Michael Powell's Blog, page 83
June 20, 2014
Our Favorite Shibuya Sights
Perhaps because it was directly on the subway line which takes us home, or more likely because it’s one of the best neighborhoods in Tokyo, we spent many entertaining evenings in Shibuya. There’s an endless array of bars and restaurants, shops and sights, and ways to entertain yourself… so many that it would be hopeless to attempt listing them all. But here were a few of our personal favorites.
Cat Street
Perhaps the best way to approach Shibuya is along Cat Street, by way of Omotesando-Dori. T...
June 19, 2014
Shibuya Crossing and Hachiko
A statue of loyal Hachiko stands vigilant before Shibuya Crossing. As the lights turn red and bring traffic to a stop, the zig-zagging crosswalks are buried under an avalanche of footfalls. This intersection has become one of Tokyo’s most iconic sights, and is especially amazing when witnessed from above.
The first couple times we ran the gauntlet of Shibuya Crossing, it was for the thrill; we’d seen the intersection in movies and on TV, and it’s fun to dive headlong into such a famous mess. B...
Cosplay at Tokyo Big Sight
As we approached the Tokyo Big Sight, it was against a tide of thousands of anime fans, all going the opposite way. A convention called Comic City had just wrapped up for the day… but we noticed something strange: the crowd was made up almost entirely of women. Turns out, this had been a day dedicated to manga that’s written specifically for the female market. Of course, there were guys here, too… but they were almost entirely photographers hoping to get portraits of the girls wearing their b...
Other Sights of Odaiba Island
There’s so much to do on Odaiba, you could never hope to see it all in a single day. Even if the attractions aren’t always especially impressive on an individual basis (and many are simply malls), the very fact that such a large section of Tokyo has been been dedicated almost exclusively to leisure and shopping is amazing. We’ve written quite a bit about Odaiba already, but here are some other sights which warrant mention.
If you’re a big fan of the Mobile Suit Gundam series, you might want to...
June 18, 2014
The Rinkai Disaster Preparation Park
Mommy always said it’s best to be prepared. “Hope for the best, darling, but plan for the worst.” And in earthquake-prone Tokyo, the worst can be very bad indeed. Since we always listen to our mommies, Jürgen and I dutifully visited the Disaster Preparation Park, on Odaiba Island.
It’s not a matter of whether a mega-quake is going to devastate Tokyo, but when. The city lies on the intersection of three continental plates: the North American Plate upon which it’s built, the Pacific Plate being...
Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City
It’s best to take Sunshine City’s name at face value. And I don’t mean that it’s filled with sunshine, but that it’s truly a city of its own. This enormous complex spreads across four buildings, including the Sunshine 60 which, upon its completion in 1978, was the tallest in Asia.
You could fly into Tokyo, take the metro to Ikebukuro, stay in the Sunshine City Prince Hotel, go shopping the in the Alpa mall, check out the Ancient Orient Museum, and entertain yourself at the Namja Town arcade. T...
June 17, 2014
Shopping Fever in Ikebukuro
Along with Shinjuku and Shibuya, Ikebukuro is the third and northernmost of Western Tokyo’s great centers. Built up around an enormous train station, this is another conglomeration of people, buildings, entertainment, shopping and chaos that could easily be its own city… and a large one, at that.
Ikebukuro Station serves nearly three million passengers a day, but perhaps even more than transportation, the neighborhood’s seems to be focused on shopping. The station is squished between two massi...
Sensei of Slurp: Making Soba with a Master
We met Akila Inouye at the entrance to Tsukiji Fish Market bright and early on Tuesday morning. Within minutes, we knew we were going to have trouble keeping pace with this guy. He had darted ahead of us, racing from stand to stand, comparing prices, and buying everything we were going to need. Throughout the day, he never slowed down… and I don’t think we ever really caught up.
Akila Inouye is a master soba chef and founder of the Tsukiji Soba Academy, which trains both professionals and dete...
June 16, 2014
Akasaka
Apart from the Hie Shrine, the business district of Akasaka doesn’t have much in the way of interesting sights for tourists. But the streets which surround the metro station are lively and packed with good, cheap places to eat, and the neighborhood is so central that we stopped by rather frequently.
A set of three parallel streets, beginning at Akasaka Station and running north to Akasakamitsuke Station, make up what used to be a bustling entertainment district populated by geishas and favored...
Nagatacho, Ark Hills and the Hie Shrine
Nagatacho is the administrative center of the Japanese government. Ark Hills is a massive complex combining condominiums, shopping and entertainment. And the Hie Shrine is a peaceful place of worship on a wooded hill. We visited these three completely different places during a very long day in south-central Tokyo.
We had been excited about Nagatacho, but really picked the wrong day to visit. It was April 29th, Showa Day, a holiday on which the Japanese are encouraged to reflect on their govern...
