Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!
On Sunday, once we got moving we all headed right for Shinjuku to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building No. 1 which has an observation deck on the 45th floor. It’s a free, easy way to get a great view of the entire city. Courtney and I had gone to the north tower on Friday so today we all went to the south tower and looked around. Tokyo seems to just stretch on forever and even out towards the horizon there seems to be syscrapers. It’s just amazing to think of how much is going on, night and day, in all that city.
While up in the tower we got to talking about the Park Hyatt Tokyo, which is the hotel that “Bob” and “Charlotte” stay in in “Lost in Translation”. The bar on top is open to the public, is supposed to have very amazing views and was just begging for us to go. So, when we left the tower we struck out towards the Hyatt.
We found the Hyatt pretty easily and started trying to figure out how to get in. the building is 52 stories tall, and the Hyatt only uses the top 10 or so. We eventually figured out that it has it’s own entrance and we made our way in. The place was swank to the extreme and we were massively under-dressed and under-classed but figured they had seen worse since the movie came out so we pushed on.
To get to the bar you take the main elevator up to the 41st (I think?) floor which is kind of the main entrance, then you walk through a very nice lounge / restaurant, a gorgeous library and then take another elevator to the 52nd floor. After turning back once in embarassment and then once to go back down to the elevator to read the dress code sign that Courtney spotted we finally made it to the top to find out the bar doesn’t open till 5pm. The view was still amazing, so we took a few pictures and vowed to come back later.
Our next plan was to get some lunch, and we had wanted to go back to Yoyogi Koen to see the freak show, so we stopped by KFC, picked up some chicken and set out for the park to have a picnic. This time everyone was there to entertain us. We saw the crazy 50s dancers (“Tokyo Rockabilly Club / Harajuku”) and this time around noticed that their boots are pretty much 100% electrical tape. Too much suddenly sliding across the road and breakdancing, I guess.
We also saw some kind of weird music video (we think) being filmed that involved girls dressed as maids, girls dressed as maids with cardboard robot heads on, a guy in black clothes that eventually stripped down to his speedo, which he then pulled down and squatted like he was shitting, a detective that fights a girl in a dress and lots of very, very confused people.
And… lots more to type, but it’s time to get ready for today. We’re in Kyoto right now. We’re going to Nara today, and then to Ponto-Cho later on. Then later, later we go to Osaka to sleep. We couldn’t find a room to stay in tonight in Kyoto so we’re going to Osaka to sleep and then to Hiroshima tomorrow.
Whee!