Greg and Mandy's Travels

The first rule of Japan is – “don’t try to understand the logic – it just is” 

OK, so let me give you some examples.

It’s against the law to smoke outside coz it may annoy somebody, and you’ll get fined, but it’s perfectly fine to smoke in a restaurant at a table next to people eating.

“Recycling is life” proudly proclaims the sign in our Airbnb, but rubbish is only separated into ‘burnables’ (which includes soft plastics) and ‘non burnables’. All rubbish, burnable and non burnable alike, is put into plastic bags, and left on the footpath for collection. Our Airbnb kitchen has no cutlery and no crockery but three drawers are solely dedicated to plastic bags of three different sizes for three different bins.

You can’t wear your outside shoes inside, and your inside shoes in the toilet, so they give a pair of scuffs each to change into at the front door, and one pair of scuffs to share when going to the toilet. The floors may be marginally cleaner, but your feet are slopping around in scuffs worn by hundreds as they use the toilet.

So early this morning we walked back to the station, tapped our Suica cards on the pink machine, and headed off to Akihabara for our free walking tour of the city. An ambitious claim to be sure. The city of greater Tokyo is the largest city on earth by area, and has 37 million inhabitants – 4 time the population of New York, but we managed to walk most of it in 3 hours. (I’m kidding)

First stop was Akihabara – the geek capital of Japan, and probably the whole world. Started as the electronics capital of the ruined country in years following WWII by American servicemen peddling old electronic parts, then was home to most major Japanese electronic brands, and morphed into inventing game consoles before Akihabara’s fortune changed yet again with the rise of Korean phones and electronics. Now billboards advertise world-famous gaming companies, and buildings are adorned with huge pictures of anime series and manga characters. Geeks walk around all day with every imaginable shirt, badge and bag pledging their allegiance to their favourite anime character.

There are cat cafes, dog cafes and even piglet cafes. There are restaurants where group of waitresses dress up as house maids, and sing and dance for their masters. Somehow the ‘me-too’ culture missed town.

We then visited Yushima Seido – the Confucius University where we sprayed ourselves with insect repellent to ward off the mosquitoes before entering.

Then Kanda Myojin – the most important Shinto Shrine in the country where most auspicious ceremonies are celebrated. Being Saturday there were at least 2 wedding parties, as well as numerous families celebrating Shichi-go-san (literally 3-5-7) where parents bring their children in rented ceremonial clothes on their 3rd, 5th and 7th birthdays. Seems Shinto is short for ‘anything goes’. The kids can pay to interact electronically with their favourite anime character in the shrine, and Colonel Sanders is dressed up as Santa at Christmas so they can all eat chicken instead of turkey.

Then it was through the famous Ameyoko Shopping Arcade – a huge outdoor market, and on to Ueno Park, half a million square metres which includes a zoo, a baseball ground, a Starbucks, several museums, lots of temples and goodness knows what else. It’s ground zero for the cherry blossom festival in March.

Following the tour and after lunch in a lovely restaurant, we took the train down to the Tokyo Tower for a view of the city, before heading home.

Later in the evening we headed out again by foot to get a view of the Tokyo Skytree – the other city tower – all adorned with its lights. Didn’t go all the way down, but it turned out that our route was right through the centre of one of the city’s red light districts. I can now proudly tell you what the girls at ‘Mrs Tokyo’ charge for a two hour session. And no, they don’t take Suica cards.

Anime in Akihabara

Kanda Shrine

Shichi-go-san (3-5-7) at the Shrine

Anime in the Shrine

Confucius University

Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Skytree