Hanami, Yasukuni and a Tall Building

Wow, so it’s been an amazingly busy couple of weeks these have been so far here in Tokyo doing various different things, mostly involving eating and involving mostly eating somewhere along the line, so I’ll try my best to get you all up to speed.

I arrived here at the perfect moment to catch hanami or cherry blossom viewing here in Tokyo. For the Japanese it’s kind of a festival that they have each year as the sakura (cherry tree) blossoms and it really marks the end of cold weather for the year as the tree only blossoms with the warm weather that moves up from the south of Japan during spring. The whole festival lasts for about three weeks, the time it takes for the trees in both the south and north of the country to blossom but for us here in Tokyo and I assume elsewhere too the actual blossoming of the tree lasts for a total of…three days. This is Japan’s national tree and one of their biggest festivals in which everybody from kids to office workers will go to the park and picnic under the trees. It’s just a shame they only bloom for three days out of the whole year.

sakura on the university campus with students working hard/picnicking underneath.

 

 

I have Wednesday’s free and during hanami I managed a trip into central Tokyo, about an hour by train from the area I live in even though you never leave the city. We went to see Yasukuni shrine and one of the large government buildings, it probably has some important name which I’ve now forgotten.

The shrine looks beautiful with sakura all around it, about 600 according to the guide; these trees really are everywhere, which is strange since as they only bloom for three days it means you have a load of ugly looking trees around for the rest of the year. The main shrine was originally built in 1872 to honour all of Japan’s war dead who fell defending the country and today the museum that accompanies the shrine has military artefacts from over a thousand years of history from ancient suits of armour right up to scale models of the kamikaze aeroplane and kamikaze submarine used in the Second World War. The shrine does however have memorials for several convicted war criminals of the Second World War which is still a major point of contention between the Japanese government and the Chinese and Korean governments who still want apologies from Japan over the crimes committed during the war, although this will probably be and is already being forgotten about as time passes.

 

 

 

 

The main shrine and a memorial to dogs and horses that served during wars.

After a quick pit stop in Ueno park to much some doughnuts it was off to a small restaurant for lunch where I had a rather delicious curry noodle thing with compulsory large bowl of rice and a drink for about ¥500 (I will have to start taking pictures of all the meals because you really do get an awful lot for what you pay).

Finally we went to the large skyscraper which gives free rides up to the top where you can look out at Tokyo, dine in a rather expensive French restaurant or buy the most random souvenirs imaginable  including various Hello Kitty items, jigsaw puzzles, some strange clacky beads that you spin round on a piece of string and I think even lunch boxes. Just what you need at the top of a skyscraper. For those of you architecturally inclined the building itself is supposed to look like a giant computer chip from the outside although I think this is one aspect of modern art I just don’t get. It’s interesting maybe but it doesn’t make it that pretty and just looks rather drab and gray. The view from the top however is rather good.

 

 

 

 

 

Some more sky-scrapers which look much nicer in my opinion even though they are not quite as high. Tokyo is definitely a huge sprawl and even though it was a hazy day you really can’t see the end of the city, my house is somewhere in the background haze!

And so it was back home, navigating the labyrinth that is Shinjuku station and where being tall is definitely and advantage on the train home during rush hour as you can keep your head above the armpit threshold and get to the little fresh air there is.

Accommodation

Fortunately my accommodation is not a garage as Google would have me believe but is a flat in student accommodation and definitely much nicer than my cupboard in France.

The flat is a bit narrow in places so it’s hard to stand back far enough but I do get my very own shower and bath which is a first and they aren’t in the kitchen either, although you can’t really call a sink and one gas hob a kitchen. Unfortunately the inside doorways seem to be 5’9” just an inch too short for me. Out side the front of the apartment building is the monorail and it’s really very quiet although quite expensive, as is all transport in Japan. From the window at the back of my flat which looks onto the car park I can almost see mount Fuji but unfortunately the house on the left block my view although all I have to do is just walk down the road on a clear day to see it in the distance.  

Link to photos:

 http://cid-22d9546d2de9bb41.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Tokyo%20Flat

Technorati Tags: flat,japan,tokyo

Long Haul

Why does anyone ever complain about long haul flights? They’re great. After arriving at Heathrow we get told that our flight has been overbooked and that unfortunately they will have to pay £50 to change airlines and fly with Qantas, the main Australian airline, and go on an earlier flight which means we have more time in Hong Kong for our connection. Unfortunately because we changed airlines it meant that Qantas had no more seats for three in the standard economy so they put us in the first row of economy which meant we only had as much leg room as first class. Then of course there was the tiring business of sitting on my ass for eleven and a half hours whilst I watched brand new films on the personal television set and had cooked food and ice creams brought to me by the airhostesses. The jetlag too is a problem except that because I cunningly planned and went to bed so late anyway, staying up for about thirty hours straight and changing time-zones effectively meant that I reset my body clock to get tired in the evening and wake up in the morning. What isn’t there to like about long haul flights?