The Tokyo Diaries - Part 2

I unthinkingly named the previous post ‘The Tokyo Diaries - Part 1' so now I have to continue. Curses. On with part 2 then.

Once in the safety of my room, I opened my suitcase, found some pyjamas amongst all my spanking new bargain clothes (which I took the opportunity to admire once again), and sat shivering on the bed under the stark light. It was pretty depressing. The carpet was all stained, the room was freezing and the sheets smelled like cigarette smoke even though it was a non-smoking room.* It was only seven o’clock at night, but I decided to go to bed. Unfortunately I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely frozen, and had to make a trip to Reception looking rather less than gorgeous. It reminded me of the time I stayed at the airport hotel in Singapore. God, it was cold in there. I woke up frozen to the bed. Getting up was like unwrapping one of those frozen popsicles you get - I had to peel myself off the sheets. Anyway, once they explained to me how to work the air conditioning – duh - it was fine. I woke up again at 10 o’clock the next morning**, ready for a spot of sight-seeing.

I’d been studying the Rough Guide to Tokyo and the Lonely Planet guide to Tokyo for several weeks before I arrived, so you’d think I’d have a pretty good itinerary worked out. But no, that would be way too organised. I actually quite difficult to work out stuff like that before I’ve actually been to a place. I think I’d internalised a lot of the information, but it’s hard to make a concrete plan of action when you don’t have the feeling of a place. So I headed to Ginza, a place the guidebook had made sound quite groovy, with the intention of wandering around and getting something to eat.

Ginza was a bit of a nightmare. I mean, it was really nice, all tall buildings and very clean, but it was all about department stores and designer boutiques. I was hoping to find an informal, cheap noodle bar type thing, but I was obviously in the wrong suburb. When it got to the point that the handbags were looking tasty, I gave up and went to – gasp – McDonald’s. And no, it wasn’t nice.

A word about restaurants in Tokyo. I found it difficult to find a place to eat while I was there. Firstly, the menus were all of course in Japanese. I love certain Asian foods, but all too often their dishes have eggs and whatnot randomly floating around in them (sometimes not even chicken eggs…fish eggs!!!! Yuck!!!). I’m a bit worried about what I’ll find at the bottom of the bowl. So, the description has to be in English or I’m not chancing it. Second, the fashion for eating places, whether lowly noodle shops or more upmarket venues (I refuse to use the word ‘eateries’) was to have an array of plastic models of the dishes on offer in the window or on a table outside. And frankly, these plastic meals looked grossly unappetizing.

But I heartily recommend the ice cream place upstairs from Shibuya station! If you are ever in Tokyo and want to find it, you go upstairs from the station into the cafes and restaurants level of the shopping centre. They mash up ice cream with the fillings and sauce of your choice, and you can have it on a dark chocolate-coated wafer cup. Mmmm, happy troughing. It’s easy to feel self-conscious about eating outrageous desserts in public in an Asian country – I imagine them marvelling, “so that’s why Western women are so big” – but I didn’t let that bother me.

So anyway, I sat upstairs in the Ginza McDonald’s, morosely inserting chicken nuggets and fries into my mouth while my innards tried desperately to leach some much-needed nutrition out of them, flipped open the Rough Guide to Section 1 – ‘The Imperial Palace and around’ and read:

Home to the emperor and his family, the palace hides behind a wall of trees and is closed to the public, but the nearby parks are a natural place to start any exploration of Tokyo.'

The phrase 'spiritual heart' was also mentioned. Bingo. I flipped to the map and plotted my course.



*In defence of the hotel which I’m liberally slagging off here, I must say it didn’t seem so bad the next morning. I was almost cosy there by the time I left. I would consider going back. Plus there were free shower caps at the front desk and I LOVE shower caps. I kept walking past nonchalantly picking them up, with an 'ah, I almost forgot, I need a shower cap for my shower this afternoon' expression on my face.

**15 hours in bed! That’s my idea of a holiday!