 |
| There were just a few people there... |
Sunday night, September 20th, after TGS ended I trekked all the way across Tokyo to the Yokota Air Base for the Friendship Festival. This is one of the only times during the year they open the base to non-military personnel. My school's librarian mentioned she would be attending, and invited me to go and meet her family there. The festival was massive, taking place on one of the runways on the base. There were food stands run by soldiers serving American style eats like popcorn and burgers. The festival even had a stage for bands, and I made it just in time to catch a Japanese Metallica cover band. They were awesome!
After snacking on some great food I managed to meet my school's librarian and her family, who's two children are roughly my age. Together we set up camp and watched a firework show which ended the festival.
The next day I went with my fellow ALTs from TGS to the electric-town of Akihabara. After stopping for lunch at an English pub, we began to explore the city. For those who don't know, this section of town serves as the main computer, video game, anime, and toy retail district. Such places included a 6 story store devoted solely to action figures, multiple 10 story retailers of anime, CDs, and games, and various computer part shops with wires blanketing the walls. I managed to find a cool keychain from my favorite show, a concert CD, and a glorious art book from a very popular smartphone game with illustrations by one of my favorite character designers. I ended my day stopping at a small restaurant which a really flavorful dish.
First on my agenda for Tuesday was to head to the neighboring city of Yokohama to get lunch at the Ramen Museum, a food theme park. Built underground and designed to look like an old Japanese town, the museum was vaguely reminiscent of Casa Bonita. Yet unlike Casa Bonita, this place was ALL about the food. The Ramen Restaurant features 9 ramen shops from all over Japan and the world (there were Italian and German shops too) each cooking their specialty dish. On some days it is possible to order small bowls and sample a few of the restaurants, but since it was Silver Week, the museum was already packed. I queued up in line for 45 minutes to try Akayukaramiso Ramen. I picked it's broth had everything: seafood, pork, and chicken bone (most ramen only uses one). As you would imagine, it was delicious! On my way back I noticed the wait times were now encroaching 2 hours long, so I am glad I went at the opening.
I ventured back to Tokyo, where I set out towards the man-made island of Odaiba. On the way I passed The Really BIG Clock, an art structure designed by Miyazaki attached to the Nippon Television Tower. As luck would have it, the next chime was just about to start. I joined the crowd of onlookers and watched an entertaining animatronics performance.
Continuing forward I stopped by the Advertising Museum of Tokyo. This small museum hosted the history of Japanese advertising, starting with historical paintings, to modern day products and television ads. It was interesting to see the stylistic differences and similarities between Japanese and US promotional materials.
After that fun and informative detour, I was back on the path to Odaiba. To reach the island I took a tram across the Rainbow Bridge, which gave a great view of the Tokyo skyline and bay.
Arriving at the island I went to check out its main attractions, two massive malls, DiverCity and Palette Town. In front of Diver City stands a life size, to scale, Gundam. To my surprise this massive statue also had an animatronic performance I was lucky enough to witness. Afterwards I headed into the mall and wandered a bit, ending at the Gundam store, which featured tons of Gunpla builds and also had an interactive exhibit.
Leaving Diver City, I went to Palette Town. As I entered from the skybridge entrance I was surprised to walk into a collectors car exhibit, which is apparently just a part of the mall. They had some really neat stuff, including a DeLorean and some beefy muscle cars. 
Another wing of the mall, called Venus Fort, modeled its interior the same way Caesar's Palace did, with Italian inspired building storefronts. I grabbed dinner here at an Italian restaurant to fit the theme.
 |
| A sport tuned Prius, must have been made for Al Gore's son. |
As I continued my task of looking for fall clothes I eventually stumbled onto the Toyota MegaWeb, a showcase of some of their more innovative and current technology, as well as a test track (that you unfortunately have to reserve in advance). Nonetheless it was a really cool place to check out. I continued to wander and found a large arcade, but at that point it was getting late, so I played a round of Time Crisis and called it a night.
No comments:
Post a Comment