We landed in the afternoon and arrived at our apartment right around dusk. Our apartment is about the size of a postage stamp, but it is in a great location, about halfway between the Hiro-o Metro Station and the Ebisu JR Station. We were able to explore the cute Hiro-o shopping street, and pick up a few groceries and things for the apartment.
On our first full day here we hit the ground running. We brought a Moon guidebook of walks with us (the book is not surprisingly called "Tokyo Walks") and decided to start by doing the first half of Walk 1 which just happened to cover the area near our apartment. We started by heading over to the Yebisu Garden Place which is a shopping area just south of the Ebisu train station. You may notice that Yebisu and Ebisu almost look the same in English -- well, in Japanese they actually sound the same (EH-bee-soo; the "Y" is an archaic spelling and it is not pronounced). Everything seems to be named "Ebisu" something-or-other because this area was the site of the original Yebisu Beer Brewery.
The beer was named after Japan's lucky god of wealth and prosperity. Yebisu beer is one of Japan's oldest brands -- production started in 1890 and in 1901 Ebisu station was built to transport beer for distribution (only later was the station expanded to include passenger service). The district did not take the name Ebisu until the late 1920s. In summary: the beer came first; the beer was named after a god; the station and the district were named after the beer. Although large-scale brewing production has now moved to Chiba (the peninsula to the east of Tokyo), the areas around Ebisu Garden Place and Ebisu station celebrate their beer-centric origins with cute decorative beer mug-shaped streetlights.
Of course we had to give the beers a sample to fortify us for the rest of the walk! Kanpai!
We continued walking westward to the Nakameguro River. Right now this place looks like a canal lined with dead trees. But just wait! In about two weeks' time all the trees will be covered in fluffy pale pink blooms.
On Thursday we took the metro over to Roppongi Hills to check out the Mori Art Museum. Roppongi Hills was established in 2003 and is a mini city-within-a-city with high-rise apartments, malls, shops, the Grand Hyatt hotel, and numerous gardens and greenspaces. At the center of it all is the Mori Tower, the sixth tallest building in Tokyo. It's mostly office space with stores and restaurants on the first six floors. But up on the 53rd floor you'll find a modern art museum with a view. (I will note that the elevator ride up to the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower is not *quite* as fast as the elevators in Taipei 101).
On the same floor as the museum, you can check out he Tokyo City View Observation Deck. I'm not sure which building is which, but it's always easy to pick out the Tokyo Tower. This 1092-foot bright red tower sticks out in the crowd! It was constructed back in 1958 and was inspired by the Eiffel Tower.
Down at the base of the Mori Building is a small but pretty garden and pond. We saw a group of women pausing for a photo op in their beautiful traditional kimonos in an array of pretty spring colors. You can tell these are formal kimono by a few details - kimono are made of high-quality silk fabric, and there will be an underlayer (that looks like a second collar). The underlayer is worn so that the silk of the kimono is not directly against the skin. The sleeves of a kimono are wide and long and flowing. You'll also notice the tabi (a white sock with a separate compartment for the toe) and the very-difficult-to-walk-in shoes, called geta.
There are more casual Japanese clothes that are much lighter (generally made of cotton or polyester) and aren't usually worn with an underlayer, called a yukata -- which I think is what's on sale in this store in a Ginza mall (in the photo below). Notice that the sleeves are not as wide as a kimono so the cuffs don't hang down alongside the robe. I can imagine there is much more to wearing a kimono than I've specified here. There are plenty of places where you can rent one and have a knowledgeable Japanese person kit you out and make sure it looks correct. Not sure I will try that this time around. We do see plenty of kimono on the street, some clearly being worn by tourists and other times it appears to be a Japanese person going about their normal day.
We happened to be in Ginza on a day when they shut down the main throroughfare for pedestrians only. It was nice not having to fight the tourist crowds for space on the sidewalk for once!
Our primary goal was to shop for some clothes at the flagship Uniqlo store, but we also made a stop at the Art Aquarium Museum. This place was a PETA supporter's nightmare but an instagrammer's dream: kaleidescope-colored lights projected through tiny decorative fishbowls filled with different breeds of koi.
In the States, animal rights groups would be staging big protests about the unethical living conditions for the fish - tiny bowls, constant bright light, and nowhere to hide and avoid being stared at by hundreds of visitors an hour. Kevin and I had mixed emotions -- each display was very eye-catching, and I managed to learn the names of a few different kinds of koi ("Celestial Eye" was a crazy one -- these carp have protruding eyes on either side of their head, kind of like a hammerhead shark). But at the same time, it's not a very enriching environment for the fish to live in. But it looks kind of cool in photos...what do you think?
Saturday was a really pleasant day, so we decided to pick up the second half of Walk #1 and head up to Daikanyama and Shibuya. Each of the names I'm throwing out ("Shibuya", "Ginza", "Roppongi", etc) are either districts or wards. Tokyo is divided into 23 special wards, each having its own mayor and assembly, kind of functioning like a mini-city within a city. Districts are smaller designations within the ward. For example, Roppongi is just a district in the larger ward of Minato, whereas Ginza is a district in Chuo ward. So for us, we are in the Ebisu district but Ebisu is also located in the southwest edge of Shibuya ward. Confused yet? So am I a little, honestly.
We did see some gorgeous bright pink cherry blossoms lining the street leading up to Shibuya Station. These are an earlier blooming species, probably Kawazu-zakura. The "main attraction" Somei Yoshino species comprise about 80% of the cherry trees that bloom in spring -- those will reach peak bloom in a few weeks and will have the very pale pink almost white blossoms that show up in so many photos. I am partial to these brighter pink flowers though, so I was happy to see that they were still flowering!
There are two other things that Shibuya station is known for: Hachiko and the Shibuya Scramble. The story of Hachiko is this: in the 1920s a professor at Tokyo Imperial University had a little Akita dog named Hachiko who walked with him every day to Shibuya station and waited until evening to meet his master when he came home from work. One day, sadly, the professor had a cerebral hemorrhage at work and passed away without returning to the station. For the next nine years, the little dog Hachiko appeared at the station every day when the train was due, waiting faithfully for his master to return. His fidelity is commemorated by this much-loved little statue which now greets an endless stream of photographers on a daily basis.
The Shibuya Scramble is the world's busiest pedestrian crossing. Every couple of minutes, stoplights bring all traffic at this large intersection to a halt, and the race is on! Several thousand pedestrians scurry across the street in all directions hoping to get across in less than a minute before the lights turn green again. We threw ourselves in among the crowds and made it across with a few seconds to spare. I'm sure you've seen many photos of this famous intersection from above, but here is what it looks like from a boots-on-the-ground perspective! For most people there are probably easier ways to get where you're going, but it was fun to do once!
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