Big Japan Trip Take Two: I love Shibuya

Our day had a bit of a rocky start - somewhere in the course of our outing yesterday, after we remember last seeing it, my JR Pass went missing. So that's a bummer. Also means I'd end up spending hundreds on train tickets if I couldn't get a replacement. Fortunately, they introduced a trial sale of JR Passes at 3 or 4 train stations in Tokyo in March, to see if itr's worth their while - Yes, Japan, yes it is! Not everybody knows about them before hand and you only sell them through one vendor online. Also they get lost, apparently.
So that was sorted out quite quickly and as I told the lovely woman at the issuing office, that is what travel insurence is for.

This is the first time I've ever had to make a claim with my travel insurance so that's exciting. The annoying thing is that the company says, "Make the claim as soon as possible on this number" - like heck I'm ringing that number while in Japan. From a mobile. No, they're getting a solid, well-written, free sob story email. (Update: It was after midnight and cocktails that I wrote that. I have since remembered I have a bolt-on with O2 that allows me 120 minutes of chat for a flat £4.99 a day, rather than charging by the minute.)

Once that was all sorted out and Hubbo had stopped mentally hyperventilating, we went to a park in Shinjuku. It was bleeding massive and we spent a good 3 hours in there, though it was hot. 33 degrees by 11am and I am sure it surpassed the predicted 36 degrees, in places.

Why Japan is still Greener than England

From 52nd floor in Roppongi. Different park, same point.

Something I noticed the last time we came, and more so from high up on the 52nd floor of a giant building, is that Japan has loads of green spaces. Really green spaces, that are huge and full of trees. There was a forest in that park that was bigger than the woods around Papworth Everard. 

Compared London's parks, where there might be trees every 2-3 metres, Japan's parks have them every metre - metre and a half.  They also take great pride in producing lovely parks to walk through and sit in, be they curated Japanese gardens with ponds and bridges and gorgeous shrubbery, woodland walks or "French Flower Gardens".

This particular park separated the area of Shinjuku we were in the next district along the subway line, Shibuya.  It was large and circular and its paths crossed over a lot and wove through areas in a way that meant you took a while going through. It was also a specialised national park (Shinjuku Gyoen national park), so we paid a modest fee to get in. 

I do lament somewhat that I always hear interesting birds but never see them - today was no exception. The most exciting thing I saw was a house sparrow that hopped within a foot of me. (Not that he stayed for a photo, oh no.) Annoyingly, I left my lumix at the flat, so I couldn't take as good photos as I would like of the dragonflies I saw today - my new camera is great, but the lens I have can only zoom in a small way, making it better for gorgeous close ups that I can actually get close to - my lumix has a phenomenal zoom for its relatively low price.

In the park was a large greenhouse, too - it had plants from all over the world but also endangered Japanese plants. I took photos of the most interesting ones, rather than just Japanese ones, cause there was a LOT.

Slideshow from our day at the park:

It's Shonen Jump's 50th Anniversary!

We made our way to Roppongi, a business area by day and party central by night. It was quite nice - quieter than main Shinjuku and full of shiny shiny buildings - you know, the ones that are all polished glass windows, to trick those poor salerymen that they're getting natural light.

There is a tall tower building with an art gallery, special exhibits, an observatory and a sky view at the top, including a helipad that can be entered for a fee.  Unfortunately, because of "unusually high temperatures", the helipad wasn't open, so we decided to go to the Shonan Jump exhibit instead, which was nice. We were not allowed to take photos, except within the pink zones and only with mobile phones, not proper cameras. Presumably so we can't make our own prints at home hehehehe.

So some photos were taking by my mobile, if you notice a sudden drop in image quality somewhere. Or a jump.  I mean, the one I took of the poster outside was a bit rubbish but there we go.

The exhibit had some nice pieces - the One Piece artboard room was cool. It was a circular area with mirrored walls with a centre-piece column of sheets of paper - with One Piece art on - flying upwards and across the ceiling, while the walls had loads of pieces and large cut-outs of the main characters. Oh and the room changed colours, which affected how the artwork looked, it was very cool.

In the other areas, there were original artboard submissions of various anime, with a mini synopsis of each one. Some anime had dynamic clips put together of panels from the manga, complete with whooshing sound effects and music of appropriate dramatical level.

The Death Note area was slightly interactive - there were cameras somewhere and you could see people on the screen. If they touched the Death Note, then Ryuk would show up on the screen too. Except we worked out that it was on a timer, not prompted by touching the book.... still it was fairly cool. Such a shame that the series sucks after L died. They don't mention that anywhere though... !

The merch was nice, but Hubbo is heartbroken - enough to make a plea on a forum he frequents! - that the gorgeous poster print for My Hero Academia was sold out. Yep. The one thing he wanted was gone. There was another print, but it cost more than my JR Pass so we decided that was probably a stupid idea. Also we don't carry that sort of cash around. Because that would also be stupid. 😛

Photos from Rippongi here:

Shibuya: Energy. Colour. Sound.

I'm going to take a moment to express how much I love Shibuya - it was my favourite spot last time we came and last night reminded me why.  It is very much the youth centre - at night its shops stay open late (at least until 7 or 8, some clothes stores), it has arcades but not in an overboard number as in say, Akihabara. It has music in the streets, various food and drink venues ranging from KFC, street ramen and pizza to snack and cocktail bars, all you can eat, rice bowls and steak houses. 

We aimed to find the nice bar we found last time, but failed miserably. (Though Hubbo kind of gave up after it wasn't where he thought it was. )

We went into a cocktail bar which was quite nice and had popcorn and a margarita pizza - home-made! I tried some new cocktails - each half the price of any at home. In fact, were I at home and it was, say, Las Iguanas, and the cocktails had been that cheap, I would have probably been quite drunk. 💙

Shibuya is just a fun place to be. It is bright and colourful and there's a great vibe about it. It doesn't have the underlying grubbiness and skeeviness of Shinjuku and even if you're dressed in clothes you wore all day, you didn't feel as though you were too shabby to be in the area. (Looking at you, Ginza, with your $20 coffees!) The music is loud and definitely breaks UK public space noise rules, but actually I love it. It's usually J-Pop and latest hits, and you can't tell if it's coming from a store with its doors open or from an advert or if one of the giant outdoor t.v. signs is playing a music channel... last time we came there was a big advertising campaign for a new Final Fantasy game, so at times there would just be FF orchestral music playing loudly while everybody stopped and listened outside McDonalds. It's just brilliant.

After we ate we made our way to an arcade and played Taiko drums - perhaps not as well as the day before, because alcohol and joie-de-vivre. Also Hubbo put on the Japanese cover of "How Far I'll Go" from Moana which made me insanely happy but my struggle to remember how it started meant I was concentrating on singing along badly instead of hitting the drum... Great times were had. I almost won a really cool Maleficent figure in one of those annoying claw machines. It is so rigged... though it turned out the tip sticker on the window was true. I swear, another 3 or 4 goes and I would have got it. But they were closing up... so we'll never know!

By the way:  Anybody else seeing Bruce Forsyth in these weird-chinned stuffed toys? If I had wanted to, tried and then won this lion, he would have been named Bruce.

We got back late - after midnight and I stayed up long enough to sort out the Shinjuku Gyoen pictures. I've written this last part the following morning - I would still be asleep probably, only my hayfever had kicked in BIG TIME.  I am sneezing and so gross. I think it has been exacerbated by the insect bites I got yesterday. How the heck did they get my index finger? When did that even happen? Sneaky things.  There's a pharmacy around the corner according to google, so I'll grab some magic Japan pills to make the sneeze and snot go away.

On that note, I log off!

Photos from Shibuya: