Well cant believe its ten years already. It seems just like yesterday that a friend of mine had asked for places to visit in Tokyo. I had written to her on possible things to cover over the weekend.
Reading this after a decade it seems a lot of water has flown, but nice to get a glimpse of the good old days :)
Reading this after a decade it seems a lot of water has flown, but nice to get a glimpse of the good old days :)
Hi ,
Heard that you are planning to visit Tokyo this weekend. That’s really nice to
hear. I also heard that you are planning to visit asakusa and akihabara. Its
really nice to know.
Asakusa : This is a very nice place. There is the famous senshoji
temple. The best part I liked about the place is two things. There is a long
street lined with shops before the temple where you get to buy all the
different trinkets and small things, which you would want to buy. Even the
Japanese dolls are cheaper compared to the laox shop in akihabara.
Bargaining is allowed, so it’s more like any roadside small
dukan here in India.
The second thing about the temple is the number of pigeons.
There are so many of them, there is a small shop that sells corn for a small
fee like 50 yens / 100 yens. You can feed the corn to the pigeons. Believe me
its really scary and eerie. As soon as they see the corn seeds in your hand,
they come by the dozen. Its like they sit on you, eat from your hand, perch on
your shoulder. I had like 40/50 pigeons on me eating out of my hands.
The temple
is pretty huge, you will find a lot of people shaking a container and taking a
small folded page out of the container and reading them. This is actually
prediction or you can say a form of astrology. It says something about the
future. If something bad is written they just tie the sheet of paper to the
tree within the temple premises as they don’t want bad things to follow them,
just another Japanese custom.
I didn’t have the privilege of having someone who could read
Japanese to try that. You still can try just for fun.
So I feel
you should buy the camera before anything else. Because as I go about telling
you about the different places you will realize how important it is to have a
camera just to keep the memoirs.
Actually
there are few places you can visit in Tokyo
1) Odaiba
2) Disney
Land
3) Asakusa
4) Mt
Fuji & Hakone
5) Ginza
6) Shinjuku
7) Akihabara
I don’t think you will have the
time to visit Disneyland. I am sure you have read what I had written about our visit
to Disneyland right. So you already know how special it is.
Akihabara is an electronic lovers
paradise. But you might not be that interested about it except for the fact you
want to buy your camera. So I will discount that. Mt Fuji and Hakone are very
near from your place. So am sure you can plan that over some weekend.
As you have already planned for
asakusa I will concentrate on Odaiba. Something, which I have fond memories of,
and something that I feel you would also enjoy.
Odaiba isn’t such a beautiful or
great place according to Japanese. Its an area built over marshlands reclaimed
by the sea. But the innovation of the Japanese has helped make it one of the
places to visit in Tokyo.
It’s
a well-planned marketing move if you ask me. There is the most famous rainbow
bridge. And they have started a railway line called Yurikamome only for this area.
You
have to start from the shinbashi station to reach odaiba. Shinbashi station is
on the same yamanote line which you will take to reach akihabara.
You have to come out of the
shinbashi station and ask for the yurikomame station. People will lead you to
the left of the station to the new yurikomame station. Due to the weekend there
will be lots of people. Please ask for the full day pass ticket. It costs 800
yen for the full day ticket. Using this you can travel on the yurikomame line
limitlessly for one day any number of times.
The first stop after shinbashi
home yurikamome station will take you near Tokyo tower. Tokyo tower is like one
of the visiting spots of Tokyo. It is one of the tallest towers in the world.
They have an observatory at the top and you can view Tokyo from the top. If you
have already been to the 65th floor of the landmark towers in
yokohoma, you can discount this. The landmark towers is the tallest building in
Tokyo and has the fastest lift in the world. They charge 1000 yen for a trip in
the fastest list. If you happen to visit our office in yokohoma don’t miss this
thing. The lift like covers 67 floors in 38 odd seconds. It’s an experience,
which is nice for fond memories.
I
am sending you the link for the places to visit in odaiba, the link is
exhaustive enough on the information. I will just give you small details, which
the link doesn’t provide. Rather what I liked and for what.
The
rainbow bridge looks majestic in the night; just stay atleast a little in the
evening to have a panoramic view. One
more sure don’t miss thing is the venus fort shopping mall. There is a special
thing about the mall. The first and second floor has the ceiling of the floors
like as though it’s the sky. So its like the clouds are on top of you, its so
well done that its something which stays on in your memories for a long long
time. Venus Fort mall is really special, its built on the theme of old Italian/European
bylanes. It’s a lovely place please don’t miss that. It’s a place surely I
would take someone special and would be reminded of the song, aa chalke tujhe
mein leke chalu ek aise gagan ke tale, jahaan gham bhi na ho, aasu bhi na ho
bas pyaar hi pyaar pale. The other good thing in this mall is the antique and
vintage cars museum. It has a collection of so many olden goldies, its very
rare one gets to see so many of them under one roof.
The
next sure thing not to miss is the Toyota city showcase showroom, this is just
behind the venus fort. The showroom displays all the latest models of cars. The
special thing about this place is you can choose a car for a test ride and
drive it in the inhouse test drive lane. Adding to this there is the new environment
friendly car which, Toyota has come up with. It’s fun driving the car. The high
point about the car is that it lets you control the driving till you don’t
commit any mistake; in case you try something crazy the car takes over the
controls from you and takes you to the destination.
Just
next to the venus fort is one big giant wheel, it is one of the biggest giant
wheels and moves slowly, the view from the top is pretty nice.
But
again giant wheel is normal right, so the specialty is a few feet away from the
giant wheel. Its called hyper shoot and hyper drop. In hypershoot you are
allowed to sit in chairs and you are made to wear tight safety belts. Then the
fun is that the chair travels high at around 60 kms per hour. It’s a mind
blowing experience believe me. There is absolutely nothing below your legs and
like you are in the top of the world. In a small split second you travel so
high and at such a high speed. It only has to be experienced to be
enjoyed. Hyper drop is exactly the
opposite; he first takes you to a certain height and allows a free fall. If you
find time try both.
The
other things you shouldn’t miss are the replica of statue of liberty, its on
the beach deck. The sony world showroom, its simply amazing and you get to try
out the latest home theatre systems in custom designed display zones.
There
is the artificial beach, this is the cheapest beach you get to visit in Tokyo
and anything else costs a fortune to go only.
Actually
you can go to asakusa from odaiba by ferry, it’s a nice ride. I feel you can plan your stay in such a way
that you get to visit odaiba, asakusa and ginza so you cover most of the places
J
Ginza is like the Beverly hills of
Tokyo, all the best brands have a shop in one of the malls there. Japanese are
the people who took malls a step further. They allow their malls to open to
other malls. This way you can enter one mall in the starting of the road and
continue till the last mall on the road.
Some of the shops I would advice
you to visit are UNIQLO, which is like any of our readymade clothes chains. The
clothes here are pretty good, UNIQLO stands for unique clothing and I loved the
finishes for the clothes there.
Ginza
is also the house of the shops for pearls. There are one or two shops where you
get the Japanese pearls, they are pretty expensive for synthesized pearls. But
you can have a look I feel. But do visit the Dotour in ginza, it’s a coffee
shop in one corner of a major crossing. Its in a building which is round it
shape, so you get to sit on the top floor and watch at the giant tv screen on
the diagonally opposite building, see the mad rush of people at the crossing
sitting at ease in the coffee shop.
I
came across these links one which will give you the necessary information and
other some pics about the place. Please do go through them.
Look
at the related links section in the second link to explore more.
Sorry I am short for time to write everything, there are
lots of small things I wanted to tell but am not able to put across in short
notice. Hope you get to have fun this weekend.
Look forward to catch up with your exciting experience next
week J.
