From Akasaka to Harajuku

Today, we made our way to Akasaka (1 hour trip) to watch Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite", to which I won a pair of tickets last week. I wasn't too impressed with it and we ended up leaving at the intermission. I think I just don't like plays. They always seem so melodramatic, fake, and forced.

After the play we decided to walk around, with our end goal being to get to Harajuku to do some shopping. One of the first things we saw was this very old building. The striking thing was that in the background there was a huge new skyscraper. (You can see this on my Flickr site.)



Then we came across the TBS building (Tokyo Broadcasting System) whose entrance contained a number of interesting little displays. Outside the side exit, we were surprised to find Japan's most famous superhero: UltraMan!



Turning our backs on UltraMan (actually, on the UltraMen (there were two!)) we saw this interesting art installation. Note the interesting clock symbols.



Next, I was happy to stumble upon the Nogi Shrine. This shrine has a short "torii" path which was fun to walk through. Is this the same place you went to, Mom and Dad?



Yuu took this nice photo of some early blossoms:



Here's Yuu walking back down the tunnel:



You can see more photos of the shrine on our Flickr site.

I was surprised that we were so close to Roppongi. After walking a few minutes from the shrine, we found ourselves in front of Tokyo Midtown. We had been there once before with Kathleen. Today, it was much less busy. Here's a shop window that caught our eye. The shop sold hanging ornaments and chopsticks, etc.



After seeing many cool things in many cool shops, we got a bit peckish, so returned to the fish restaurant we had tried to eat at our last time there. This time, it was open, so we entered and ate a lot of delicious fish. Here's a shot of an anglerfish (those supremely ugly deepwater fish we sometimes see on TV sea documentaries) that was hanging above our heads. This is just the head. You can also see a dangling "antenna" thingy.



Here is one of the many dishes we ordered at Uoshin. Under this mound of seafood, there were many tiny cucumber maki rolls.



After dinner, we started walking towards Harajuku. Again, we were surprised to find Roppongi Hills on our way. We walked up to the main level where we saw a nice view of Tokyo Tower. We even danced. (We were a bit drunk.)



All in all, it was a fun day. However, when we finally got to Harajuku, most of the shops were closed or closing, so we didn't do any shopping.

Please take a look at the Flickr page for more fun photos of our day!

And, "Hello to Nanny!!!"