Fish, gadgets and neon, a typical day in Tokyo

Trip Start Mar 14, 2006

374

Trip End Mar 15, 2007

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Flag of Japan Tokyo, Japan
Saturday, March 18, 2006

Woke up early so thought to make the most of it and head for Tsukiji fish market which is best visited in the early morning when it is busiest, although it is hard to imagine the place any other way. The huge market was filled with tons and tons of different kinds of fish and shelled critters many of which I had no clue what they were. Wholesalers were zooming everywhere on motorized carts which somehow they managed to navigate between the narrow stalls and bloody fish guts without running over a bunch of jet lagged tourists.

From the severed fish heads it was strangely just a short walk to Ginza, Tokyo's up market shopping district. The main attraction here was the Sony building in which all of Sony's latest and future technology and gadgets is on show (most of which would probably not be reaching the shores of home for quite some time if at all) to play with including blu-ray DVD players, huge hi-def screens and of course Aibo, Sony's smart electronic pet

Ginza Skyscrapers

. Being a recent computer graduate and gadget junkie this was like Christmas although I was perhaps most entertained with the stairs which played a note and lit up as you stepped on each step. Of course I had to find a reason to go back up them just to hear the ascending plinky notes - hey it is Tokyo after all.

One thing you can't fail to notice here is advertising, it is everywhere, absolutely everywhere. It seems like every available space, wall and subway car is covered in as many adverts as there are vending machines here, even down to the vertical space between steps. Not just simple little adverts either but a splattering of colours and cartoons to the point where it's hard for the untrained eye to tell where one advert ends and another begins.

As a break from the high tech wonders of Sony I decided to wander over to the Imperial Palace gardens and caught my first glimpse of a Shinkansen or bullet train on the way passing overhead - queue crazy westerner standing there like a total train spotter waiting for another to catch a photo of it.

Before heading to Shinjuku another large shopping and entertainment district most famous for it's abundance of neon I grabbed a bite to eat at a fast food like restaurant where you choose your order from a vending machine (they do love 'em) which spits out a ticket with your order to take to you seat. Thankfully as with most eateries in Japan each menu item usually has a picture or plastic model to go with it although I was still left wondering if I should eat the miso soup that came with it with the spoon they handed me or do as the rest were doing and just slurp it down

Imperial Palace Wall

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The bright lights and hustle of Shinjuka is very Blade Runner like with almost every inch of building space adorned with neon signs and lights. Amidst the hustle there is the noise of Pachinko Palours, a sort of pinball slot machine hybrid, which is a bit of an obsession for some who apparently queue up before opening to find the best machines to play on. I'd heard that the revenue from all of Japan's Pachinko places exceeds the GDP of Korea, which they probably just plough back into building more of them. Or vending machines.

On stepping into one I was hit by a fog of smoke and noise with small buckets behind the seats of the players filled with the small pachinko balls. Was just wary of accidentally kicking one over and seeing a Tom and Jerry like moment unfold before me as people go skidding across the floor on tiny balls probably leaving a 'me' shaped hole in the far wall at the same time.