Tokyo days one and two

We landed at Haneda and retrieved our luggage. In Japan they actually check you have taken the right suitcase – I've often wondered if you could just take any bag you liked from the carousels. After finding where to buy a Suica card (The information people pronounced it say-ka and didn't understand us when we asked for a su-we-ka card. We took the monorail into the centre of Tokyo and then the Yamanote line to Ikebukuro where our hotel is. Anyone who's been to Tokyo will know that some of the stations are mini cities and Ikebukuro is no different. There are 2 department stores – Tobu and Seibu which used to be the biggest in the world. We found our hotel – the 4* Metropolitan – just a few yards from the station exit. It was a very fancy hotel and our room was big and had a nice LCD tv and a fantastic view out towards Shinjuku.



Thanks to BA we were paying £58/night for a room which should have been £150! After dumping our stuff, we headed out for some food and travelled the few stops to Shinjuku and took in the vast amounts of neon. We walked out to the government building and looked down on Tokyo by night – the gentle pulsating of the red aeroplane warning lights on all the buildings is ubiquitous and very soothing. Only one tower was open so we walked back into Shinjuku to get some food. We settled on an anonymous vending machine cafe – you buy a ticket from a vending machines (complete with pictures of the food), give it to a waiter and then wait for your food to arrive.



We both went for the steak option and settled back over an Asahi to watch the tired salarymen traipse in on their way home from the office. In fact, as we walked through Shinjuku station we came across a middle aged salaryman sprawled on the stairs at about 8pm – clearly hammered with a look of shear confusion on his face as he tried to understand why his legs wouldn't work.

We woke up the next morning to find a copy of the Daily Yomiuri outside our room. This paper, would come to sum up our time here – today there was a feature on how the Sapporo sculptures had been torn down with jcbs to prevent them weakening and falling on passers by – maybe we should have sacked off the beer museum... We set out to tour the west of the city and started by getting the train to Shibuya. We walked past Hachiko and across the scramble crossing and down the street to Tower Records – it's gone bust in the rest of the world but noone seems to have told the Japanese – this time around the Jpop floor made a lot more sense to me, even if the prices are still shocking. We carried on toward Harajuku and walked through Yoyogi park and to the Meiji shrine. Afterwards we walked through Harajuku and found a small cafe for lunch.



In the afternoon we caught the automatic railway across Tokyo Bay to the feminine-sounding Venus Fort shopping centre. Out here was the Toyota Web showcase where Toyota show off their range of cars and a range of attractions for people of all ages. We took a ride on the Gran Turismo driving simulator, walked through some F1 exhibitions and then walked past the giant ferris wheel to the Toyota technology centre. Here there was an exhibition about how various aspects of cars had evolved, from steering wheels to gear sticks and, more amusingly, Toyota's vision of the future.




At the doorway is a robot whose only function seems to be to play a trumpet (which it wasn't doing). In the same mould as the homeless robots from Futurama, you can only guess at the reason a trumpet-playing robot was even conceived, never mind built. Also on show were a very odd personal vehicle that Toyota can see us all driving very soon. It's essentially a chair on wheels where by the wheels move apart and the chair slants the faster you go. The conceptual cgi video shows people driving these things on the motorway overtaking lorries. I don't think it's be safe going 20 mph in one of these let alone at motorway speeds. To our amazement, there was a prototype available to try out in a small area of floor. Unfortunately, you needed a Japanese driving licence. There were also a worryingly large amount of fire extinguishers lying around the edge of the driving arena which didn't inspire any confidence. Alongside was Toyota's “chair-on-legs” prototype. Looking like a cross between the powerloader from Aliens and ED-209 from Robocop, this wasn't in working form, but it doesn't look like the most comfortable ride. Just outside the museum was another arcade. We followed up our poor show in Sapporo with an equally poor show on the DJ game. Luckily, this time noone saw us.

We ventured into the Venus Fort to try to find somewhere to eat but finding a very creepy pet shop with the animals crammed into small boxes awaiting an owner. Unfortunately with most people living in very small flats themselves, they may be waiting quite a while. We eventually found an okonomiyaki restaurant and then slunk out of the very pink shopping centre.