When I woke up I felt great, and like I said early, it was the start of my enjoyable travel. We had a quiet one up in the common room of the Hostel that night, Paul, Annie and Chris filling me in about their day out. They had a great time.

The following day Paul, Annie and I got up early to go to the Tsukiji Fish market. We were really tired from the early start, but we got up, took on the cold, and made it to our destination. We had a bit of trouble finding our way in, but soon enough someone pointed us in the right direction. There were all sorts of crazy fish and GIGANTIC tuna! I’ll let the photo’s speak for themselves:

The guys riding on their little cart things were vicious. Everyone was in a hurry and they were, in the end, at work. They needed to be quick and efficient, and so people like us were always in the way. We were constantly looking over our shoulders trying to make sure we didn’t get in their way, but it was tough.

When we got back, we went back to sleep to catch up on the lost rest we had that night. The fish market was awesome.

When we woke up in the late afternoon, I texted Chris. He was out at Asakusa. We decided to take it easy again and continue to rest up, so we went up to the common room and chilled up there. Paul and I grabbed us some cigars and beers and went out onto the blacony to enjoy the view, good company, a smoke and a beer.

The following day was our last day in Tokyo. We had Studio Ghibli and Odaiba on the agenda, before catching a night bus to Sendai. We made our way to the Ghibli museum again, tickets in hand and went in. It was great! I can’t really even begin to describe it, it felt like I was just in a world of Ghibli. There were random little animations playing everywhere, showcasing animation. I say showcasing animation because they had various forms of animation on display. Such as an intricate web of camera film being circulated in a glass box with lights shining through the film to produce the animation on a small screen, or a circle of models that spun around quickly then hit with a strobe light and so it just looked like all the little models were dancing or skipping rope. It was really interesting, and I’m absolutely not doing it justice but I’m not sure how to explain this stuff and we weren’t allowed photos.

Yes that is a Statue of Liberty

After Ghibli we made our way to Odaiba, a man made island in Tokyo bay, home of the Fuji TV Station. I wanted to go there because the last battle of the first series of Digimon was fought on the roof of the Fuji TV station (please don’t hate me). But I had no idea what else was there. We took a monorail to the island which provided an awesome view of Tokyo and Odaiba. Really cool. Once we left Odaiba station we immediately saw the Fuji TV Station, it was HUGE! There was also a mini statue of liberty nearby.

After gawking at our awesome surroundings we made our way to the Toyoto Mega Centre or something. Basically it was like a Toyota car showcase with interactive simulations, test driving of their cars, and of course Toyota’s cars. There were some concept cars there, a formula 1 car, some sports cars, 4WD’s, and your generic family-mobile. It was really interesting.

After Odaiba, we said our goodbyes with Chris and went to Shinjuku station, where we jumped onto our bus bound for Sendai.

Tokyo’s city resembled that of Osaka, maybe a bit bigger, a bit busier, and more Gaijin (Foreigners). We noticed people were immediately more surrounded by their own little bubble where no one gets in, and nothing gets out. We were bumped into several times without so much as an excuse me. Rude? Maybe… we initially thought so. But eventually I came to think that this wasn’t so, it feels as though bumping into people is going to happen several times a day in Tokyo. Just because they bumped into each other without excusing themselves didn’t outweigh the politeness, friendliness and helpfulness of the people we did encounter and interacted with us. Everyone was super friendly, much like they are in Osaka.

It always feels as though Osakans aren’t fond of Tokyo people, or at least they see Tokyo people as snobby, that’s my impression anyway, and I hear it’s because the feelings are mutual (except that the Osakans aren’t snobby, they’re loud and obnoxious – apparently). But the people in Tokyo felt the same as the people in Osaka, Nagoya, Fuji, and (because I’m writing from the future here) Sendai, Aomori, Hakodate, Sapporo, Nagano and Hiroshima. The Japanese are friendly people, and through my travels I’ve realised there are no regional boundaries on that.

This is here for no reason… Just looks cool

Ciao for Now!