Tokyo: The Rest

Finally.... So our trip was for five days, but Colleen spent two of them at a work conference and I spent those scouring record shops with sound-obsessed Scandinavians. Discounting those days, the trip was essentially a long weekend.



Heading out Friday night, we opted to travel up by via overnight bus, the cheapest possible way, about $40 each. I was nervous, but it actually worked out really swell. No problems with sleep or the ride quality at all. The only unavoidable issue is that you arrive in Tokyo well before anything worthwhile is open for business. We headed for a coffee shop & eased our way into the windy day. After a trip to the imperial palace and determining there wasn't much else worth hanging around for (way too early for the Ginza area to be kicking), we made our way up to Ueno to check out the art museums and their former bootleg district which is still a happening market.

After checking into our guesthouse and taking a nap, we headed out to Shinjuku and Shibuya, the city's most happening areas. Near Shibuya the city government offices offer a free observation deck which was our first destination. This is very cool considering the Osaka equivilent costs about $7.00. The view is great too. The city is amazingly dense. The above photo is from the deck and that's just one small segment. It's sprawls out like that in every direction. It's really overwhelming. From there we headed down to Shibuya to catch a play. I'll let Colleen comment on that if she desires. I think it was supposed to be absurd even if you understand Japanese, but was even more so since we don't. Covering a lot of terrain on foot and train, that was it for our Saturday.

Sunday we headed to Ghibli (previously documented) and the surrounding Mitaka area and then made our way back to the city because I was performing that night. After meeting up with everyone and sounchecking, Colleen & I had dinner with John Hegre who updated us on the state of Norwegian noise and his recent national news controversy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyq0A5h0uYY - which pleases me to great depths having released the first two Golden Serenades albums. The show itself was great, so many legends of the Japanese underground were present, both on stage and in the audience. I've never played for a more intimidating crowd. Afterwards it was a post-show grub and a long farewell and Yoyogi Station.

Monday brought the conferences and shopping which probably aren't very interesting to anyone else. I will say that Omega Point is probably my favorite record store on the planet, well worth the two and a half hours we spent trying to find it!



Us, reflected in a giant steel(?) orb outside the Contemporary Art Museum


One of the gates to the Imperial Palace (we didn't go in)


Duo performance, Shiflet and Hasegawa


Part of the mural outside our guesthouse