Memoirs from the Land of Suits and Ramen, Sat, 02 Nov 2013 | written by Simon
Simon with Eva at a City, Park, Temple in Asia, Japan

Look what we found!

Our plan for today has been carried out despite the weather’s insistence to prove to us that Scotland isn’t as bad as we thought. We went to Shinjuku and Shibuya – the alternative districts. And guess what? Almost half the men on the streets did not wear suits! Amazing! We walked around for a bit in the rain, found some cool manga shops and interestingly looking bars. It was getting wetter and wetter as we entered the red lights district. That’s a lot of sex shops, consort bars, per hour hotels, brothels and arcade games in one district! Plenty places for women as well. Interesting fact: there are dedicated blowjob-only places, and they all open at 5am, to serve men who want one before going to work. I wonder if they double the staff during the lunch rush hour.

That’s a seriously thin building!
Here, you won’t get lost
There’s a Lady’s Club too
We then went to the Tokyo Government Office buildings (10 min walk from the nearest brothel) and took the elevator up to the 45th floor viewing platform. If the day were nicer, I could see Mt Fuji from there, but alas, I couldn’t even see the whole city through the rainy fog. Ah well. From there to the Meiji shrine and park. The introductory text in front of the gate to the ex-emperor’s park was nationalistic as hell: he was portrayed like Father Lenin at least! The park was rather nice and in the shrine we witnessed a Shinto wedding. Finally, we went to another interesting alternative spot: Harajuku, a street full of goth, hip, hippie and all sorts of cool shops. Nice stuff!
A guy filming the floor numbers going up…
The View
Evatoro!
The Meiji Shrine
The shrine with the prayer tablets around a tree
Our favourite prayer
Harajuku
So many cool costume shops here!
How many Japanese policemen does it take to close a gate?
Now time for some more general reflections. Ecology hardly exists here, at least in one respect. If you buy a pack of cookies, all of them are in separate plastic packets, then all together in a pack, and then put in a plastic bag. Why?
There are no overweight people here. Literally, none.
Many people do completely useless jobs. Three people are required to make sure a reversing vehicle doesn’t crash anything into anything; a policeman has to direct the traffic even though the lights work perfectly fine; a freshly pained fence has to have a guard who tells you not to touch it.
Our new nest – much bigger!
Anyway, in the evening our host invited us to a surprise journey. It turned out to be a ride up the 46thfloor of a skyscraper to see the night skyline of Tokyo. I loved it, but it wasn’t a great surprise for Eva, who is scared of heights and decided to stay at the ground floor… (again). Back home, I spent some time working on my conference presentation, more chatting with our host, and good night.