Holiday in Japan - Tokyo

Tokyo was the last place I visited in Japan before leaving. It was definitely worth visiting even though I'm not a big fan of crowded and polluted cities. The first stop was Akihabara, or the "Electric City". For several blocks around Akihabara station there was nothing but electronics stores, the odd cafe, crowds of shoppers, and aggressive sales-people wielding microphones at potential prey. I spent a few hours looking for a good notebook computer, but most stores were actually overpriced. The best place I saw was an internet warehouse/outlet that Chihiro's father had recommended. The staff didn't speak English, and didn't know many technical details, so even with Chihiro translating it was quite difficult to choose a notebook. In the end I got a very nice Fujitsu notebook that had everything I wanted and more (a remote control?!)

Inner Tokyo is literally a concrete and glass jungle, and we couldn't even find anywhere to sit and and eat the lunch we'd brought with us. Instead we went to a noodle bar to sit down and have a rest, where I tried udon noodles with wakame (seaweed) and unlimited green tea, all for only $5! It's so much better than western fast food. In Tokyo, convenience stores are on almost every street corner, and they generally sell better food than the ones in Australia. You can buy freshly made soups, steamed buns, bento (boxed lunches including sushi and sashimi), and onigiri (rice balls). One of the best things about them is that they sell beer too!

The biggest highlight for me was the Studio Ghibli museum out in one of the quieter suburbs. I've been a fan of their animated movies for quite a while (Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke are their most well-known works), so it was really interesting to learn all about them. The whole place was built and decorated to look like something straight out of their cartoons. There was a history of how the animation evolved, and a history of the studio, as well as a replica of Hayao Miyazaki's study, full of all the things that have inspired him. One of the most impressive displays was a spinning set of character models that were lit by a strobe light timed perfectly to animate them. There were also displays of the animation process, and a section about Pixar studios. We also saw a short movie in the museum's cinema, which had the same masterful blending of reality and fantasy as most Ghibli films, and was about some kindergarten children trying to catch a whale in their imaginary boat. The museum cafe was very crowded with a long waiting line, so for lunch Chihiro took me to a place near Shinjuku called Ben's Cafe! It had a great atmosphere and there were quite a few foreigners there chilling out and playing Go.

We also visited Harajuku, the "alternative" fashion capital of Japan. The funny thing was that all the alternative people wearing platform boots and costumes looked very similar - they were all conforming to the same trend! It would have been a great place to spend enormous amounts of money, but luckily I'd already done all my souvenir and gift shopping. I wasn't looking forward to the end of my holiday in Japan, but all good things must come to an end, and it had been a wonderful experience. In such a short time I'd already become used to most of the small differences (such as sitting on the floor, using chopsticks, and sleeping on futons) that arriving back in Australia seemed a little strange at first!