Our latest adventure involved, surprise, surprise, a lot of walking!
We're getting more exercise walking around this big city than we ever
get at home. Despite the sheer size of Tokyo, it is really easy to get
around through a combination of excellent public transit and walking.
We could learn a lot in North America about investments in public
transit from this city.
Our first stop was the Toyota Amlux
showroom in Ikebukuro. I've been to this place several times but it
never ceases to amaze me. This is the largest automobile showroom in
the world. "Showroom" is a term that really does not do the Amlux
justice. This is a five-storey building containing floor after floor of
the latest cars that Toyota produces. The car line-up is almost
completely different from when we were here eighteen months ago. If
you're at all into automobiles, this is a great place to visit.
From the Amlux, we began making our way to our primary destination for the day -- the Tokyo Tower. In all of the times that we've been to Tokyo, we've never made a point of visiting the Tower. Built in 1959, the Tokyo Tower slightly resembles the Eiffel Tower but it is taller - 333m (1090ft) high. The tower is used primarily as a transmission tower but it does have two spectacular viewing decks at different heights (one at 150m and one at 250m). Being terribly afraid of heights, I found the glass elevator rides up to the viewing decks to be difficult -- "breathtaking" is the appropriate word in a literal sense! The 360 degree view from each of the observation decks is truly impressive -- you can see almost all of Tokyo and all of the important landmarks are in view. The trip to the tower was definitely well worth it.
Interestingly, at the base of the Tokyo Tower we found a few pleasant surprises. One was the impressive Zojo-ji Temple. Zojo-ji is a Buddhist temple dating from 1393 and was once a favored temple of the Tokugawa Shoguns. The most striking thing about the temple was the utter peacefulness of the place. Surrounded by the noise and energy of Tokyo, Zojo-ji was quiet with lots of trees and nature was in abundance. It was quite a contrast to the world outside of the temple grounds. I've always loved Buddhist temples -- the peacefulness, the contemplativeness, the smell of incense burning -- these are places that touch me deeply. It was so nice to come across this temple given the intense schedule we've been keeping and the seeming chaos of the city.
After leaving the temple, we began our journey towards our next destination -- the upscale area of Roppongi Hills. On the way there, we came across a few unexpected finds. One of these was a small Anglican church sitting between some office buildings right on a main street. This church looked slightly like a small cabin and it was really out of place. Inside was a man playing an organ. We didn't go inside but it was an interesting find. Quite peaceful and totally out of place in the surrounding environment (much like Zojo-ji was out of place).
After a fairly long walk, we made our way over to Roppongi Hills. This is a fairly new development in Tokyo that caters to the ultra-rich. Needless to say, we felt quite out of place here! There are some very impressive buildings filled with high-end shops and restaurants. We didn't bother to spend any time in these places though -- just too far beyond our means. Roppongi Hills is a place where you have to wear the right clothes, drive the right car, and drink the right liquor. I generally don't like these kinds of places -- far too elitist for my generally egalitarian beliefs. In addition, there are tons of posers here -- young people who no doubt don't have two dimes to rub together but want to be "seen". Needless to say, I didn't really like Roppongi Hills all that much. It is impressive as an architectural piece but the tone of the place turned me off. It was great to get back to Ikebukuro -- my kind of down-to-earth town!
From
Roppongi Hills we made our way to Shibuya -- an area favoured by young
people. I had recently read an article in the Japan Times regarding a
pub/restaurant here called the Maple Leaf Lounge which is basically a
Canadian-themed place -- the only one in Tokyo. I really wanted to
check this out but I wasn't able to print out a map so we were
unsuccessful in finding it. In the end though this was okay -- from all
of the walking and sightseeing today, we were absolutely exhausted --
again! Thus, we made our way home and stopped at the Asian Kitchen to
have some supper. If you ever have a chance to visit the Asian Kitchen
in Ikebukuro, do so. This place isn't really that special but it has
atmosphere and the food is good. After a hard day of sightseeing, there
is nothing better in my mind than sitting down in Ikebukuro at the
Asian Kitchen and relaxing.
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