Large Hairy Cats of Tokyo and Other Short Stories

After four days in Kyoto, we took our final Shinkansen train journey last Saturday morning. The journey to Tokyo took approximately three and a half hours – our longest train journey in Japan. Having spent days on trains in Russia, Fionnuala and I both found this rather amusing. After a couple of Metro journeys, we found our hostel in Asakusa, close to an ancient Buddhist temple called Sensō-ji.

Having not eaten in a while, we headed out into the local area to find lunch. The streets were full of small shops and cafes, and several streets were lined with market stalls. We ate at a noodle bar, where, having placed our order at a vending machine outside, we handed printed tickets to the chef, who promptly served us delicious meat and noodles. During check-in at the hostel we were told where the nearest ATM, 7 Eleven and bars, etc, where. We were also told of a nearby convenience store where you can get “anything you want”. This seemed an odd thing for the hostel to tell us about, until we saw Asakusa Don Quijote for ourselves. We counted six floors filled with food, cosmetics, clothing, electrical goods, fancy dress outfits, a restaurant and lots of chocolate. We visited several times!

On Sunday we took the Metro to Harajuku, as we wanted to see the young people of Tokyo in their natural habitat: clothes shops! Firstly, though, we headed to Meiji Shrine, where we were fortunate enough to witness part of a wedding ceremony. Due to seeing many shrines and temples in the preceding days, we didn’t hang around long. We started our window shopping on Omotesando, a tree lined boulevard filled with high-end fashion stores. Feeling under dressed and a little financially inferior, it didn’t take us long to move onto Takeshita Dori, where hundreds of Tokyo’s teenagers slowly made their way from clothes shop to cafe to candy floss stall. Although quite a site to behold, I had expected to see more outrageous outfits. Instead, most people wore the jeans, trainers and t-shirt uniform of young people back home.

In the evening we walked from Harajuku to Shibuya. The Shibuya Crossing really is crazy. I would love to know the split of people crossing the road in order to get somewhere versus those crossing just for the sake of crossing. After a good walk around Shibuya, and a detour to Yebisu to see the Christmas lights and market, we were intrigued by a small crowd gathered a couple of streets from the crossing. As we approached, we noticed a man with a pushchair. In the pushchair were eight or nine large hairy cats. I can offer no explanation for this, but definitely thought it worth mentioning.

Monday morning was unplanned, and we ended up at Tokyo Imperial Palace just in time to see the Emperor of Japan arrive. Unfortunately, the gardens are closed on Monday, so we planned to return on Tuesday. As a long-time reader of Monocle magazine, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to eat lunch at the Monocle Cafe, located in the basement of Hankyu Men’s. The food was good, and the cafe itself was suitably pretentious! 

After lunch, we took the Metro to Miraikan, Japan’s national museum of emerging science and innovation. The museum was brilliant, and I wish we had allocated more time for our visit. Interactive exhibits on topics such as quantum particles, conductive polymers and retinal imaging displays make Miraikan much more than just another science museum. One of the main attractions is ASIMO, a robot demonstrating human-like movements. That was great, but my highlight was definitely the film The Man from the 9 Dimensions, which was screened in 3D onto the dome of the the 112 seat theatre. It was by far the best 3D film experience I’ve had, and something I would happily pay to see again. (www.miraikan.jst.go.jp/sp/9dimensions/en/)

Tuesday was our final day in Tokyo, and our final day in Japan. Having seen so many things in the previous two weeks, we were in no hurry. The weather was great, so we walked around the gardens of the Imperial Palace, and took one last look at Japan’s stunning autumnal colours. We finished our day by taking in the Christmas illuminations at Caretta in Shiodome. The 250,000 LEDs felt like a fitting end to our time in Japan.

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