Day 1 in Tokyo
Crossposted from our Japan blog (see also my image gallery):
We got off to a running start yesterday. Our first stop was Akihabara, the Tokyo "electronics mecca". We jammed ourselves into packed subway trains and rode a few stops to get there. It turned out that all of the electronics, video game, and anime stores that make Akihabara what it is didn't open for another few hours, so the focus changed to finding breakfast. There don't seem to be a lot of places to eat breakfast in Japan, but we found a local fast food chain that served countless permutations of meat over rice. The food was satisfying and inexpensive.
We decided to visit the transportation museum while we were waiting for Akihabara to liven up, since it happened to be about a kilometer away. Unfortunately, it turned out to be closed in preparation for the opening of a new museum which will replace it. By the time we got back to the Electric Town, everything was open. We stepped into various arcades, manga shops, and computer hardware stores. All of these establishments had tiny footprints, but many were built upward at least five floors.
When we got tired of Akihabara, we decided to go to the camera museum. We never made it there. While transfering from one subway line to another, we found ourselves drawn into an elaborate and upscale underground food market. It turned out to be the basement of a large department store. We couldn't resist buying some of the more interesting stuff to try it. This held us over until dinner.
It turned out that the currency museum was only about a block away from this department store, so we checked it out. This museum is run by the Bank of Japan and I thought their collection of coins and bills from Japan and around the world was impressive. On the way out, we wandered through another department store, which also had an amazing food section.
For some reason, we decided to go to Ginza next, which was just a short subway ride. We stopped by at a pub on the main street before heading back to the hotel. Ginza is a very classy and expensive area, so it probably wasn't the best place to stop for a beer.
Soon after getting back to the hotel, we had to leave for dinner. It was difficult to pick a restaurant. There was a strong interest in sushi, but sushi is quite expensive in Japan, so we needed to be careful where we went. We read about an all-you-can eat sushi bar which was still a few times more expensive than the one in Davis, and decided it was our best bet. It was all the way in Shinjuku, on the other side of the city. It took us quite awhile to get there, since we kept making mistakes like getting off at the wrong stop or trying to transfer to a private subway line that didn't accept our passes.
Shinjuku is overwhelming, and we didn't have a chance of finding the restaurant we were looking for. I just read that the station we arrived at is the busiest train station in the world. It has at least a dozen exits, and the surrounding area is dense. We wandered around looking for an alternative, and didn't find very much appealing Japanese food, since the area where we were walking seemed particularly touristy. We eventually settled on Thai, which might have been a better bet than the Japanese options (mostly fast food). That trip to Shinjuku was our trial run, and we'll definitely be going back.
Today we will start at the gardens of the Imperial Palace and see where we end up.
We got off to a running start yesterday. Our first stop was Akihabara, the Tokyo "electronics mecca". We jammed ourselves into packed subway trains and rode a few stops to get there. It turned out that all of the electronics, video game, and anime stores that make Akihabara what it is didn't open for another few hours, so the focus changed to finding breakfast. There don't seem to be a lot of places to eat breakfast in Japan, but we found a local fast food chain that served countless permutations of meat over rice. The food was satisfying and inexpensive.
We decided to visit the transportation museum while we were waiting for Akihabara to liven up, since it happened to be about a kilometer away. Unfortunately, it turned out to be closed in preparation for the opening of a new museum which will replace it. By the time we got back to the Electric Town, everything was open. We stepped into various arcades, manga shops, and computer hardware stores. All of these establishments had tiny footprints, but many were built upward at least five floors.
When we got tired of Akihabara, we decided to go to the camera museum. We never made it there. While transfering from one subway line to another, we found ourselves drawn into an elaborate and upscale underground food market. It turned out to be the basement of a large department store. We couldn't resist buying some of the more interesting stuff to try it. This held us over until dinner.
It turned out that the currency museum was only about a block away from this department store, so we checked it out. This museum is run by the Bank of Japan and I thought their collection of coins and bills from Japan and around the world was impressive. On the way out, we wandered through another department store, which also had an amazing food section.
For some reason, we decided to go to Ginza next, which was just a short subway ride. We stopped by at a pub on the main street before heading back to the hotel. Ginza is a very classy and expensive area, so it probably wasn't the best place to stop for a beer.
Soon after getting back to the hotel, we had to leave for dinner. It was difficult to pick a restaurant. There was a strong interest in sushi, but sushi is quite expensive in Japan, so we needed to be careful where we went. We read about an all-you-can eat sushi bar which was still a few times more expensive than the one in Davis, and decided it was our best bet. It was all the way in Shinjuku, on the other side of the city. It took us quite awhile to get there, since we kept making mistakes like getting off at the wrong stop or trying to transfer to a private subway line that didn't accept our passes.
Shinjuku is overwhelming, and we didn't have a chance of finding the restaurant we were looking for. I just read that the station we arrived at is the busiest train station in the world. It has at least a dozen exits, and the surrounding area is dense. We wandered around looking for an alternative, and didn't find very much appealing Japanese food, since the area where we were walking seemed particularly touristy. We eventually settled on Thai, which might have been a better bet than the Japanese options (mostly fast food). That trip to Shinjuku was our trial run, and we'll definitely be going back.
Today we will start at the gardens of the Imperial Palace and see where we end up.