Day 6: Shinjuku, Ginza, Akihabara & Shibuya

 Shinjuku Panorama

 Some Shinjuku Government Buildings

The touring begins.  First stop, the bank to exchange money.  Owen asks me to carry his pretty hefty SLR camera for him in my messenger bag and we set off.  Half way to the bank, we see a great building, he whips out his camera and finds he probably should have charged it…  SO we get some money exchanged, backtrack to the hotel room, drop off his heavy deadweight camera and back track again back towards Shinjuku Government Building.  The perfectly symmetric government building offers a free observation deck and lots of free tourist info.   As an added bonus, the observation deck also included a very good ukulele player to accompany the inspiring view that really added to the experience of seeing Shinjuku in all directions.  Next, we hunted for food… or actually just a restaurant.  Wandered around west Shinjuku a bit until we happened onto a small place and Owen tried his first adventurous food-ey step and ordered the fish.  He had no idea what he had ordered but was pleasantly surprised at his deliciously grilled mackerel.  I told him I had only had one bad experience with the good old trick of closing my eyes, pointing and ordering whatever my finger landed on.  It usually turns out okay and it worked this time too.

 Shinjuku Government Building Panorama

 Owen, Mike and me.

Next we went to Ginza, the 5^th Avenue of Tokyo filled with fancy window shopping and some fancy architecture.  We saw some real snow, a green wall, a dancing robot that grooves with music and some new prototype technology at the Sony Building.  We also explored the fanciest watch stores we’ve ever seen in one building.  There were 4 separate glass elevators and each one takes you to a specific floor to a specific store.  Each one was glass on all sides and different shapes like cylinders, squares, etc.  and operated on a single hydraulic piston that would push the clear glass box straight up 3 stories to an otherwise inaccessible store.  Some of the watches in there were the prices of decently expensive cars and after trying all the elevators and feeling very out of place in all the stores, we left.  After we’d satisfied our window and souvenir shopping, we made our way to Akihabara.  This district is known as the “otaku” district which roughly translated means “geek” or “nerd”.  There is a whole fascinating otaku culture and world that surrounds this district that is quickly becoming a subculture hiding just under the mask of Tokyo’s acceptable norm.  The streets of Akihabara used to be mainly filled with a plethora of electronic shops ranging from all specialties and sizes carrying some of Japan’s most cutting edge and often overpriced electronic technology.  This is still true, except much of these shops have also now evolved to include anime memorabilia and adult entertainment.  This new otaku subculture has started to make headlines with guys who have given up on trying to find a real life mate and have started to resort to marrying pillows with printed anime characters and virtual video game girlfriends.

 Some souvenirs and food.   Oh yeah, and rabid Mickey and the world's scariest toilet paper.

 Ginza and Akihabara

Are you suddenly feeling incredibly sad that anybody could feel so hopeless that they would completely give up on finding a human soul mate and doubting the strength of the human spirit?  That’s normal.  I really hope this doesn’t start to catch on or the human race is literally doomed.  Anyways, after a short tour of Akihabara, we meet up with the one and only… Charlene Nguyen.  (There actually might be a lot of Charlene Nguyens out there, it’s not really an uncommon name haha.)  Charlene is Mike and Owen’s friend from Irvine and would later be joining us on some grand adventures of Tokyo.  She’s been studying in Tokyo for the quarter and I was hopeful that she was going to be a better tour guide than I was able to be.  But I was quickly disappointed because as I got to know Charlene I realized one of her many hilarious characteristics is that she’s still a complete tourist in the city she’s spent 3 months in.  I was basically more familiar with the subway system than she was and she almost led us in the wrong direction to get back to the train station.  But don’t get me wrong, Charlene’s a hoot and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  We decide to head to Shibuya for dinner and a drink.  The first thing we decide to do though is Shibuya crossing which is the most crowded 4-way crosswalk in Tokyo made famous in the Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift.  Charlene was giddy with excitement as we crossed this stret three times even though she’s probably crossed this street dozens of times.  For the second time, we decide to eat at Ichiran and then we went to look for a bar to wet our whistles (the hip kids still say that right).  After having a bit of a hard time trying to find a car, we finally found our way to an Irish pub.  There are strangely enough a lot of Irish and English pubs in Japan because they usually don’t charge extra for bar/sitting fees and the drinks are cheaper than at other Japanese bars/izakayas.  We had a round with Charlene and then she was off to catch the one hour train ride home.  We were then engaged by a middle aged white man who was sitting at the next table over and asked us where we were from.  We told him and found out he was here visiting his son who was studying at Pepperdine, then somewhere in Australia and now in Tokyo.  He was nice enough to buy us a round of drinks, told us to be leaders, and called Michael stupid for smoking (in a friendly way) and subtly hinted to his own son to stop smoking.  His wife was oddly quiet and mostly smiled and nodded.  The best part was that the man’s name was Bob and his son’s name was Bobby, narcissistic much?

 Shibuya and Irish Pub

 Actual Shibuya Crossing

 Tokyo Drift Scene 

Best Shot of Ginza I Took