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Big Ben
Chunnel  
Colosseum
CN Tower
Eiffel Tower
Empire State
Golden Gate
Grand Canyon
Great Wall
Hoover Dam
Lng Twr Pisa
Mt. St. Michel
Mt Fuji
Niagara Falls
Pyramids
Parthenon
Petra
Statue Liberty
Stonehenge

 
 The fall yellow trees provide a striking foreground to Mt. Fuji's serene flattop. 

MEIJI TEMPLE.  This temple was built in a park in the middle of town to honor a Meiji emperor.  It's quite serene, with its huge wooden archways and wide courtyard. 

TOKYO TOWER.  This 333-meter communications tower looks like a rip-off of the Eiffel Tower to me - in fact its brochure brags it's just a few meters taller than the real Eiffel Tower. 

TOKYO DISNEY SEA.   Tokyoites have always packed Tokyo Disneyland, so Disney decided to build a second companion park next door, Disney Sea, which opened up just a month before I arrive.  Since I'm a big Disney fan (annual passholder for Disneyland/ California Adventure) I have to check out this new park.   Disney Sea has 7 water-themed lands:  Mediterranean

Harbor (Venice), American Waterfront, futuristic Port Discovery (with an Aquatopia ride - get it?), Indiana Jonesy Lost River Delta, Little Mermaid Lagoon kiddie rides, Aladdin's Arabian Coast (Agrobah), and Atlantis-style Mysterious Island, all surrounding a huge volcano that spews fireworks at night.  I start to realize why Disney went with a water theme for this park when it starts to rain in the afternoon.  Rainy Tokyo goes well with the water theme, as if it the rain was part of the special effects, especially around the scary Mysterious Island.   The rides aren't the greatest - most are souped up versions of Small World where you just look at animatronic characters on sets.  There's a copy of Indiana Jones, a motion simulator and no roller coaster.  But it is still fun to walk the well-landscaped park and see the locals go nuts for Mickey. 

Neighborhoods
After the few tourist sights, Tokyo's all about the subway stop neighborhoods.  Here's a quick tour:

Vending machines all over town sell hot and cold coffee, tea and Coke of course.

HARAJUKU.  Teens from the Tokyo suburbs travel to Harajuku on the weekends to visit the Gap and other high-fashion stores in this shopping area.  One day, we meet Tai's bro Gen and his girlfriend at Las Chicas, a trendy upscale bar on a Harajuku sidestreet.  

We chill out at Las Chicas near Harajuku.

SHIBUYA.  We swing by Shibuya, another teen shopping area where girls dress up in designer labels just to walk around and be seen (but of course, not to actually strike up a conversation).

GINZA.  The Ginza shopping area is the Fifth Avenue or Broadway shopping area with high international fashion stores.  I see a kabuki show at the Kabuki-za theater in Ginza. Also, my Tokyo guide book directs me to a public bath in Ginza as a must-do, so I do, thinking it's going to be like a spa.  But it ends up being basically a locker shower room with a jacuzzi.  Except you sit on a little plastic stool to lather up 'n rinse at an ankle-level faucet before going in the water, which of course, I don't know I should do, until I get glare-stares from others.  Later, Tai tells me that public baths are not common at all - it's more for poorer Japanese who have small or no showers at home - and it's definitely not like a spa.  So much for trusting the ol' guide book.  Chalk this one up for experience again!

TOKYO STATION.   All subways/rail lines seem to end up at Tokyo Station (like Grand Central) making it another big shopping destination.  And I find the Pokemon Center there too.

ROPPONGI.  This night life area has lots of restaurants, bars and dance clubs, including Velfarre, which Gen gets us into for free since the music promotion company he works for owns it.  Hundreds of hip-hop teens are jamming to trance on the laser lit dance floor - impressive for a Sunday night too!  On another night, we eat the delicacy blowfish at a nearby restaurant.  Yes, this is the fish the chefs need a license to cook to make sure they don't accidentally serve you the deadly poisonous parts of the blowfish.

I join Tai and his family for a fancy blowfish dinner

SHINJUKU.  Tai's apartment is a 15-min. walk from the busy Shinjuku area.  With its high rises, megamalls and nightlife, it's most like Times Square.   One night in Shinjuku, we go to a ladies chat club which can only be described as a Japanese phenomenon.  Don't get excited - it's not much more than lunch at the freshman cafeteria.  Y'see, it's not Japanese custom to talk to people you haven't been introduced to, which means no random talking to people, asking for phone numbers etc.  So, ladies chat clubs are the solution: you pay $60 per hour to talk -- and talk only -- to Japanese girls.  We decide to go just for the experience, with some of Tai's friends who go all the time.   As soon as the four of us walk into the club, we're each assigned a girl who chats with us at our table.  Fortunately, the one assigned to me speaks a few words of English.  I find out she's a college freshman on her first night on the job.  She's trying to pick up some easy money, and improve her social skills, maybe learn about the world, and she's having fun.  As we leave the "interesting experience," I tell Tai the American way of random conversations is much much cheaper! 

ODAIBA.  This new shopping/entertainment mall was build on reclaimed land in the bay, providing an excellent view of the Tokyo skyline.  Gen and I check out the Joypolis video game center and play a drumming video game.

Day Trips

YUGAWARA.   On the way to visit Hakone's hot springs during the weekend, we stop by Yugawara, a small fishing village with great seafood.  We stop by this local restaurant to have some

Our sushi chef

very fresh sushi:  we pick some fish from the koi pond in the restaurant, and then the chef catches it, slices it, and serves it to us right there, with the fish still wiggling on the platter for a few seconds to show us how fresh this delicacy is (like lobster or King crab in the U.S.).  It's a bit unnerving at first, but man, it sure is tasty. Our fresh-sushi chef says he's been offered a fancy restaurant job in LA - he could make massive bucks serving fresh-from- the-water at a Spagos-like restaurant.  We trade numbers.

HAKONE.   Tokyoites take day trips to Hakone to relax in its natural hot springs.  Thanks to my earlier public bath experience, I'm familiar with the drill.

OTHER HOT SPRINGS.   We also stop by these other hot springs, easy to spot by the sulfuric steam rising off the mountain side.  They cook eggs in the hot water, turning them black.

Overall, Tokyo is very cool.    Clean, efficient and orderly.   Teens and kimono-clad kabuikza goers chatting on color cell phones as they pass supermodern neon malls and super ancient sacred shrines.  

Tokyo Tower is a nice visual landmark to help you figure out where you're going around town

The bullet trains are so fast, they make Amtrak or Metro North look like the Disneyland Railroad.   Superman would have fun being faster than one of these

I grab breakfast at a local noodle shop.  I try the traditional Japanese breakfast:  rice with a raw egg and sticky beans.  I'm smiling during the picture, but yakking afterwards when I find out the beans are sticky because they are intentionally partially rotten.  Don't ask me how that tradition got started...

The Meiji temple park is a nice place to take a break from hectic city bustle.

Memorial funeral doll.

Gen's job at his music company is to promote the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears through local radio promotions.  He's promoting the BSB's new greatest hits when I visit his office.

Japanese women wear the traditional kimonos for any formal dress-up occasion, like a wedding, graduation, or in this case, the  Kabuki-za theater in Ginza.  

Shibuya shopping, where you can see teens trying to look American-hip with Nikes and t-shirts with very cool English words.  I see a girl wearing a T-shirt that says FRAGILE, and guys wearing sweatshirts that say SISSY and best of all, LOSER.  I try to hold back my laughter, and want to tell these guys what they're wearing, but that's rude here. Oh well.  Makes me think twice about buying T-shirts with cool Japanese characters here - I better tell my friend to check his Japanese character tattoo!

Hanging out at the Shibuya Starbucks, one of the world's highest grossing Starbucks.  There's even a waitress to help us find a table.  We meet up with Tai's girlfriend, and John, on a business trip from Connecticut, who we randomly meet on the street by spying his A&F hat.

Pokemon Center

Trance dance at Velfarre club.

Now this is fresh fish:  just-caught and cut sushi.  Fish still wiggles to prove it.

The famous Kabukiza theater in Ginza. I join Tai's grandmother to watch the 4.5 hour show - with 3 intermissions thankfully.  It consists of white-faced male actors playing male and female roles in the Edo-era style of story-telling, featuring chanting and dancing, but no speaking. It's like going to the orchestra in the U.S. - you go maybe once a year, if ever.   Even local Japanese use headphone earpieces to translate the old-style Edo language (like our Olde English).