nostromo in hello-kitty land, day 12
today was bit frustrating. for the first time during my visit in
japan i was searching for a specific shrine. this shrine is not
listed in my pocket-guide, so i was searching for it on the
internet. since tokyo is the town "where the streets have no
name" (and this is meant literally!), i wrote down the "address"
i got from an internet-site, which is "1-5-22, imado, taito-ku,
tokyo, 111-0024". this means i've been searching for "imado" in
the "taito" ward, area 1 in this ward, block 5, house number 22.
i thought that would be easy, but instead i got this: "A" is
where i have been to, "B" is where i wanted to go. so i've
wasted almost three hours to get there, find the wrong place, and
return to my other stops i've planned to visit today. i missed
the shrine though i've asked all together three people that all
gave me the same directions. tokyo is a bit strange from time to
time. but since i found out where to go now ("B"!), i will waste
another three hours tomorrow on my last day here in tokyo to get
there - i _really_ want to go there! but (hopefully) more about
this location tomorrow. but on my way to the wrong spot i took
at least some pictures[03-07]. this is by the way the same area
that was partially closed due to the sumida river fireworks (see
day 08, picture [35]).
my next stop was the "ginza"[08-30] ward, the noble part of
tokyo. not really my style, but a nice impression though.
according to my pocket-guide there should be a huge "sanrio"
shop (you know, the "hello kitty"-stuff producers), but i did
not find it. so i think my guide is a little bit out-dated, or i
failed again at finding specific stuff here in tokio. again
pretty frustrating. as there were no other shops that interested
me, i took the next train to "shibuya"[31-97].
my pocket-guide suggest to start the "shibuya" tour at the "ha-
chiko"[34-35] monument. "hachiko" was the dog of a professor
at the tokyo university who was waiting for his master's return
at the station every day. when the professor died, the dog
still came to the station until he also died - which was seven
years later. that's the story according to my guide...
next sight is the busiest pedestrian crossing[37-43] in the
world (again, according to my guide). notice that all traffic
lights for pedestrians switch to green at the same time.
then i followed the crowd to various shopping streets in the
area, with more or less well known shop-brands[45-54].
i soon got near the "NHK broadcasting center"[56-73], a tele-
vision company for tokyo, well known for "domo-kun"[73]. once
more everything was in japanese, except the "no photographs",
and "exit" signs. nonetheless, it was a nice visit to "NHK
studiopark". aimed at children, it described the way a tv show
is produced. but that's ok for me, i had fun too. nice feature:
they had a 3D-television that really worked without extra
glasses or other additional devices - quite impressive.
then, by accident, i found a shrine[84-85]. but not what i got
used to find when visiting a shrine, because this one was a
"modern" one. totally surrounded by concrete, steel, and glas,
this was the strangest shrine i've seen so far.
random fact about tokyo: for several days i'm running around
with stamps in my bag, but only found two shops where postcards
are sold. since the postcards i've seen so far were very boring,
i always wanted to wait to find some better ones. well, tomorrow
is my last day, and i'm having troubles to find some postcards
at all.
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