Welcome Inn Ginza
Trip Start
Unknown
1
8
22
Trip End
Ongoing
Tokyo,
Japan
Friday, January 25, 2008
A pair of really sweet ladies speaking excellent English asked us what we were after. A ryokan for that authentic Japanese experience. After all it may be my only opportunity to sample kaiseki. They called 3 different establishments till they found one that had rooms and booked it there and then. Done and dusted. The Welcome Inn also covers backpacker friendly accomodation.
The Ginza we saw was one big shopping mall in a business district. Men and women in near identical dark suits moved along the pavements and in glass buildings. One big ant farm. Every so often you would notice a flash of colour, usually on a woman. The prices in the malls were not backpacker's prices. So we chose to spend some time in the Sony building. Entrance free, shopping optional, cutting edge technology out for big kids to have a play with. M was a happy bunny.
It's not far from Ginza to the Imperial Palace and we plodded against the freezing winds across the outer gardens. It's winter so there isn't much green and a large busy road cuts an ugly swathe through the trees. It has a "Shelter for People Who Cannot Go Back Home". Was that the drunks on a Friday night, the homeless or tourists who have lost their way?... I guess I will never know as we were stopped by an elderly man.
Everyone thinks M is American and I am Japanese. No no not American, Igirisu-jin. Ah and this must be your wife.. so the conversation started. Mr Nishikawa (Western River) lives close to the British Embassy behind the Imperial Palace. Nice Victorian building not like this modern architecture. During the 2WW the Americans bombed very accurately reducing all of Tokyo to ashes except the British Embassy and the Imperial Palace. (nowadays they bomb their allies instead). He is learning English as he plans to take his wife to Scandinavia to see the midnight sun. He himself is recovering from cancer surgery. Japan he insisted is a very dangerous place! No surely not. Bicyclists cycle on the pavements and run you over without apology. Ah but surely that is safer than having bicyclists run over by cars on the road as we have personally experienced. But Mr Nishikawa was not persuaded. Manners in modern Tokyo had really gone down the tubes.
Half an hour later he had wished us many children in the next year and it was too late to view the Palace. The police had shut the viewing gallery. Still it was worth it. M was told he had excellent Japanese pronouncination.
Toilet Tales
Heated loo seats, marvellous invention and a great comfort to the derriere in winter. No more reflex clenching.
