26th August 2004

The next thing I did after writing my diary yesterday was looking for food. I hadn’t eaten anything the whole day and my stomach growled as if accusing me for not having fed it so long. Fortunately I soon found a nice little restaurant where I bought a delicious yakiniku. That was yummy! Then I went to Mejiro-Eki, one of the stations of the Yamanote line which circles inner Tokyo like London’s Circle line and got on a train. To return to Nezu station I had to change from Yamanote line to the Chiyoda line at some place and from Nezu I hurried back to my minshuku. The reason why I returned as fast as I could was that at the minshuku a shishi-mai, a traditional Japanese dance was performed this evening at eight. It was fascinating how smoothly and seemingly effortlessly the dancer dressed as a lion moved!!! If you are ‘bitten’ by that lion, that means good luck for you. Of course I caught the whole performance on video. Afterwards I watched TV for a while, wrote some emails, went to the ofuro and then to bed. Today I got up at eight, packed my things for the day and set off again, this time heading for the Ginza, a part of Tokyo renowned of its shopping opportunities and exorbitantly high prices. On the way I stopped at the Tokyo-Eki to enquire where you can buy the JR-East-Pass allowing you to ride JR trains for four days. They told me where I could buy it but the man at the counter wanted to see my tickets for the return flight and of course I didn’t have them with me… Ok, so I’ll have to go again tomorrow, no problem. I proceeded to Ginza and left the underground station.

Crowds of shoppers at the Ginza

Also here people seemed to be in a hurry this morning. I didn’t care and bought an okonomiyaki-pan, a kind of Japanese bread with pancake taste, which I had for the first time and which I ate with relish. Then I strolled along the Chuuou-doori and spent some time with looking at the buildings towering above me, taking photos and filming. On the way I found a nice bookstore where I asked: “Shougaku sannensei, yonnensei no tame no hon ga arimasu ka?” (“Do you have books suitable for primary school, third or fourth grade?”), and got a prompt “Rokkai desu” (“They’re on the sixth floor”) as an answer. So I looked for an elevator and pressed the button. It really surprised me to see a man standing inside the elevator asking me where I wanted to go. I said: “Rokkai” and instantly the man pressed the button. I don’t know if it was a manned elevator again or if I was helped by a dutiful Japanese citizen this time though… Upstairs I asked one more time for those books, was asked “Nihongo de mo yoroshii desu ka?” (“Are books in Japanese alright too?”) and as I answered “Hai, ii desu” (“Yeah, it’s alright”), I was shown a rich choice of relatively easy to read books in Japanese. How happy I was when I started to read and could understand most of it!! I chose three nice novels and bought them. As I walked down the stairs (this time the elevator was too slow to come up^^), I realized that, while reading, the time had passed by awfully quickly and that it was already half eleven. As I left the bookstore, the quite hectic morning atmosphere had given way to a far more relaxed one, the street was crouded with shoppers and the sun was shining. Taking in that scenery made me feel like shopping too and that’s what I did. After window shopping for some ten minutes I found a CD- and DVD-shop which seemed quite appealing to me.

Progressive system for listening to CD’s

Inside I listened to a few CDs what you could do on listening stations where you didn’t have to open the CD cover but coud simply scan the barcode with a laser scanner. Once the central computer recognised the CD, the listening station started downloading the contents of the CD from it and started to play them. By the way, the maximum listening duration was limited to 45 seconds per track, which sounds annoying but actually has the advantage that you don’t have to wait very long for a listening station. After listening to a few J-Pop CDs I also looked through the DVDs in the basement and bought one DVD and tree CDs in altogether. Oh my god, I just LOVE J-Pop! Why, oh why can’t you buy that stuff in Europe?!? Yet I had to realise that CDs and DVDs are quite expensive in Japan while the electronic devices used to replay them are rather cheap. The price of ono CD was about 3000 yen, the price of a DVD around 5000 yen. Is that normal in Japan or did I just happened to walk into an expensive store?

Street interview at the Ginza

Coming out of the CD store, I walked on heading for Nihonbashi where you can see, marked with a stone, the point from which until today the road distances in Japan are measured. Traversing the Nihonbashi, once an old frail wooden bridge which was long since replaced by an unappealing concrete construction, a stilted expressway runs along the river, in the same way many other Japanese rivers are (ab)used. I have once heard that the reason for building expressways above rivers was, that the rivers are property of the state and therefore the building ground for the expressways is cheap.
Not an especially nice sight but as to so many things, you get used to it quite soon.

Starting poing for measuring streets in Japan, at the Nihonbashi

Next, I headed for Kanda, according to my travel guidebook famous for its countless bookstores. While I walked through the streets I could indeed see a lot of stores only that they weren’t bookstores… Not that it makes any difference…^^

Clearance sales Japanese-style

I went on to Yushima where I visited the Yushima-Seidou, and old and quite big temple. The garden and the forecourt in front of the entrance were bewitchingly nice but unfortunately the main hall itself was closed except for Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. What a pity! But nothing one can do about it...

Statue in the garden of Yushima-Seidou

Only a few buildings down the street there is also the Kanda-Myoujin, a very beautiful Shinto shrine. After I had taken a number of photos I could see an old Japanese lady praying: First he threw a coin into the big box standing in front of the shrine, then he clapped her hands twice and folded them, bowed and remained in that position, praying. Then she went off. I emulated it instantly, of course. And of course I prayed for a happy future in Japan, as always^^. May the gods hear me!!

Kanda-Myoujin

The next place for me to visit was Akihabara, the paradise for everyone into electronics, one electronic shop after the other and they’re all trying to lure in customers with flashy neon signs and commercials blaring out of storefront speakers. Since there was still daylight the signs weren’t that effective though and I resisted the temptation, walking on and looking for a phone box to phone Europe. After a short phone call I strolled along the Chuuou-Doori. Somehow I felt very well in those quarters. Must be because of my computer freak past. I’m still a fan of electronics and the sight of gaming arcades makes me feel extremely well even today. Maybe because I have already spent so much time of my life in gaming arcades…

Akihabara – still at daytime

Most interesting for me were the Japanese denshi-jiten (electronic dictionaries) because they are really cheap and handy and you can’t buy them in Europe. Finally I decided for a Canon Wordtank S30, pretty small and handy, which I bought for 20000 yen. And I even got an English manual for free thrown in the deal. Then I directly went back home to test the Wordtank and and had to realise that apparently the shift key was broken. At least it seemed like that because, when you press the shift key, nothing happens. I really do have bad luck with electronic appliances – also in the last few days the backlight of my laptop’s LCD display wasn’t working right. It helps to rap against it but you have to rap more intensly everyday. Where is this to go?? And still I like electronics. So set off immediately to exchange my denshi-jiten. In front of the station Kanda-Eki a nice middle-aged Japanese man helped me and explained the way to me. He then told me that he thought that the store was already closed but that he wasn’t sure about it and so he phoned the store for me! Try finding that kind of politeness in Europe!! Anyway, he told me that the store would open again tomorrow at half past ten. Still good that I have alredy sought out the location…

Akihabara at night

So I rode the underground to Roppongi, notorious for its discos, clubs and long nights and, really, it’s quite lively! As I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything except my okonomiyaki-pan, I bought a delicious gyuudon, a bowl of rice topped with small cubes of beef and some nice sauce, at a Yoshinoya store and filled my belly well. After I couldn’t eat anymore I went for a stroll and then I took the underground back to the minshuku. And here I’m sitting now and writing – and listening to the Kuraki Mai CD I’ve bought today. I’m feeling quite tired already and so I’ll see to go to sleep soon.
Oyasumi!!