Tokyo 2009 - Part 4

Tokyo, Day 5, Saturday 17th October

In the morning we headed off to a not-too-distant suburb called Ryogoku - home of the Edo-Tokyo Museum. This is a 30,000 square metre museum dedicated to Tokyo's history and culture and includes authentic models and scale replicas of many historic stuctures.

We spent the first half hour watching a show performed in front of a replica Kabuki theater, which featured musicians playing traditional instruments and some interesting but incomprehensive dancing and singing. We then spent a few hours looking around the museum. It was very interesting and quite detailed, showing life in Edo (as Tokyo was originally known) when Japan was closed to foreigners, the opening of Japan in 1853 by demand of the United States, and the consequent westernisation (and renaming) of Tokyo, plus the devastation caused by bombing in World War 2. We enjoyed the museum and would recommend it to anyone else visiting Tokyo.

From the museum we headed over to Akihabara for some lunch and another visit to some of the stores and capsule toy machines. We also decided to visit a "Cat Cafe". This is basically a room where, for a fee (which also includes unlimited soft drinks), you can go and spend some time playing with, petting and feeding a bunch of cats. In the extremely high-density housing of Tokyo, not many people are allowed pets (and most pets cost several thousand dollars) , so this is the only way some people get to spend time with domesticated animals. We spent half an hour in this cafe, which had around 10 cats, and there were quite a few other people there, including one guy who was there before we arrived and still there after we left. It was nice to have some cat time as we are missing ours!

After our cat time we headed back to our hotel for a bit of a break. Somewhat late in the evening (10-ish) we headed over to Okachimachi as there are literally hundreds of eating places there. Everywhere was noise and bustle as it was Saturday night and everyone was out for some food and a few drinks. We spent a fair while trying to find somewhere that would be interesting yet not too scary or crowded. We nearly took the easy option of an English Pub chain called "Hub" but in the same building as Hub we stumbled upon "Akiyoshi Yakitori". Basically we saw a sign in all Japanese on the street which had a lot of tasty pictures of meat skewers, so we hesitantly walked up the stairs to the second floor to peer in, and one of the cooks, a hilarious rosy cheeked man who looked like he belonged in some old-fashioned coke ad, spotted us and waved us in. Next thing you know we are seated at the bar of a Yakitori house along with a bunch of smoking drunkards! Fortunately they have such good ventilation (due to the fact they are cooking dozens of meat skewers right in front of everyone) we virtually never smelled the smoke of the people next to us. Furthermore to our delight they had an English menu, which meant we could order an assortment of tasty yakitori skewers without any danger of accidentally ordering chicken knees or pig's feet (both of which are not uncommon here). The evening turned out to be one of the best meals and nights out we have had here in Tokyo, perhaps helped by the truly excellent yet inexpensive hot sake which accompanied our meal of assorted tasty meat-on-a-stick.

Tokyo, Day 6, Sunday 18th October

Headed over to Harajuku, somewhere we always visit when in Tokyo. Harajuku is famous for it's unique street fashion and good shopping. It is worth a visit to see the young people in their alternative fashions (goth lolita, punk, etc), to do a bit of shopping and enjoy a tasty crepe. This visit we did a fair amount of walking, especially up and down Takeshita Street (a pedestrian only street) which is where the most interesting stores are located. Simon managed to find some new amusing t-shirts here (although they were harder to find and less of a range than previously). We had some tasty crepes from one of the several crepe stores - Simon had a Baked Sweet Potato crepe and Sharon had a Pumpkin Brulee crepe. We also visited "Kiddy Land" , a 5 level toy store nearby on the more fashionble Omotesando street.

After Harajuku we headed into Tokyo station to explore some of the shops selling various tasty treats that can be found in the station. We ended up buying some macaroons at "Dalloyau" a french patisserie, some "Tokyo Pastello" - a kind of creme cake, and our favourite and a must for every trip - Karaimo Cake - a purple sweet potato small cake which is absolutely delicious! This time along with the purple ones we also got another two varieties, a season chestnut one and an orange sweet potato.

Treats in hand, we headed back to our hotel for a bit of a rest. That evening, we decided to dine at a restaurant we had found mentioned on the Internet, an "Alice in Wonderland" theme restaurant in Ginza. Took us a little bit to find it, despite Simon's "Tokyo Street Atlas" as it was not at ground level and only had a very small sign. It was an interesting experience - we were expecting a little more from the decor, which didn't seem overly themed as it mainly consisted of velvet drapery and private dining booths. However, the staff were well costumed - we were greeted by a girl in a "mad hatter" style outfit, and served by a girl in an Alice dress and a couple of times also by a girl in a "Cheshire Cat" inspired outfit. The menu was very well themed, almost all meal choices we saw pictured were made to look like objects or characters from Alice in Wonderland and there were a variety of themed cocktails as well. The food was also quite tasty! Simon did manage to pick an odd dessert - it looked very nice, being a depiction of a house with Alice's hands and feet sticking out - but it was basically half a loaf of white bread lightly toasted with honey drizzled through it and then topped with ice-cream.