jodo shu of Buddhism and dates back to 1393. The temple building was impressive and a ceremony was being performed inside when we went in; it looked like a funeral service of some kind. On the outskirts was hundreds (maybe thousands) of little Jizo statues, each carrying a windmill, most of which were buzzing in the wind. A very cool place.<\/p>\n

From there it was a short walk to the Tokyo Tower. This structure is almost 1100 feet high, looks exactly like the Eiffel Tower but is slightly taller. On a good day you can see Mt Fuji from the top observation point but we weren’t so lucky as it was a little too hazy. We did get good views over the city though, it is amazing just how big the place is. <\/p>\n

After the tower it was back on the subway to Shibuya<\/a>. Shibuya is a huge shopping district favoured by the young. I’ve lived in NYC and seen the crowds at Christmas time but that pales in comparison to an average Saturday afternoon there. The place itself is like Times Square, lots of tall buildings, huge electronic billboards and people everywhere. Being a place for the young, we got to, er, enjoy the “schoolgirl” fashions that Japan is famous for. The stereotype is true, lots of young girls in schoolgirl\/sailor outfits or otherwise in short skirts\/shorts and high boots. Yes, there are some pictures on my flickr set for you pervs. <\/p>\n

After getting too distracted we were back on the subway to the Ginza<\/a> ward. Two big reasons for going there – first, there is a famous Sony Building with several floors showcasing the latest electronics. We saw some very cool HD TVs and camcorders and, of course, plenty of Blu-Ray. No Playstation items, oddly. Second, Rolf wanted to have dinner in the Dehli restaurant, an Indian restaurant he had gone to on his last visit. The place was hidden away but we found it and I had a small course of Sri Lankan spare ribs whilst he pigged out on a full course curry. Much to our amazement, Jim walked in while we were eating, having decided to eat there himself. Of all the places, etc etc.<\/p>\n

Back to the hotel to get changed for party time. But, we are either too old or too lame, as none of us could face going back out to the nightlife parts of town but it was Saturday night so Rolf and I went to a local English-style pub for a couple of beers. <\/p>\n

The more I travel around, the more of a them and us feeling I get. The language barrier certainly makes it hard to go into any place that looks interesting but in general the greeters will turn away from you as you walk by so you defnitely feel like you would not be welcome inside. Its kind of annoying, and I’m not sure I would like living here for any long period of time.<\/p>\n

It’s possible that we are going to be kept here for a few extra days but we won’t know until Thursday or Friday. If thats the case then I think I will try to get out of the city at the weekend but hopefully I will still be on the plane coming home on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, Rolf, Patrick and I set off to the district of Shiodome to check out the Zojoji Temple and to get views of the city from the Tokyo Tower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[189],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guapacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}