Part 3
Tokyo Tower
Looming big, orange and brightly lit by night over Roppongi. We stayed for a night at the Roppongi Villa Fontaine so we were able to visit the tower at night and, as it turned out, a lot of the following day, as the four subterranean levels known as "FootTown" house a variety of museums and restaurants. You buy a ticket up to the midway observation deck, Jon told me, then you have to buy another ticket to get to the top. It's an unabashed racket, presented in that smiling, 'so great to see you!' Japanese way, but it's a remarkable spectacle by anyone's standards. At night from the midway point the view is incredibly cool. All of Tokyo's vastness stretched out glittering and blazing with light and life. There were some plexiglas windows set into the floor with a view straight down. Some nice pictures.
pic
pic
pic
pic
pic
On the walk over the next morning from the hotel we came to a huge intersection. A line of black vans outfitted with large mounted megaphones and emblazoned with uniform logos in Japanese were slowly driving through, traffic blocked. From the lead van emitted a very loud, gruff male voice shouting some kind of impassioned rhetoric, then the drivers of each of the other vans would shout ceremonially in response. The cops were helping the procession through. I saw several people on the sidewalks observing all this laughing, most everyone else deigning to react at all.
In the basement of the tower we ate the only good, non-fast food Japanese curry I had. Actually, I should say that I am a huge fan of Indian food, curry in particular, and I believe that it should be accompanied only with naan and never rice. So I guess I'm a little biased. Anyway there was a Guiness world records museum that was reasonably amusing, we saw a 3d short from the
Yattaman live action and a
wax museum. The guy on the right is supposed to be Brad Pitt. Outside of the wax museum, I was very surprised and happy to see, was one of the
Fatal Frame 4d arcade booths. It was really cool, the seat would suddenly fall back a few inches or air would blow sharply against the back of your head or ankles, stuff like that. Anyway, I read about it a long time ago and never thought I'd get to see one.
From the top deck you get the best view of Tokyo. I'm a sucker for these pictures, and I apologize for the large amount of landscapes I've posted. The first is a top-down view of a huge Buddhist temple we visited but weren't allowed to photograph from inside.
pic
pic
pic
To Be Continued...
Crimson
Linear Mode
