Oh yes Thursday. Thursday started off so sensibly with a trip down to Asakusa. Basically there’s a big temple in that part of the city called Senso-ji which enshrines a golden image of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. Unfortunately like most of Tokyo it got flattened during WWII and was rebuilt afterwards. Though you wouldn’t have known really to look at it. Anyway it’s quite a cool place, there’s a big gate in (the thunder gate) which has two giant Buddha’s guarding it, then there’s a load of little touristy shops between the gate and the temple. Get down to the temple end and there’s some incense burning in a cauldron which is supposed to be healthy for you. To finish with there’s a pretty little garden to the left of the temple which is all neatly organised.
Next it was down to Shibuya to meet up with some of Joe’s friends down by Hachiko Statue. Basically it’s a statue of a dog. His master used to go to work in the mornings, died one day and didn’t come back. The dog continued to show up and wait for his master for 11 years, till it died. So the Japanese built a statue. Anyway Shibuya is big and mad, lots of young people, lots of video walls, flashing adverts etc. We met up with Joe’s friends and then went for food. There are these daft places were you can get all you can drink for two hours for a fixed price and then you buy your food on top. That’s what we did and that’s how we started to get drunk.Â
From there we headed to Roppongi. From what I could gather there’s nothing in Roppongi except a bunch of bars and clubs, mostly aimed at westerners. Though I should perhaps stress that I didn’t gather very much.. I remember the fist bar, maybe the second/bar, and a mostly empty club I think. There was lots of alcohol and my old friend Tequila. Oh well, at some point during the night I decided to go for a run, Dewart chasing me down then giving up apparently. I also supposedly argued with some french dude that Ireland would kick their ass at the rugby, guess I was wrong.Â
It’s 5am or something, you’ve just left a club in Tokyo, what do you do? Go home? Perhaps not, perhaps like us you’d rather watch the soon to be branded ‘angry’ Joe get upset at taxi drivers ignoring his Japanese requests to take us to Tsukiji fish market. Eventually we get there, and wonder around, Jose trying to ask what type of fish any given fish was (in Japanese) and getting the handy reply of fish! What’s the point you’re asking, well this place is where all the fish comes in before being trucked out to shops. I later learnt from Ray that the place is supposedly close to the public. But if you do go watch out for the mad little carts that everyone drives around on and go to one of the sushi bars there.. where you can have the freshest sushi on the planet, probably. So you’re wondering why we didn’t go at a more sensible time.. well you gotta be there before 7am apparently.
Ohh look, it’s Friday now, we get back to Joe’s. I pass out and sleep, then sleep some more, then wake up in the evening hung over. As punishment the lads take us bowling, which was fine to start with, what with us being the only people there.. but as the lanes filled the noise started to do my head in. Joe’s local Indian then bed.. it was a hard day for me.
Saturday is another bright and early start, yet more tourism and drinking to be had. I’ll leave it there though, for the mean time.