It is quite fascinating when the old meet the new. Temples in the middle of the big, no huge city. The super busy area and just a few minuets away you can almost always find a quiet place. The old doesn’t always compete against the new, for example the 1,270 years old shrine Kanda-myōjin, 神田明神, where a dragon robot live and the shrines official mascot is the anime character Nozomi Tojo (no idea who that is).
Tokyo station and Imperial Palace
Me and Paul, a German friend from Japanese class, went for some sightseeing in Tokyo on Wednesday. We started our tour at Tokyo station, a beautiful station by the way, built by bricks. We headed for the Imperial Palace that is of course located in middle of Tokyo. It was quite fascinating to see the skyscrapers surrounding the old buildings of the Palace. We where tempted to pretend to be jogging (as we saw two people do) and just wave to the guards at the gate (as they did) to get inside the walls… But we took the tourist way and went for the Imperial East Garden instead, felt a little safer. It was a sunny day and we even found some flower blooming in the middle of the winter.
Behind the Imperial Palace is the Yasukuni Jinja, 靖國神社, a shrine dedicated to people and some animals who died while serving Japan. According to Wikipedia “More recently, the visitation of the shrine by active Japanese diplomats and legislators have brought public controversy in global media.” but I know too little to make a statement. But I do like that they had a statue of a horse that I assume was honoured for serving Japan.
Fun note, the traffic police where dancing just before I took the photo, sadly I didn’t manage to capture it, only when he casually stands with his laser sword on his shoulder pretending like nothing. Maybe interrupted by the cycling guard I just now realised is further down the road.
Akihabara
To make a contrast from the old Palace we headed to Akihabara, known for the anime, manga and electronic stores. It is hard to describe the feeling you get there with so many lights, so many different music and game noises so it is overwhelming at first. We entered Animate, the worlds biggest anime and manga store chain in the world. I don’t remember but it could have been about 7 floors and we went on the first 3. It was several TV-screens with anime on each floor with different movies and all with different sounds. It was like stepping into a different world since I have barely watched anime or read manga before. Quite fascinating but yet there is a part of this culture I do not rely understand among all this. And what makes it even more strange is that it is displayed openly; Manga or anime characters that are half naked with huge boobs and bums and too perfect faces with the characteristic big eyes.
Then an other thing I have never heard of before, that also objectifies girls, is the made cafés that started here in Akihabara. I’ve heard about the objectifying of girls in Japan before but it is an other thing to see it in real life. The “mades” are often chosen by their looks, they have to be pretty and innocent looking. The costumers is originally men but now days also women while the number of made cafés is rapidly increasing, even all the way to Europe. And I thought the world where becoming more and more equal with less and less objectifying of girls…
Overlooking these things, Akihabara is a must go place to see the new culture in Japan. You can also happen to see Go-karts in the middle of the heavy traffic.
Tokyo Tower
Yesterday me and Viviana, my lovely Italian friend from the Japanese class above me, went to see Tokyo Tower. Tokyo Tower is inspired by the Eiffel Tower and is the second highest structure in Japan with 333m (actually higher than the Eiffel Tower). The upper observatory was closed so the lover observatory at 150m had to due. But the view was stunning so it wasn’t a problem. Since it’s Japan there was of course a shrine, Tokyo Tower Dai Shrine, in the observatory at 150m. The Towers main function is to broadcast TV and radio but all broadcasting is soon moved to Tokyo Skytree that is 634m tall.
Beside the Tokyo Tower we found a Swedish store so if anyone would like some “dalahästar” you should head there.
The well guarded luxury pram in the picture below has a little weird shape. It is a dog pram…
Oh, I almost forgot, if you would like to have a good laugh, they sell some chocolate coated bananas at the temple, Zōjō-ji 増上寺, beside Tokyo Tower…
Swede in Yokohama 