From Toranomon to Yotsuya!!

Today I didn’t have all that much to do so I decided to walk from Toranomon (I started off near where TV Tokyo is located) to Yotsuya, which is an area where the famous Sophia University is located (known as ‘Jochi Daigaku’ in Japanese). This has become one of my favourite routes because there is a variety of interesting stuff along the way which I would like to share with you! If you have some free time in Tokyo why not try taking a similar walk? You might discover some interesting places along the way!

Ark Hills

First I went through the Ark Hills complex which is home to the Suntory Hall which hosts orchestral concerts I believe. TV Asahi is also located here as well as some nice restaurants and cafes. TV Asahi also has another main building in the Roppongi Hills complex.

TBS in Akasaka

After walking for a while I passed through TBS’s new building complex which features various shops and restaurants including TBS’s very own giftstore. I wrote about it earlier also.

Approaching Yotsuya

I proceeded up a hill located near the Akasaka Palace. Outside the palace there’s a pretty sweet small park, perfect for spending time chilling with your date! The area has a very European feel to it and it makes a great change from the futuristic buildings which heavily dominate a lot of central Tokyo!

A side gate for the Akasaka Palace (I think!)

Yotsuya

The first few pictures are from outside Yotsuya JR station and the final pictures are interesting posters and sign I found. I will definitely be checking out that coffee shop at some point!! Enjoy!!  More pictures will be on the way!!

I just happened to notice this pretty neat poster put up by the Tokyo fire brigade. It’s designed to raise awareness about what to do if a big earthquake strikes. Do they have posters like this in your country? I can’t even remember seeing any posters designed by the fire department in England but I’m pretty sure they’re not as interesting as this! (To be fair though we don’t have to worry that much about earthquakes back in the UK).

Enjoying a pleasant walk to the Atago Shrine

Today the weather was perfect for a walk so I decided to head toward the Atago Shrine, a shrine which I have visited several times before but usually when it was dark. Today was the first time I went during the day and it was more of a pleasure to actually see the full splendor of the shrine on such a great sunny day.  The shrine was originally constructed way back in the early 1600s, under the order of the first Tokugawa shogun (Ieyasu) in order to protect the neighbourhood from fires. The main entrance is home to a rather grand set of stairs and it’s a pretty hefty work-out getting to the top!! However there are 2 other sets of stairs which lead to the main shrine so I used one of those to go down. If you like the Atago shrine you might also like to check out my post on the Hikawa Shrine located in Akaska, which I wrote the last time I was in Japan.

Some of the scenery on the way…

The shrine is actually near the NHK museum, which I wrote about a while back!

Outside the shrine…

close-up of the main stairs…

One of the guardian things by the stairs (I don’t really know what they’re called!! :S)

View from the top…

You can’t see it in the picture but entrance to this area is actually restricted by a gate which was locked, I zoomed in. I wonder if there is any significance behind that building…

A nice path to one side of the shrine, a much easier way of leaving than using the stairs at the front!!

An old sign located on the shrine grounds. I can’t read much, but it’s about smoking cigarrettes. The red characters to the left state that entrance is prohibited.

If you’re looking for a peaceful way to spend some time in Tokyo then I recommend checking out the Atago Shrine!!

Tokyo streets on a rainy night…

I decided to do some photography last night.

Hope you enjoy the pics!!

Reflection of the Tokyo Tower on one of the Mori buildings, it’s not as good as some of the other Tokyo Tower reflection pictures I have seen, will have to do better next time!

A sign at a bus-stop near Shiba Park.

Gundam at Odaiba!!

Those of you who are into anime and manga might already be aware that a life-size Gundam has been built at Shiokaze Park in Odaiba!! I went to check it out whilst I was in Odaiba and the exterior is all complete but the engineers are still working on it. It will ‘officially’ open to the public on July 11th, by which the Gundam will be able to do more – at the moment I believe it can only move it’s head and smoke is released from it’s chest. In any case, it looks super cool, and I am definitely gonna return at night at some point to do more photography. If you wanna check it out in action just look on youtube, but anyway, here are my pictures!

By the way, I guess I should say I’ve never been a Gundam man myself (my favourite mecha anime is Macross Plus), but still, this looks awesome!

Unexpected encounter on a rainy day!

I am back in Japan… and I will be here until mid-September. Let the good times begin!!

This fearsome tiger can be found near Toranomon underground station in central Tokyo.

Buddhist statue

This summer I really need to take more photos like this one. Usually I don’t use macro in any of my photography but using it you can get some really good pictures, I will try to find more opportunities to use it this summer, can’t wait until next month!!

By the way, this statue is located somewhere in Mita, if I can remember correctly. Remember my post about Keio University? (here) Well, I actually took this photo on the same day whilst I was taking a walk around the neighborhood!

Kyoto – an evening view

Here’s a beautiful view of Kyoto during the evening. On the left you can see terraces of restaurants and bars, allowing people to enjoy the view whilst enjoying their food at the same time. It’s quite different compared to all those towering skyscrapers which you see all around central Tokyo. But, that’s what I like about Kyoto; it has a charm of it’s own

Enjoying one of Japan’s biggest and best festivals- The Gion Matsuri

The Gion Matsuri is probably Japan’s most famous festival and spans the whole (!) of July in Kyoto. On various days there are different events which take place but most impressive are the nights leading up to a parade which takes place during the day. I was luckily in Kansai for most of July and so was lucky enough to see some of the Gion festival. There are 3 nights where the streets are closed off for the pedestrians and special floats ride throughout the streets. High up on the floats there are actually musicians who play flutes whilst the procession takes place. There are also stalls selling food and many people come wearing yukata (traditional Japanese clothes for the summer). I was in Kyoto for one of these nights and I was able to take some pictures. After the 3 nights there is a parade which takes place early one morning (I don’t remember the specific date though), I tried to see it but missed it. But, luckily I talked with a woman at the Yasaka Shrine and she told me something else was happening in the evening. I stayed in Kyoto the whole day and in the evening there was a second parade with people dressed in traditional clothing and some special guys riding on horse-back. Anyway, if you’re visiting the Kansai region then it’d be really good if possible to visit Kyoto during July in order to experience the Gion Matsuri- it really is something not to be missed!!

Oh, and just one last thing- the festival was actually started by a cult of the Gion Shrine (The original name for the Yasaka Shrine) in Kyoto as part of their actions to ‘appease’ vengeful spirits known in Japanese as ‘goryou.’ This was back during the Heian Period, a time when a lot of the aristocracy were very supersticious.  Enjoy the pictures, I’d love to experience the festival again and take more photos!!

exams suck big time…

Oh lord, I had my Japanese reading paper today which was less than pleasant… and what’s more is that the worst is yet to come On Monday I have my final Japanese language paper, the first half of which is kanji based, second half is for translation. The kanji should be alright, but the translation is a bit of a bitch (most of it is English to Japanese). Anyway, I’ll give it my best shot! I haven’t been updating the blog that much lately and that has to change hehe. I’m planning on writing about Japanese drama, more music and manga. And, also… I’M GONNA BE IN JAPAN FROM JUNE UNTIL SEPTEMBER!!! So, during that time I’ll regularly post whatever new photos I take over here, so hope ya guys look forward to that!
For the moment though, I’ll leave ya with 2 videos of songs which I’m hooked on these days. The first is ‘Jap’ by Abingdon Boys School, it’s used as the opening music for the Sengoku Basara anime (which I am watching, and boy must I say, it’s pretty damn good!). The second video is for the new version of FFVII Advent Children, ‘Safe and Sound’ by Kyosuke Himuro and featuring My Chemical Romance’s Gerrard Way (I don’t like MCR’s music that much, but his singing in this ain’t half bad).

Yet another awesome movie – About Love

3 directors, 3 stories, 1 movie- that sums up About Love in a nutshell and if I had watched it earlier it would have made my previous movie list! The 3 stories in the movie are set in Tokyo, Taipei and Shanghai respectively and each focus on love between a Japanese person and a Chinese/Taiwanese person. My favourite story was the Tokyo one (pretty much all of it was filmed in the Shibuya/Omotesando area which was really neat!). The casting for the movie was absolutely perfect, all of the actors do a fantastic job with their roles and what I loved was none of it came across as wishy-washy or whimsical. The soundtrack for the film is also really awesome. I did try to see if it was available to buy but I don’t think it is, which is a genuine shame. Anyway, I would definitely recommend this film, I don’t watch many romance movies but I really loved this one (probably as much as I enjoyed the first Nana film!) The director of the Shanghai story has also directed a movie called The Longest Night in Shanghai which is a joint Japanese/Chinese production – definitely on my to-watch list! Here’s to hoping it’ll be as good as About Love!!