GW

Lonely Holiday
"Golden Week" is a Japanese term describing the period containing the following public holidays:

• April 29 Showa Day (昭和の日 ,Shōwa no hi, from 2007)
• May 3 Constitution Memorial Day (憲法記念日 ,Kenpō kinenbi)
• May 4 Greenery Day (みどりの日 ,Midori no hi, from 2007)
• May 5 Children's Day (こどもの日 ,Kodomo no hi) AKA Boy's Day (端午の節句 ,Tango no sekku)

GW is the longest vacation period of the year for many Japanese companies, and a good opportunity for many to travel. Since May 3 falls on a Sunday, the following Wednesday (May 6) is also a public holiday, and our training shall only resume next Thursday.

During GW, Ron's girlfriend and Andrew's "boyfriend" are here to keep them company.My Japanese friend is returning to his parents' home during GW, and Youme has gone back to Seoul for her holiday. I'm the only one who shall be spending my holidays alone :(

Regardless, I'm targeting to explore a specific section of Tokyo that I haven't already visited each day. Travelling alone in a crowded city with no one to talk to certainly feels odd, but I can cover a lot of ground in a short time. So far I've visited Roppongi and Ginza. What's next? I guess I'll decide in the morning XD

2 May (Saturday) Roppongi Hills, Asahi TV, Mori Art Museum
Roppongi (六本木) is famous for its nightlife, but is recently being shaped into an arts central. The recent addition of the National Art Center, Japan's largest art musuem, together with the Mori Art Musuem in Roppongi Hills and the Suntory Museum of Art in Tokyo Midtown, results in a "Art Triangle Roppongi".

Two major redevelopment projects have recently given Roppongi a new face: Roppongi Hills with its 238m tall Mori Tower, and Tokyo Midtown with its 248m tall Midtown Tower. Each complex consists of high class retail, leisure and residential space, offices, luxury hotel and art museum.

Thanks goes to Dea for suggesting Roppongi as a travel spot. It was the photo of the gigantic spider statue you sent me that piqued my interest. Now I've seen it for myself :)

Roppongi Hills
Roppongi Hills itself is a marvel of interesting architectural styles which to me feels grand, opulent, futuristic and organic at the same time. Too bad the iPhone is such a crappy camera, or I could be having a photography field day here. I also chanced upon the J-Wave Flea Market, where people were peddling their old junk for as little as 100 yen. Still a tad too expensive for a poor lecturer like me.

Left and Center: You don't see architecture like this in Singapore
Right: The J-Wave Flea Market

A public lunch/rest spot with a view. I like :)

Space Medaka?
Roppongi Hills is not just steel and concrete, there's a lot of greenery around the buildings too. The pond by the garden (pictured above) is supposed to contain over 10,000 descendants of Space Medaka, killifishes spawned in the weightlessness of space during a NASA research mission. But the pond was too murky and I couldn't see anything :/

TV Asahi
The TV Asahi headquarters was just round the corner of Roppongi Hills, so I went in for a look-see. Visitors could only access the lobby, where a various exhibits of current TV shows and productions were prominently displayed. A giant Doraemon was there to greet visitors once you step through the front door.

Amongst the exhibits was costumes used in the Goemon movie currently showing in the cinemas. It's a movie I'd like to watch, but probably not in Japan, since ticket prices are exorbitant here (around 1800 yen, or S$30!).

Sky Gallery
Next up, Roppongi Hills Observation Deck Tokyo City View. Situated on the 52nd floor of the Mori Tower, 218m above ground and 250m above sea level, the Sky Gallery is a fully glass-walled atrium with 11-meter-high windows that offer a 360-degree view of Tokyo.

Left: Tokyo Tower from the ground (OK, high ground :P)
Right: Tokyo Tower from the 52nd floor

On a clear day you could supposedly command a magnificent view of Mt. Fuji. This was clearly not a clear day :( Down the road along the right edge of the photo above, you can see Shibuya, where we are staying and having our training. The Sky Gallery atrium is almost entirely an oversized child care center, with lots of fun activities for kids to enjoy - from rolling in giant bubble tubes to coloring koi fish pictures.

After the disappointing experience at Taipei 101, I didn't feel like paying the extra 300 yen to go up to the Sky Deck. Anyway, the funny shaped blue building pictured below is the new National Art Center, Tokyo. Definitely on my "To Visit" list.

Mori Art Museum

Next up, the Mori Art Museum, which was on the 53rd floor. By now I should mention that I have paid 2000 yen for the Museum, the City View and a furniture exhibit that happened to be on. I figured that since I'm only visiting once, I might as well see as much as I could. Unfortunately for my readers, photo taking was no allowed inside. You can see the security guard holding out his hand to stop me as I approached the art exhibit XD

The exhibit was called The Kaleidoscopic Eye: a Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contempo. I did manage to take a photo of the audio guide, which works like a phone, describing the art pieces in a pre-recorded voice when you enter a corresponding number. Naturally, I used the English version of the audio guide. The exhibit opened my eyes to new ways of experiencing the world. One memorable piece was a pitch black room with a wooden table lit with a spot light in the middle. Touching the scarred wooden tabletop result in various recorded voices to be played from a row of speakers surrounding the room. Since the whole room was pitch black except for the dim light illuminating the table, it felt like some kind of ghost voices in a horror show.

Italian Furniture
The other exhibit I visited was Made in Cassina. I'm not entirely familiar with Italian furniture, or any furniture for that matter, but at least now I know what is a MEX sofa (designed by Piero Lissoni). Again, no pictures were allowed. Too bad.

Left: A sign advertising the Made in Cassina exhibit
Right: Another sneaked photo, of really cute Nanonanos which you can't really see in the photo. They're so cute, why weren't photos allowed?

Nanonano (kawaii!!!)
Nanonano makes really cool little keychains and trinkets of cute animals and cool mechanical constructs and vehicles, all made using recycled electronic parts such as IC chips. I would have bought some as gifts, but they are frakking expensive. One tiny animal keychain about 2 cm big could cost more than 5000 yen!

Kinokuniya
At the end of the day, I dropped by Kinokuniya at Shinjuku and to buy some books before heading back to Shibuya. With only 6 floors, it's not as big as Junkudo at Ikebukuro, but still bigger than any book store in Singapore. Shinjuku is actually not on my travel list since I've been here many times before already :P

That's all for Saturday. On Sunday, I went to Ginza, which takes "expensive" to a whole new level. XD