Tokyo -- What a fantastic place

So I've been in Tokyo for 5 days now and been so busy working and seeing the town, I havent had time to blog.

Ok, so I'm going to divide up my posts a bit -- one will focus on what I've done thus far and one that will focus strictly on observations -- and there are lots of them!

Tokyo is way cool -- since this is my first time anywhere in Asia, obviously its all new and exciting to me. In case you're wondering how I ended up here, its because I'm involved on a project for Credit Suisse that is for a business user (trader) who is based on Tokyo. When I found out there was potential for a Tokyo trip, that may me push even harder to close the deal and kick things off. Fast forward to now.

I arrived Saturday at Noon after a 12 hour red-eye flight from London (though I was on British Airways, business class, so the flight could have been twice as long and I wouldn't have minded) -- I slept 3 or 4 hours which was nice, and still watched 3+ movies (The Bucket List, Charlie Wilson's War, Fool's Gold, and some of Ocean's 11). I was told they might interogate me at the airport asking why I'm here etc, but it was pretty smooth sailing -- the customs guy spoke really slow, nodded a lot, and didnt even make me open my bags for a look through (they were doing this with almost everyone since the airport was surprisingly dead at that time).

Tokyo airport is in a town called Narita, which is 80km East of Tokyo and about an hour by train. I was told to grab a Limo Bus (which sounds cool but is just a regular coach bus) directly to my hotel, but it wasn't leaving for 1.5 hours, so we decided to train it into Tokyo then taxi. Pretty painless overall, but the train was 'normal' (albiet lots of leg room) and I was holping for some super cool/futuristic bullet train that whisks me to the city in 15 minutes at 400km/hr and runs every 5 mins. Instead it was regular speed, and ran every 30 mins... how normal. But clearly my expectations were a little too high :)

Once in the city it was errily quiet... turns out where I arrived and where my hotel is (the Okura Tokyo) is in a 'financial wasteland' area that is devoid of shops/restaurants and although convienient to walk to work, is kinda crap. I was travelling with Lance, a kiwi from work who will be the lead developer on the project, so we ventured for a walk around to find 'real Tokyo'.

Tokyo is incredably green with lots of parks everywhere. We wandered around exploring, saw the Tokyo Tower, and hit an area that had some shopping stores. Found a 6 floor electronics store that I just had to go into... wow are they serious about electronics here. They had a floor dedicated to digital cameras and you could shop either by brand or by... wait for it.... colour! Yes, they had a wall of cameras all of the same colour and as you moved along the colours changed like a rainbow... black, dark grey, silver, gold-ish colour, blue, pink, red, and purple. It was pretty neat, though the cheapest camera was around 22,000 yen, which is about 110 quid, or 220 dollars... I think i was again expecting too much -- some sort of unreleased-in-the-west-camera for like 40 bucks. Clearly unrealistic :)

Saturday night we ventured to nearby Roppongi, a nice night life area that is popular with the ex pats, though we still felt like minorities you saw other white guys and cultures. We had great sushi and sat at the sushi bar. Afterwards we stumpled on the 'New Zealand Travel Cafe', which is basically a kiwi bar, so we had to go in and have a couple of Lance's favourite beers, Maltieths.

Sunday we got up early and hit Ueno Park, a huge park to the north, for which we ventured to figure out the subway. Near the park were stalls selling food and merchandise... this was the most 'real tokyo' I had seen thus far. For 100 yen (50p, $1) I got fresh pineapple on a stick and it was damn good. We then hit the Tokyo zoo which is in the park, with a surprising bargain entrance cost of 600 yen. ($6! Isn't the Metro Toronto zoo like $10 just for parking your car, then another $25 or $30 to get in?). The zoo was great, although the animal pens were a little small for my liking. I need to post some pictures when I get back. They had a Giant Panda but it wasn't outside when we were there so I was gutted. Did see Giraffe's, Hippos, Rhino's, Snow Owls, Polar Bears, Penguins, Monkeys, Hawks, a Tiger, a couple Lions, an Armidillo, a Red Panda and a Zebra. Also saw this neat half Giraffe / half Zebra thing called a Okapis which is apparently super rare and really only found in the Congo. Very cool.

We ended up having some chinese for lunch since all the sushi restaurants close between 2pm and 5pm... a Japenese ciesta (sp?) if you will.

Monday was busy with work but also very fun as the office tower I'm in (The Izumi Garden Tower) is really neat since its got an all glass exterior and some of the elevators are glass on the side of the building. I'm working on the 27th floor so it has nice views. Monday night was dinner with the client -- we went for Yakatori, which is Japenese BBQ of pork/beef/chicken cooked on skewers right in front of you -- very tasty. Apparently Tokyo has 80,000 restaurants which is insane.. mainly because each restaurant is typically very small. Oh, had some nice Saki after dinner too which was smooth.

Tuesday after work we went for Japenese steak in Roppongi with the clients at one of the restaurants again where they cook in front of you and let you sit at a bar style thing, although we were a group of 5 so we had a table. Tasty dinner again. We then hit a traditional Japenese bar for a few drinks which was pretty neat, although since it was in Roppongi they had standard issue top-40 music on so it lacked some authenticity that way.

Wednesday Lance had dinner with a friend who is a flight stewardess, so James (an interaction designer with Infusion also here for the project) and I went for true Sushi at a restaurant Steve Harris (another Infusion UK colleauge who loves Japan (he's British)) recommended. It was in Ginza, which is a shopping district kinda like Regent Street in London -- high end stuff like Louis Vutton, Armani, etc. Many of the stores were closed (it was 10pm) and had their own gaurd standing by the doors since the goods are so expensive. Sidewalks were super huge!

Thursday (tonight) was another late one at the office but we grabbed sushi in the hotel which was just as tasty as the night before, except 2x as expensive since its hotel food. Short commute though and we again sat at the sushi bar. Maguro (tuna) is definately my fav sushi.

More observations to come in another post. Japan is crazy efficient, to say the least. And the people are massively friendly.

Syd.