Tuesday: Bumming around Tokyo

I took the opportunity of waking early to have a wander around Minato-ku, the area of Tokyo where I stayed when I was working here in '06-'07. After arriving under cloudy skies on Monday, Tuesday's weather was absolutely perfect - not a cloud all day and plenty warm enough to need nothing more than a t-shirt. The walk, and plenty of fluids from the ubiquitous vending machines, sorted out my every-so-slightly thick head from Roppongi the night before.

There's so much to see around here, and I feel extremely bad for not having found these places when I would have had time to explore them more thoroughly. Shiba Park is fun, with tannoy announcements in Japanese and English warning dog owners of expected behaviour. The Zojoji temple is a gem and generally the whole area is very nice. Tokyo Tower was busy with people waiting for buses and a concert platform being set up. There was also an impossibly large NZ rugby ball building, unexplained and quite surreal.

Lots more police than I recall around the American Embassy and many more road closures. Still, Tokyo feels like the safest place on the planet.

Maki-san and Kashima-san, two friends from my old IBM team, met me in Ryōgoku for lunch and took me to a fantastic restaurant for chankonabe, not far from the Kokugikan Hall. I'm happy to report I declined the Sumo-sized offerings and am not planning any career change in that direction just at the moment. Sitting on the floor was challenging to my old joints but fun nonetheless.

We then had a look around the impressive Edo-Tokyo museum, housed in possibly the craziest building I've ever been in. The massive hall is suspended ~50m in the air for no obvious reason. I knew when I was taking the photo that the sheer scale of the space would be lost. It was strange to see so many young Tokyo-jin looking around, I suspect not many English teenagers would willingly visit such a place if they had a choice.

From there, we took the Mizube Line water-bus down the Sumida river to Hama-rikyū and had a gentle wander around the gardens. When you're travelling around Tokyo on the Metro or in taxis you never really get to see the waterways that are in fact all around. That's another bit of the city I managed to miss in the seven months I was here.

We finished the day on 46F of the Dentsu building in Shiodome. The city view from up there is breathtaking - unfortunately the windows don't lend themselves to photography. The meal was equally impressive with fantastic gohan (my favourite) steamed in stone pots along with lots of beef, vegetables and seafood. It was sad that the day went so quickly and I'm already planning to return the favour of hospitality when my friends visit the UK. Perhaps the 2012 Olympics will tempt them to make the trip.

Today's plan is a trip to Akihabara, "Electric Town", to peruse the technology that will be on the shelves in the UK in a few years from now. Then I'm meeting some friends for lunch before heading back to the airport and another 11 hours in the air down to New Zealand.