On the weekends, the police close Ginza Street to cars so people can walk around freely. That's not to say it's easy to walk around. You're lucky if you get two feet of breathing space. Most of the stores (reminiscent of 5th Avenue) are high-end designer boutiques in which I wouldn't even know what to look for. I walked past many glitzy Japanese consumers feeding the world's second-largest economy with cold, hard cash. (Most of the well-to-do were women in fur coats with war paint on their faces.)
The Western voice in me led me to the Apple store, a giant cube of a building on a corner, where I fiddled with some Japanese MacBooks that probably weren't designed to be used by people who only speak English. It was late afternoon when I left the store, and I navigated through the thick of spend-happy people further down Ginza Street.
I'll preface this next part with a disclaimer: I haven't done a whole lot of research about cheesecake in Japan. But apparently it's more delicious to these people than octopus on a stick (which, yes, they do have). Cheesecakes come in practically as many flavors as ice cream does, from fruity to chocolatey to custardy to just darn cute. And their cuteness is not age-discriminant, as I saw three men inspecting and tasting a strawberry portion that sprouted my taste buds.
The sun was getting lower, and I had to book it to the Imperial Palace, a healthy walk away from all the commotion. Past many ministry buildings and office towers, under a highway bridge and through the subway line lies the gardens that surround the Imperial Palace, a marvel that was destroyed in World War II but reconstructed and is still home to the royal family.
A crisp sunset greeted me as I walked through the gravely park encircled by close-cropped trees. Perhaps the most beautiful parts of the area are the outlying parks that are free to roam. Pools of still water reflect the nearby skyscrapers and are home to ducks and fish.
The palace itself is set high upon a hill and is surrounded by more water, where swans flirt as people walk slowly along the edge. The setting sun hit the palace in a golden light, outlining its shape on nearby stone walls and elongating the shadows of marathon runners who were passing under the royal arches that separate metropolis from history.
It's just a small slice of this massive clustertown home to 35 million people, but for a few minutes it felt lonely and aloof to the happenings outside its walls.
There are just a couple more pictures I want to post up. This one (I'll let you decide what it is) is from Ginza:
And, before I took the Asakusa Line to the downtown station, I stopped in Chiba Newtown, the first train stop I hit inbound from my temporary home in Inzai. There I walked around an incredibly modern shopping complex and spent no less than 15 minutes exploring Capcom Plaza, a multi-level arcade fantasy center. In addition to being visited by people of all ages and genders in Japan, these game centers are designed to constantly saturate your brain with sights and sounds that make you want to win (not sure what). They're also incredibly family-friendly:
Don't ask me for a description of this game. It was kind of like Keno, or some lottery-based game, but with bouncy balls that fall into a slot in that giant cylinder that reminds me of what the scientists put ET in when he was going to die. Sometimes I feel like the Japanese are all extra terrestrials. Or maybe it's me.
No comments:
Post a Comment