The plan was to meet at Tokyo station, on the Yamanote line at the East exit. Barring the existence of an East exit, then the North. As Life would have it, there was no East exit and there were two North exits (explain this one to me). Thank goodness for cell phones. Here's Sam waiting patiently for Rory and I to show.
So here are the two who kept me company today. There was this really weird looking straw sculpture in front of the station, and well, here it is. Tokyo is full of stuff to spiff up the streets. And though I don't like most of it, it sure makes those retarded moose Lastman put around TO look respectable.
The following are just a few shots around the station I took.
There was really nothing to do around this area. I thought that since it was major station, that there would be something to see. I was wrong.
This is the station. Kinda swanky-looking.
For those of you who have seen Back to the Future, you might recognize the clock tower that Doc Brown hooks up to the DeLorean to get Marty back to 1985.
Wait a second, the Imperial Palace is here! I totally forgot about it. Someone had been here recently, and told me about it. I don't remember what she said though...
Oh wait, I remember what she said now. You can't actually see the palace. The security guards won't let you get close enough. Son of a bitch.
We were kinda bummed out that we couldn't see anything, but then I saw the whirling sirens of cop cars in the distance. This could be interesting.
Here we go. There's a whole convoy coming out. I wonder if it's the Emperor or something.
The hope of it being someone important quickly faded when I realized that I could easily have picked up a rock, ran up to the carriage and plugged whoever was in there. *sigh*
Sam and Rory don't seem that impressed either. They made a comment that it was probably just one of the Emperor's servants going out for shampoo or something.
You know, you'd think that a royal escort would drive something better than a 1986 Toyota Corolla, with no hubcaps.
Shot of the skyline. Nothing special. Note the trees.
Here's something you don't get to see everyday. The Royal tree trimmers.
They keep these little patches of trees immaculate. You could golf off the grass here.
The starting line up of the 1954 Japanese National Kudo team.
I like taking pictures of strangers and pretending I know them. Some call me a sicko and refer to this as voyeurism. I don't agree. It's one step away from window-shopping: considering things you don't own. What's the big deal?
So, since Tokyo station was such a disappointment, we decided to pick up and go somewhere else. Here's where we ended up.
We were all pretty hungry at this point, but couldn't decide on a place to eat. Rory kept insisting that there was a TGI Friday's around Ginza (a 5 min walk away from the station we were at), but he didn't know where it was exactly.
Sam made a comment that the moment we settle for something, we would walk around the corner and see TGI Friday's. After 30 min of staggering around, I was ready to head into a Wendy's just to get something into my stomach. I had all but convinced them to settle when we saw TGIF's around the corner. Eerie.
We got booted from TGIF's after eating, so we had to find another place to sit. We found Doutour. We must have stayed there for three or four hours, talking.
I actually don't know how long we spent there, but when we looked up finally, all the people around us were different. I hate to reduce the great converstation we had to a few lines and a photo, but there you go.
The people beside us in Doutour were designers of some sort. This is what they were working on.
I liked Doutour, it had a great atmosphere, but I do have a small problem with what they give you to put in your coffee. Not the most health-conscious place I've come across.