New year in Tokyo (part 2)

For new years eve itself, we decided to go to Shibuya as it's always crowded at the best of times, plus it's famous for it's massive TV screens which we assumed would have something countdowny on them. On the way there, we met up with two of Kari's friends and another teachers - Sorrell - who had an entire rugby team of Aussies with him. The logistics of manoeuvring all those antipodeans seemed insurmountable though, so we trotted off by ourselves to get some food and booze.

Around half past 11, crowds were starting to build at the Shibuya crosswalk, and we started to think it might be a good idea to have some alcohol to throw about once midnight hit. On a mission, me and Kari dashed off to find a kombini - it was all very 24, with the timer counting down and us yelling instructions at each other about which direction a store might be in. What was less Jack Bauer though was when Kari suddenly started tugging at her shirt and screaming "I've lost my support!". Turns out strapless bras don't hold out too good on beer runs. My shoelaces came undone too and were flapping about threateningly, so we both must have looked like we had some kind of musculo-skeletal disorder when we lopsidedly shambled into the store.

With minutes (about 15) to spare, we arrived back at the rendezvous which was now rammed with people (mostly annoying white folks) and pointed ourselves at the screens in anticipation of the countdown which we were sure would appear. Ten to.......five to......still nothing.......at about 11:58 by my watch, it became apparent that NOTHING was going to happen, and that we'd have not even a whiff of when 2008 officially started. With 20 seconds to go, a coach advertising a new Japanese band surreally went by with a digital display on the side counting down, but it drove off into the distance leaving us and the rest of the crowd counting down at our own pace until everyone just shouted happy new year and went mental. Meanwhile Team ECC looked bewildered at each other and asked "was that it?!"

Not to be stymied by this awesome anticlimax, we made our way to the Shibuya branch of our favourite karaoke parlour, stopping on the way to stock up on drink (again). Two hours of belting out the hits later (including the newest addition to the repertoire, a song entirely in Japanese) we went back to Kari's plush hotel room in Shinjuku with twin beds, unwilling as we were to go back to our hostel and the loud South-African girl contained within. Long story short, I ended up sleeping next to Thom, but we kept all our clothes on and it was above the covers so it's only a little bit gay - about as much as much as using the word "chilly" to describe cold weather by my count.


On our final day, we found out that the Emperor was doing an extremely rare personal appearance at the Imperial Palace, and that was well as seeing him, you'd get to see a little bit more the area than you normal can (which by all accounts is one tiny corner of the vast buidling). So we wandered along, and after a couple of pat-downs by the security guards (mine was female - score) we stood outside the viewing area, me clutching my Japanese flag that I was handed. Thom and I had a brief discussion about exactly what you should do when the Emperor comes out - do you cheer, or just look on in hushed awe? Any indecision we had was then laid to rest by the shout of "banzai!!" from several ardent royalists when he appeared. There was also some serious flag waving. As well as the Emperor, there was his wife, and I think his son and daughter. He did a little speech, but the only thing I caught was "everyone" and "happy new year". Then they all did a little bit of waving and went back inside.

And that was Tokyo! I was going to try and write a bit more, but it's already far too far in January to be writing a new year post, so I'm going to stop!

New year in Tokyo (part 1)

For new years 2007, me, Thom, and Kari (ECC teachers all) decided to vamoose to Tokyo for some fun and frolics. We didn't really have any particular plan, other than that we would have a bit of a wander around, and then try and do something moderately spectacular for the big countdown moment.

To get there, me and Thom took the night bus from Nagoya which takes about 6 hours (boo) but is kitted out like the first class cabins of planes, with reclining seats, and blankets and little slippers to wear (yay). We got to Tokyo about 6am and met up with Kari, then needed somewhere to go to refresh ourselves and get ready for the day. After some self-justification (the argument goes like this: we work in Japan, speak Japanese [kinda] and know Japanese people so we've accrued enough collateral to completely cop out and go to a franchised American coffee chain when we want. This kind of thinking holds a lot of water at 6am) we decided to go to Starbucks which wasn't even open so we had to wander around for a bit. It was quite fun to see all the wackily dresses Tokyo-ites coming back from their night out when we'd just got there. Eventually Starbucks opened and we could get some sweet sweet caffeine.

Our hostel was in Asakusa which has a very nice temple and a big red lantern which I keep forgetting the name off. Pause for Google......it's the Kaminarimon.


Then we went for a quick stop in Shibuya to see the famous Hachiko statue (I'd seen it before - tchah, get yesterday Thom and Kari) and the also famous crosswalk which has about a billion people wander across it a day (well, not a billion, but it is a ludicrously high number).

After that, it was off to Meiji shrine which is in Harajuku - devastatingly, there were NO cosplay people there! Suck! The temple was nice, but then it started to rain and we took the wrong exit out (something we seemed to repeat a lot) so it took us AGES to get back the station. We did manage to make the rain stop though by buying some umbrellas - cue instant nice weather. The store we bought them from also had this charmingly enthusiastic towel on offer.

Our big exciting event was going up to the bar in the Park Hyatt which is featured in Lost in Translation - initially there were some nerves about getting in as Kari had been turned away before for wearing flip flops. Accordingly, she dressed up for the return visit and looked all nice and pretty - by contrast me and Thom just wore out normal togs and looked rrrather casual. We tried to look confident when we got up to the 52nd floor, although our savoir faire was shaken slightly by the very opulent and swanky surroundings. Turns out we needn't have worried though - we got shown straight to a table no probs. The drinks were a little pricey, but it was so cool to be in the Bill Murray bar, we didn't care.





The next day, we decided to go to Tokyo Tower which is like the Eiffel tower, but with all the French elegance sucked out of it. It is bright orange and white - I quite like the colour scheme, but it's not exactly pretty. In fact...isn't that the same colours as Thunderbird 3?

The cool thing about the observatory is that it has sections of glass flooring which you can stand on and freak yourself out. I say cool, I mean a wee bit nerve wracking. The glass flooring does at least have a lattice of steel underneath it so it's easier to convince yourself that it won't suddenly give way and leave you to plummet 150 metres to the earth.

The cheeky thing is, only once you get in do they tell you that you have to queue up and pay again to get to the super high observation deck! It's another 600yen, and the place was rammed with people so we didn't really feel like doing that. The views from the normal deck were nice anyway.




(There's a few more photos to go, but it's late so I'll finish them off tomorrow)