Thursday, March 27, 2014

Fast times in Tokyo

Our first impression of Tokyo is shinjuku station which is whistle of activity serving the needs of 3.6 million commuters per day. These crowds are only more pressing in harajuku's packed alleys or shibuya's mad scramble crossing (left).

Japan is no stranger to the odd, risque or just plain mad behavior. Take the robot restaurant where scantily clad ladies dance with fight or just ride around or robots. The results are spectacular if at times not what we would call family friendly (perhaps burlesque would be a better word). That being said, even the families and couples were, at the end, laughing smiling and waving their glow sticks with reckless abandon as planes tanks and robo-cycles played amidst the laser light extravaganza.

The AnimeJapan2014 convention taught me that i know exactly nothing about anime. Thousands of anime and i knew only two or three.

The Tokyo science and nature museum was very impressive. Huge displays which surrounded you, informative and interactive (computers provided English information in many sections but the exhibits themselves where intuitively understandable). Especially impressive was the evolution and speciation information and the high-level of detail (including in physics) through high quality displays including excellent bones and fossils. All up a top museum, probably the best science museum in the world.

No mention of tokyo would be complete without covering the wide range of drinking establishments. From "British" pubs to traditional izukayas where you can get skewers of meat or fish. Then there are the little hole in the wall pubs of golden gai where mixing with the locals can be lots of fun. My favourites were square (listening to anime songs selected by the otacku  barmaid) and Brian bar (where the locals were friendly).






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