en.david.grajal

Tokyo is the current capital of Japan and is where you can see modern Japanese culture and society. The first place we visited was the Imperial Palace’s east garden which is very close to Tokyo Station and it’s the only part of the palace open for visitors.

After being in Kyoto for two days we were quite tired of visiting gardens,temples and shrines so next place we visited was Akihabara, the electronic and manga district. Here we started to understand why these people are obsessed with videogames (It’s pretty hard to find other than Japanese games here) and manga. The arcades are also interesting with lots of cloth/catching machines where you can play for weird giant stuffed animals or videogames, or candy or ice cream or the weirdest things.

After Akibahara we headed to check in to our place. In Tokyo we stayed in a Ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese inn. I really loved this place, with the minimalist furniture and decoration concept and sleeping on the floor on Japanese tatamis. I understand it may not be a very practical way to live, but I love this concept anyway.

In the night we visited Tokyo Tower and we could see the beautiful night skyline of the city. After that we had dinner with Yuki, a very nice couchsurfer that helped us a lot providing lots of information about the places and the culture. If you ever read this, thank you for the wonderful dinner Yuki!

The next day we visited Harajuku, the fashion street where the young Tokyo people develop new radical styles. The street is a fashion show of fascinating people wearing shocking styles. There are general trends, like the girls that wear gothic lolita and sweet lolita and a lot of guys dressing with Visual Key style, but I have the feeling that here everybody creates their own style.

After being tired of the shopping, we headed for Shibuya, the famous extremely busy intersection where lots of people cross from one side of the street to another like ants. It’s fascinating to stay here for some minutes and see how the people accumulate close to the crosswalk while waiting for the lights to change color, and see the people moving in different directions sewing themselves with the people that come from the other side.

After Shibuya we went to Shinjinku and we walk around the Kabukichō entertainment and red light district. We went there in the daylight and it was clearly not a good idea because we could not see anything interesting. After that we went to Tokyo bay and we enjoyed the skyline watching the sunset.

Soon, we headed to Asakusa, where we saw Sensō-ji, the most famous Buddist temple in Tokyo. Here I met my friend Ines who is working on an internship in Tokyo. We had sushi together and then we come back to Shinjuku in the night, which was lighted on, and it looked extremely busy and pretty different in comparison with the boring district we saw a few hours before.

Two days in the city. Not enough to explore throughfully one of the biggest and characteristic urban areas in the world, but enough to have a glimpse of this dynamic city. Early in the morning the next day we got the Shinkansen to Hiroshima.