What I did on my summer holidays - Tokyo & around part 2

Ahem...having dragged ourselves out of the aforementioned Shinjuku mire, still finding ourselves in Tokyo, we wandered through Ginza which is famous for some reason. Perhaps we came at the wrong time, but we did manage to see the Sony showroom, which along with absurdly high resolution video cameras, teeny-tiny mobile phones and other commonplaces gadgets, there was a pit of these things...



Aibo, the first two letters probably standing for artificial intelligence, is a funny old customer. Its face lights up depending on what mood its in, and its body is covered in sensors that affect said mood...therefore if you stroke it in exactly the right place, according to its mood, it will wag its tail, or stretch in a luxuriant manner...I actually found myself becoming emotionally attached to and wanting to please this connection of wires & electronic pathways...suddenly a large number of questions about the nature of pets, consciousness and my own existence were fought back by my exhausted beer addled brain.

So then we went to Asakusa which has a lovely big red temple called Sensoji. No pictures yet as I`m saving those for the entry on Sanja Matsuri...watch this space...

It being so insanely hot, we decided to go to Odaiba, as it has an artificial beach. Odaiba (meaning "cannon emplacements") is reclaimed land formerly housing defences set up by the Shogun in 1853...it`s now almost like a Japanese take on Blackpool. A circular monorail helps you divide it into sections of things to see and do...like deciding which mall to go to.



Once you`ve overcome that obstacle, there`s "all manner of things" to keep the discerning tourist occupied...



...like a replica of the Statue of Liberty, for some reason...



...and the Fuji TV Centre, a monstrous construction if ever I saw one...



...it`s most notable feature, apart from its appearance, being a shop selling things related to Japanese TV. I`m glad we saw this, as we were privileged to witness footage of a chap in a foam dinosaur suit participating in adventure sports, such as scuba diving, skiing, dune buggy-ing...the paraphernalia I`ve seen around since then has pretty much confirmed that this is the whole point of the program. God bless the Japanese.

Then there`s the Tokyo Big Sight Centre



I like the building, but there`s not much inside...when we arrived there was an exhibition on the history of sewage works...



I have no explanation for that, other than it`s outside the Big Sight. Quick stop off in Shinagwa...



...then home to Kawasaki before we go to stroke the egos of the Harajuku Cosplay types. The time to go appears to be at around 4pm...















Once again, hooray for Harajuku!

Tune in next week when we abandon the bright lights & insanity of Tokyo and head for the relative tranquility of Kyoto to hunt Geishas & feed monkeys.