Tokyo: Part II

There was a lot still to see in Tokyo that Dave and I had to fit into our vist and I had learned after one day of walking around that I had underestimated the damage a Tokyo vacation would do to my feet. We walked and walked and after 12 hours of walking... well feeling one's feet gets difficult! Despite the lower body pain, we had to keep moving. Monday morning, bright and early, we got up and headed for Tokyo's fish market. It is located in Tsukiji and is the largest fish market in the world. I didn't want to take too many pictures there because I had a fear of being run over by the men speading around on there little delivery truck things. Imagine: aisle upon aisle of fresh sea food, crammed with sellers, buyers, and tourists taking pictures. Workers cutting tuna with ban saws, tuna that weigh more than I do... and all of this taking up an area of about 43 football fields! I felt kind of awkward there... The workers don't like that there are always tourists wandering obliviously around their work place. I had been awar of this before going so I tried as hard as I could to stay out of the way (no pictures helped), but it is busy place... I did manage not to get hit by anything. After the fish market we hopped on the subway to go to the oldest garden in Tokyo, Koishikawa Korakuen. Below, Dave is looking up the wall that separates the garden from the rest of the city.



















Here was a little Bonsai tree in the park. First without scale figure and then with Dave as the scale figure in the scene.




























After the oldest garden we went to the Imperial Palace grounds. Unable to enter a tourist must walk all the way round the moated, walled palace grounds. Here is a picture at one corner of the grounds showing the moat, the wall, and a little building of what purpose I do not know. The entire grounds are unavaible to visitors unless you are the Emperor, his son, or somebody with special connections or unless it is the Emperor's birthday or New Years. While we were at the entrance we saw two cars leave the property (one, I speculated, containing the Emporer, the other, his guard). Also, we witness a guy on a motor bike enter the grounds... a son perhaps?



















Here is a picture of another building on the grounds. It is set very romantically back in that are, probably with great views so I imagine that it is the palace... haha














This is the view on the other side of the street from the palace grounds. A garden or park in Tokyo seems always to have a view of skyscrapers. There was something about this arrangment of buildings that attracted me. They were all to stark and repetative, but together formed a nice composisiton I thought.














Next stop for the touring was Roppongi. In Roppongi is located the 21_21 building designed by Tadao Ando. In school we learned of Ando's reputation to spec the smoothest concrete possible for his buildings so it was fun to visit this work of his to be able to touch his smooth concrete! Last time Dave was in Tokyo, he saw this building, but didn't get to enter. This time, there was an art show displayed, therefore open to the public for 1,000 yen! So, we got to touch the inside too!














This building was beautiful inside and out and it felt great too!














The picture below was the only interior shot that I was allowed to take. It looks into the first and only upper level gallery. Ando created a playful art gallery with daylighting, a not so appreciated element in the world of art display as sunlight has deterious effects on art. Ando, however used varying degrees of natural light and interestingly angular spaces of the gallery allowing the movement one takes through the spaces to give a visitor a higher sense of interaction through the ever changing light and dark. Past the upper gallery space one decends downstairs to look over a light filled space, but the stairs continue around a turn and lead into the first gallery that is more void of natural lighting, only receiving what it can from the light of the adjacent room. You are directed through this smaller room into a dark transitory gallery which leads into another smaller room adjacent to the largest gallery of the building, which if my memory serves me right is also artificially lit. At the back corner of the gallery is a small entry to another small, dark transitory gallery that leads to a little passage that gets darker yet, having no access to any reflections of day light. As you turn the corners of this passage and exit, your eyes take a second to adjust to the light of the space you overlooked while decending the stairs. On the left are large windows looking out into a small courtyard below ground level. I wish there were pictures to accompany this verbal tour... Hope it painted a little bit of a picture.



















...and another shot.














After Roppongi and Tadao Ando, we made our way to Shibuya. Shibuya is a ward of Tokyo that is a major fashion location for young people. Dave and I spent a lot of time wandering this streets visiting some of the many stores that were there. The last building we visited was an eight story "shopping mall" just for the ladies. The floors were filled with boutiques with overflowing merchandise... Tokyo's style at the moment is very frilly and floral. There were some very cute clothes, however I didn't get any. I'll hope to make some perhaps. After visiting 6 of the 8 floors we decided to head to the big crossing depicted in the pictures below. In this first image, the crossing is empty, just before the walk signs turn on, see the crowd standing across the way.














The way this intersection works is simple, cars get their turn and then pedestrians get theirs. In a span of, lets say, 30 seconds, thousands of people are crossing the road going every direction. It is choatic and exciting to participate and to view.

































And as the sky gets darker, the lights of the buildings begin to shine!



















There was one last place we wanted to get to that night, Tokyo Tower. That was located back in Roppongi and from the subway station where we got off, a really, really long walk.



















On Tuesday morning we wanted to take a look around the area we had been staying. This is a picture of the Sensoji Temple entrance.














This is a picture of a pagoda on the property.



















After visiting the temple we decided that sushi in Tokyo could not be missed even if Dave's stomache wasn't quite up to food yet. We had found a sushi-go-round to eat at. Set up on a circulating conveyor belt was the best sushi platters that I have ever eaten. We did get too adventurous in our tastings but here is what we did try: fatty, expensive tuna - so good!, shrimp spring roll, yellow tail, mackrel, shrimp, crab roll - this one was probably my favorite after the tuna. Oh Tokyo! You were awesome and had awesome sushi! Where will the world lead me next?
p.s. One last thing about the trip. I almost forgot, though not sure how that was possible. We flew home first class... yeah... it was awesome!