Had a pretty good first weekend in town, exploring a few parts of the city and hanging out with the new house mates. I checked in with my rental agency Sat. morning and headed over to my building just a short train ride away in a neighborhood called Tomigaya. In case you're wondering where that is in the giant sprawl of Tokyo, it's here.
The house mates are from all over the place, including Australia, France, Sweden, and Brazil. Some have been in this house for a couple months, and others just a couple weeks. After getting unpacked and settled in to the new place, the house mates and I headed over to Yoyogi Park for a picnic with some other friends of theirs. On the way over we stopped at a discount grocery store and I had my first Tokyo shopping experience. Definitely a little difficult when there's a bunch of food you haven't seen before and you can't read most of the labels. We loaded up on some things you normally find in a bento box including dumplings and fried bags of rice and went over to the park. It's a pretty amazing place, more like Central Park or Golden Gate Park than anything else. We saw bands and musicians rehearsing out amongst the trees, dancers practicing choreography, a bunch of younger people playing some game where they all freeze until a player who has been singled out looks away for a moment - then they move closer. If the person sees them move, they're out. At least that how I think it works. Lot's of people were out there doing the same thing as us, too. We hung out for a while as a few other friends showed up, Canadians and Swedes.
Afterwards we strolled through the park to Harajuku, apparently the part of the city known for the clothing stores that all the teenagers go to. It's a very lively place, with cafes and shops everywhere. Me and one of the house mates, Jeremy, poked around at a bunch of stores where we didn't have much of an interest in buying anything while two of the girls from the house went shopping for shoes. Not surprisingly, we ended up splitting up with them after a short while to head home.
I went back to the grocery store to load up on some food, managing to find cereal and enough ingredients for a few nights of modest chicken stir fry. I also stopped by a small park with a shrine in my neighborhood. I'm sure this will be the first of many shrines and temples on this trip. It was very peaceful up there, a little sanctuary just a just a few meters off a main road
That night our upstairs neighbors, two Swedish girls, threw a small house party and got a pretty good turnout. I must have met about 20 people that day and night. Surprisingly, I met at least 4 or 5 other architecture students who are doing internships at other places in the city, including two who are working for Shiguru Ban, one of the more well known Japanese architects in the states. Sounds like a couple of them aren't even getting paid, which makes me feel grateful for the modest salary that I'll be paid. Two other guys from upstairs are from northern California, one a die hard Lakers fan, prompting a round of trash talking about the NBA finals between them and my Celtics. Really cool guys otherwise, though. Later tried an interesting drink by Kirin that tastes like scotch whiskey beer. Strange.
Sunday I spent the afternoon out and about by myself exploring some of the city's architecture and making sure I could find my workplace for Monday. I went back through Yoyogi and Harajuku because it's supposed to be especially crazy on Sundays. There were definitely more street performers, including a huge number of people dressed up and dancing to 50's American rock 'n' roll music. Lots of giant, greased up pompadours.
I decided to hike up to the Meiji Jingu shrine in the area, beginning my walk down a series of wide paths to the shrine by entering under a huge Japanese gate.
I was approached by five university students who said they wanted to follow me through to the shrine and practice their English with me - in exchange they would answer any questions I had and try to tell me about the shrine. Apparently I was their first try at this exercise. Most of the time if I asked a question they would quickly flip through a packet of info sheets they had to try to find the answer for me in English. They did help me out by making sure I didn't step on parts of the shrine I shouldn't, made sure i washed my hands before entering, and showed me the procedure for making an offering and a wish at the shrine. If you're wondering, the correct way to make a shrine offering (at least according to these guys) is to toss a coin into the bins within the shrine, bow twice, clap twice, silently make your wish, and then bow again. The second I finished a guy in the shrine banged a huge, loud drum. I asked if this was bad, and they said no, it just means it's 2:00 in the afternoon. We took some pictures and I said bye to my new friends.
Later I went over to Omotesando, one of the most upscale places for shopping in the whole city, and also where some of the the most interesting architecture can be found. Tadao Ando's Omotesando Hills has this very interesting layout once you're inside, with all of the stores accessible from a ramp that spirals in an angular fashion up and down several floors from street level. One trip around the ramp brings you up to the next floor, where you can also take escalators to get places more quickly. Ando's trademark concrete panels are everywhere, mixing with glass store fronts to create a very elegant place for shopping.
Just down the street, the 4 story Tod's store by Toyo Ito also uses the same concrete panels, but here there are sliced up by flush angular blue glass panels, creating a sort of webbed facade that is as fun to experience from the interior as it appears on the exterior.
I made my way to the Omotesando subway station to take the train over to my workplace, Nikken Sekkei, Ltd. It is right in the center of the city just south of the Tokyo Dome. The building is very handsome as one might expect from a huge international design firm, with impeccable sidewalk plantings and materials around the entrance. It was interesting to find a couple families out tossing a ball or hitting a badminton on the sidewalks outside the office in this seemingly very commercial downtown area.
For my last stop, I headed over to Shinjuku to find the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building by Kenzo Tange. As far as I know, there's no other city hall in the world quite like this - a enormous 50 story tower atop a 5 or 6 story podium housing even more offices. There is an impressive circular entrance plaza with a size and scale that feels almost like a modern version of the the plaza in front of Vatican City. After waiting in line to take the elevator, I was shot 45 floors upwards to the viewing deck with an amazing view over the city. As you might expect, the city stretches out to the horizon, just endless buildings and people. It is exciting to be up there looking out at the biggest city in the world. It must be awesome at night - I'll have to go back.
Work started today but I'll save that for the next post. Check y'all later.
Your height does give legitimacy to the phrase "everything's bigger in Texas."
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