The Tokyo Diaries - Part 3

The third and final installment:


I spent the rest of the day wandering around trying to find the notable spots mentioned in the guidebook, as you do, taking the long way round everywhere. I wandered first around a garden near the palace area, and then round the vast Imperial Plaza in front of the palace grounds. You don’t get to see much, and the gardens were unimpressive. I presume the latter was due to it being winter – the greenery was pretty bleak and the sky was white with cloud cover.

Later in the day I went to Shibuya, the home of the excellent ice cream shop, as the guidebook made it sound like a happening sort of place. That was more like I expected Tokyo to be; neon signs everywhere, crowds and crowds of young people and a real buzz in the air. Night was falling when I arrived and I got some pretty pictures.

The next day I was due to leave, but not until the afternoon. I woke up absurdly early, around 4 am, so I decided to do some sightseeing early, with time to return to the hotel for a nap before leaving for the airport. I’d drafted a plan of action in the wee hours, and it comprised of:

1. Breakfast at the hotel – avoiding anything pickled, fermented, salted or raw (the guidebook warned of raw egg at breakfast time – yeuch)
2. Train to Ebisu, where I would visit the National Park for Nature Study (I know, it’s always a worry when the Japanese study something in the name of scientific research, but it sounded nice)
3. Train to Meguro to see the Tokyo Parasitological Museum.
4. Train past Ebisu, possibly stopping at Ebisu Tower to marvel, tourist-style
5. Back to Shibuya for more ice cream and satisfied ruminations over the day’s sightseeing.

It all started to go wrong between items #1 and #2, when I found myself on completely the wrong train line. I managed to get off before it took me completely out of Tokyo. The nice man at the station even refunded my money when I got stuck at the ticket barrier. When I finally got to Ebisu it was starting to drizzle, and was very cold and miserable. It was a nasty area too, all main roads and office blocks, with nothing to redeem it. The park was lovely, though, all green and damp and wild. It was like walking through a jungle, except that you could hear the cars on the main road not far away. I only saw one other visitor while I was there, so I wandered around in happy solitude, pretending it was five hundred years ago and I was a Japanese maiden having an adventure.

The Rough Guide made it sound like it would only be a short walk from the park to the museum. In the end I had to get a taxi there; it was still cold and rainy but I was determined to go there and be grossed out. The Rough Guide also neglected to mention that there was no English explanation of the exhibits, only Japanese. So I browsed the two rooms of jars of pickled worms, with no idea about the causes, disgusting symptoms, etc; in short, my imagination was tantalised but the museum did not deliver!

After that, I decided to skip any more sightseeing and go get my ice cream, followed by a nap before leaving for the airport.

All in all, Tokyo didn’t rock my world. Just another busy, concrete city. I’d go back as part of a trip including other parts of Japan, but it’s not my number one stopover city. Bangkok still holds that place in my heart. Just walking down the street in Bangkok is an entertainment in itself. Tokyo’s too civilized for me!