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| Shinagawa Shinkansen station |
Every time I travel to Japan, there is always something new with the bullet trains. This time, it's a new station at Shinagawa that opened in October between Tokyo and Shin-Yokohama stations. I get the impression the station was put there partly to relieve the pressure on Tokyo Station. My friends, Kenichi and Rie, wanted to meet there because it would be easier to find each other than in the crowds of Tokyo Station.
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| Akihibara, Tokyo |
After a coffee at Starbucks (drat, they don't serve eggnog latte here) we took the Yamanote Line to Akihabara to wander around. I was surprised to step outside the station to see the Hulk staring down at me. Akihabara is well-known as the place to shop for electronic goods and I had a small list of things I was possibly in the market for (radio, accessories for my camera and PDA) but, in the end, I didn't buy anything. When we were in a CD or DVD store, though I did ask my friends for suggestions on music or movies to try. At least here, there were some discounts made on some CD's and DVD's which I usually don't find with new releases in Japan.
About two hours later, we made our way over to Asakusa to walk around the Sensoji Temple neighbourhood. For me, it's still the place to wander around in Tokyo. The fact we spent around a half hour looking for a favourite unagi(eel) restaurant of theirs for a late lunch proved the place was bigger than I remember. I'm still thinking about coming back here for New Year's Eve to do an all nighter.
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| Sensoji Temple | Gate to Sensoji Temple | Stalls and shops on path to Sensoji Temple |
It was pretty cool out but there were still quite a visitors there, just to see or in preparation for Oshougatsu, I don't know. I don't remember if I ever had an Omikuji, a type of fortune telling, done here before. I ended up with the worst possible one. It's a good thing it was near the end of the year.
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| View from cousin's apartment |
For the evening, I was bound for my cousin's place in Nishi-Kasai. This family's been very kind to me each time I come to Tokyo (in other words, they give me a place to stay when I'm in the neighbourhood). I am glad to see they have a new home too. Their old place is probably standard for Tokyo apartments but still cramped for a family of four. This new place is not that much bigger but at least it's new and has a view of the river, which is amazing since I bet 95% of homes in Tokyo probably just have a view of another building in front of it. To me, it seems, these four provide an example of the modern big city family life - the husband works late or out-of-town, the mother manages the home, the daughter goes to cram school every day (even on New Year's day) with her younger brother undoubtedly soon to follow.
The next morning I was bound for Yokohama to meet friends for lunch. In the evening before at my cousin's, I was watching a TV show on the top 30 things about Tokyo Station. I wish I had time to visit some of them (if I could remember them) but walking through the place takes long enough already, especially from the subway stations. It was neat to see on the show, though, how the cleaning staff for the shinkansen show up from below the tracks!
I was meeting my friends in the Minato Mirai area of Yokohama where I first met them almost five years ago and the place has changed a fair bit since then. It used to be an industrial area, especially for shipbuilding, but has become a modern and surprisingly spacious development. It's a great place for a warm afternoon walk and was also nicely decorated for Christmas (ie, not overdone). We just spent the time catching up and doing some window shopping.
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| Minato Mirai skyline, Yokohama | Christmas and other lights, Yokohama |
The trip back to Okazaki was smoother which wasn't surprising considering all the snow was gone by the end of the weekend. Kind of like how the snow is in Vancouver - it never lasts. Still, the weekend was full of signs that the holiday season was quickly upon me. Too bad I have to get through this final week of class first.