New Year's Day in Tokyo

Hello all.  I am posting this on Saturday morning Tokyo time, which for you guys if Friday afternoon. It's a little long, but I wanted to post it here as a travel diary.  We arrived here on Wednesday night Dec. 30 our time after a very smooth flight and airport limo ride, with taxi to our hotel in Rappongi, a touristy and fairly high dollar section of Tokyo.  (Nothing compared to Ginza however, which I am certain we could not afford!)

Date: Friday, January 1, 2010

Last night with some difficulty we stayed up to ring in the new year, watching pay tv Rocky movies on the television! (All the free channels are in Japanese of course!) At midnight the Tokyo Tower lit up brightly with “2010” which we could see from our window, just barely, by looking out to the right. Somewhat before that we hear lots of LOUD sirens and at least 6 or 7 fire trucks and ambulances parked on the street just below our windows. After they stopped and the men got out, they just walked around and hung out, I guess waiting for anything to happen. I could see reflected in the windows of the many buildings that there were similar vehicles staged around the neighborhood, so I’m guessing that it can get pretty wild out there!

Poor Everett slept through almost all of it, still from the food poisoning, but he did wake up long enough to drink some of the Asti we picked up yesterday at the Don Quixote duty free market down the street. That store has everything! We even found some Cote d’Or chocolate, which Mike spotted with his sharp eyes. I intend to buy some to take home to Jesse before we leave Tokyo.

So New Years Eve and Rocky movies in Tokyo!

This morning we got up bright and early (not!) and left our room about 11:00 to go get some breakfast. Down the street we had noticed a McDonalds, which Mike said he wanted to go to, so we did. They have a little sandwich with chicken and shredded cabbage which is very tasty, and cheap! The chicken has sort of a teriyaki flavor which is very nice. It was kind of funny watching the people who came it; they had obviously partied hearty the night before, and weren’t the steadiest! This one young woman wearing high heels had to be helped back down the stairs!

After eating and people watching, we walked down Rippongi street a little farther so I could take a picture of the Tokyo Tower, and then we strolled back to Rappongi Station for our trip to Shinagawa where we would pick up our afternoon tour at the Prince Hotel. It was our first introduction to the Tokyo transportation system, which has got to be the most complex one in the world. I don’t know how many Metro lines there are, maybe a dozen, and then there are several trains, not to mention buses and so on. We took the Hibya Line metro to Ebisu, and then transferred to the JR train to Shinagawa. It’s a lot like taking the LA Red line and then the Metrorail, but it’s a lot more integrated and faster. The Shinagawa Station is a really big station, with lots of shops selling everything to eat, drink, read.

Our tour guide met us promptly at the Prince Hotel lobby at 1:03 pm and escorted us to the bus, which then drove to several other hotels to pick up other people. Our first stop was, of all places, Tokyo Tower! Gosh, we could have met the tour there and saved a couple of hours!

As I am writing this it is Saturday morning Jan 2, and I have been wide awake since 5:52 am. I’ve been sitting at the desk typing on this computer and watching the scene in front of me transition from black, to pre-dawn, to day. It’s nothing too special-- the day is clear and bright. Oh look, right now there is a helicopter hovering completely still in the sky some distance away, appearing completely immobile. I wonder what he is searching for; he’s too high to see very much detail on the ground, unless of course he has some equipment, which I’m sure he does. An early morning urban mystery on this holiday Saturday.

But, to resume my commentary about yesterday. We went up the observation deck in the Tower, from which we could see all of Tokyo spread out in every direction. It was so clear that we could even see Mt. Fuji, albeit a bit in the haze. At one spot below us we could see the Dojo Temple, a very famous very old Buddhist temple. Our guide, Koju, said that the main gates were built in 1688, and that 6 of the last shoguns are buried on the grounds there. It was very crowded, but Mike gamely went into the courtyard with me and we walked up to the temple itself and shuffled with the herd inside. As I was watching, a young priest paraded out with a large drum, followed by an old priest, to begin a ritual ceremony for the worshipers who were in the temple proper in front of us. At the alter was a large golden Buddha, topped with two lotus flowers, and surrounded by other ritual symbols of which I am frankly ignorant. I could see that it would be very serene on a different day. The temple itself is somewhat stark inside, with a very high ceiling and clean lines. It’s nothing at all like our old Western style places of worship; it is open and airy and bright and clean, not closed in and dark.

Down in the courtyard I joined a crowd at a booth to buy an arrow which banishes evil spirits from your home. I don’t know if it will survive the trip home intact, but it is a simple shaft of wood with white fletching and a multi-colored cord with small bells and a tassel. I am pleased to have it as a traditional symbol of the new year.

Our next stop was the gardens of the Imperial Palace. If we come back on Saturday, Jan. 2, the place will be mobbed because it is the second of only two days a year that the public are allowed inside the grounds of the Palace. If it were up to me, I would brave the crowds to do it because it is extremely special, but my guys would not be willing so I’ll have to just imagine it. New Years is an interesting time to be in Tokyo because there is very little traffic and the trains are pretty empty. Everyone is either recovering or at home, and all the businesses are closed. About the only places open are hotels, restaurants, some convenience shops, and of course many of the bars!

On the grounds of the Imperial Palace gardens we saw a statue of a very famous warrior, Kusunoko Masashige. The statue is made from solid copper because it was funded, I think, by the copper companies. Otherwise most copper statues are hollow. I forget how many tons this status weighs, but it’s a lot!

We walked to the “Two Bridges” which our guide explained is a name given to the original two-level wooden bridge which was destroyed. Today there is a metal bridge and a stone bridge with two spans, but the name comes from ancient times.

So that was the tour. They left us off in Ginza, which I would have liked to walk around it but the guys wanted to go back to the hotel. Ginza is the really upscale part of Tokyo, with offices of Armani, Guchi, and the like.

But, back to the hotel, and then to TGI Friday again for dinner, as on our first night. My guys are just not interested in exploring, or rather, Everett is not. To Mike, he’d rather eat good American food because it’s a treat for him. He’s eaten a lot of local Japanese yakitori and so on, so it’s not new for him, and he doesn’t get much chance to sample familiar fare. So that was that. Tomorrow we’ll check out of the Ibis Rappongi and go back to Shinagawa to catch the express train to Yokosuka. Mike’s already looking forward to going back to the base and his own bed and his buddies and familiar haunts. I think he’s looking forward to showing us the places he knows about.

Well, all for now. I’ve been up since 6 am and Everett since 7; Mike’s still in the sack, so I’d better go clean up. I'll try to post some pictures later after I download them from my camera.