Tokyo - Staying : Yotsuya Tokyu Stay Hotel (review) Arrive : 6:40am Friday Depart : 6pm Tuesday Days: 5
My Tokyo plans have changed radically from when I first decided to go. Originally I found the around the world ticket could get me to Tokyo for the same price if I went first thing but it didn't work on the way home after L.A. So I decided originally I would go for just 2 days, get off the plane, get some Yakitori & some Teriyaki and get back on the plane. Then I found out the date for a club which is only on once every 3 months and reorganised my plans, staying for 5 days in Tokyo.
26/07/2002 - Friday Pics Page #1 Pics page now has descriptions of each photo.
Pic 03 - Yotsuya, Tokyo - the view from the Hotel towards Tokyo. (Hotel Review here)
Tokyo has no one "CBD" type of city centre, it is basically 5 major 'towns' (for want of a better word) in a big ring around the Imperial Palace. Where I stayed was called Yotsuya is basically in the middle of that ring, slightly to the west of the Imperial Palace.
The first thing I did was walk around the local streets which were quite interesting, small shops, including a whole hardware store in a shop the size of a terrace house.
The Hotel room was excellent, if your looking for a place to stay in Tokyo I would recommend it, I have done a detailed Review.
Pic 05 & 06 - Shinjuku Station - worlds busiest, depending which info you read 1 million or 2 million people pass through it each day. The station is like Wynyard, times at least five. There are multiple split levels of shops, ramps going up, down and everywhere.
Pic 08 - Shibuya, very busy party area, lots of people. As all trains stop running at midnight I like it seemed a hundred thousand other people dashed for the train at 11:30pm.
First Pics Don't laugh, the digital camera in my laptop only does 640x480 (0.3 Megapixels, yeah its a bit of a joke), I will have print and scan the real pictures first. Hotel looking east (64k), west (57k), room (52k). Tokyo Pics Dir
27/07/2002 - Saturday More pictures from this day are available on Pics Page #2 Pics Page #3
Pic 09 - Harajuku Takeshita Dori. This is the 'hip' area of Tokyo a little like Newtown/Fitzroy/Camden. Greenwich/Melrose.
Pic 10 - Shop on Takeshita Dori.
Pic 11 - Going to go for a look at Akihabara "Electric Town". Pics from my laptop 1,2,3,4
Electric Town Video - 710k - Windows Media format. If you are on a modem, save the file to disk, it will take about 2-3 minutes to download. It should stream over a 256k/384k DSL.
Pic 15 - Tokyo Goth & Darkwave #4 was an amazing experience, I have created a sub-page here with more info.
28/07/2002 - Sunday More pictures from this day are available on Pics Page #3
Pic 24 - Harajuku bridge visual key kids. For the 3rd time I was back in Harajuku, this time to check out the Sunday crowd. Teenagers dress in weird get up and hang out on the bridge.
There is also a beautiful shine just over the bridge.
Goth Bar - Very typical Japanese bar in size, a corner seat which would hold 6 people (elf size) and 6 bar stools. Checkout the sub-page for more info.
Finding Money - this is no joke in Tokyo, ATM's are not open 24x7 and few will take Visa/Mastercard/Plus. CitiBank I found was the best answer, their Plus connection actually worked, which means you could withdraw from a normal bank account, rather than cash advance from a credit card. I would highly recommend making a list of all the CitiBank locations near where you are travelling.
29/07/2002 - Monday More pictures from this day are available on Pics Page #4 Pics Page #5
Ginza - Sony Building & Showroom. Ginza Train Station.
Imperial Palace - I walked from a nearby train station to the Palace which has a large moat around it.
Yasukuni Shinto shrine - this is where the Japanese WWII dead were remembered. General Tojo's ashes are apparently there somewhere but I was unable to find where.
CD shopping & Yakitori in Shinjuku. Cold CD Store.
30/07/2002 - Tuesday More pictures from this day are on Pics Page #5
Leaving Tokyo. Universal constant, food at the 7-11 store.
09/11/2002 - Tokyo Pics Dir
finally has most of my pictures uploaded to it. I've still got to spin a web page
around it, I'd take some recommendations on a good simple thumbnail making program, one
that understands sideways thumbnails would be 120x80 and upright ones 80x120, and not try
to squash the images into one set shape/ratio.