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nostromo in hello-kitty land, day 2

yesterday was a little catastrophe. as written in my bLog i
planned to go to odaiba. but no sleep for 24 hours and the hot,
humid climate kept me from this trip. i was walking for about
ten minutes, and then gave up and returned to my hotel. the
lady at the reception was a little confused, since i asked here
how to get there and a few minutes later i returned again. i
explained to her and she was smiling - hehe, stupid tourists.
so, instead i went to bed, tried to sleep, got up at 20:00
again, stayed awake a few more hours, and finally went to bed
again. next morning i felt much better. but, before i went
to bed, i took two photos out of the ninth floor of the hotel.
see them here.

i will refer to the pictures taken on day 02 via "[X]", where
"X" is the number of the picture. unfortunately the timestamps
of the JPEG pictures are messed up. i forgot to adjust the time
on my camera. when i'm back from this holiday i will fix it.

well, first quest on day 2: get a breakfast in tokyo. i was
hoping good old McDonald's[003] had nearly the same products as
it has in austria. well, i have no idea if it has since i could
not read the signs. but the pictures of the various burgers
looked familiar to me. lukcy me, McDonald's has coffee and some
bakery-stuff, like a chocolate-croissant. this was my breakfast,
it was good.

i changed my plans, and instead of going to odaiba i went to
roppongi. in the night it's an amusement district and during
the day it's a big shopping area. but on my way to the metro i
found a little temple, called "ekoine temple"[004-009]. 45 mins
later i arrived at roppongi hills[013-102], visiting "mori
tower", with a height of 270m. inside the tower is "sky
view"[018-037], the "sky deck"[038-050] on the roof top of the
tower, and the "sky aquarium"[054-067]. a guard told me that
i was not allowed to take photos inside "sky aquarium". well,
but i took a few ones. next to "mori tower" is "mori park"[077-
088], and next to the tower and the park is "tv asahi"[089-100],
which was celebrating it's 50th anniversary (at least i think
so, according to the few english words that were written in the
building), with loads of interactive games for visitors on the
groundfloor. all flashy, all colourful, all manga style.

after a one and a half hour long walk i arrived at "aoyama
cemetary"[104-123], where i met the first two cats in tokyo -
they were resting on gravestones. another 20 mins by foot later
i arrived at "nogi jinja"[125-136] shrine. a japanese at the
entrance, who could talk a little english, told me there was a
wedding[127-128] going on, and four more would be starting this
day later on.

30 mins later i arrived at "tokyo midtown"[137-144], another
huge shopping mall. i visited the "fujifilm square museum"[140],
showing all kind of photographs and a history of fuji, including
analogue photography, video and the chemistry branch of fuji.
the entrance was free, but no photography inside the museum.

it took me another 15 mins by foot to get to the next shrine,
called "hikawa jinja shrine"[147-180]. a really beautiful
shrine. those temples, shrines, and gardens are a pretty hard
contrast to the "outside" world. within the area it is so quiet
and beautiful. but i must add, that tokyo is actually not a
"loud" city (at least not on the weekend). at "hikawa ninja
shrine" i spotted another cat[179-180], of course again resting
on a stone (don't know what it is for actually). on my way back
to the metro station i saw this... i think it was a contest(?)
of traditional japanese dancing[181-187]. it was nice to watch,
especially the drumming girls[181].

last station of this day trip was "arisugawanomiya memorial
park"[188-217]. this is what a traditional japanese garden
should look like (at least as far as i know them from tv). again
this park is a contrast to the surrounding area. though this
time it was really loud in the park, since there were so many
crickets.  it really gets dark early here in japan. at about
20:00 there's not much sunlight left, and taking pictures was
getting harder, as with all the trees it was even darker.
enjoy the pictures - but in real life this was so much better.
ah, right, and my fourth cat of the day[188] - meow.

afterwards i went home, and had a long shower. i'm tired now and
will go to bed. i think i will go to odaiba tomorrow.

but before, a little update on stereotypes: americans can be
found at "starbucks". even old people (60++) read manga. some
taxi drivers have suits and gloves. many people have gloves and
masks, and i'm still unsure if this is to protect themselves or
the others. japanese are really friendly - the guard at "sky
aquarium" was really really friendly and from his acting i
thought he was the one doing something wrong. i apologized since
i really did not know it was not allowed (though later i saw the
little sign at the entrance to the aquarium).

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