Japan, day 4. Asakusa, subways, informal neighborhoods and clubs in Tokyo
In the morning we twirled around the entrance to the Imperial Palace (see photo). The palace grounds are allowed twice a year. I really liked the combination of a traditional Japanese park with a modern line of skyscrapers behind it. This view makes a special impression. Combining the incompatible turns out to be either a complete failure or something brilliant. Here - ingeniously (see photo).
Japanese temples are inferior to Indian and Nepalese in all respects, except for cleanliness. The grandeur, depth, energy of the Nepalese Hindu and Buddhist temples is enhanced by a huge army of believers. Yes, temples in Nepal are primitive and dirty, but they are real. And here, in Japan, religion seems to be secondary. Wandering around Japanese temples, I personally see short-lived wooden buildings with no special architecture, mostly tourists rather than believers, and rituals "for fun". Instead of meditation, they clap their hands and ring a bell.
Instead of sacrifices, they buy candles and write their wishes on them. Asakusa in a number of temples did not surprise, and did not interest.
The observation deck of the Tokyo city hall is clean, neat, far away. The Mayor was not seen.
We watched Tokyo's Harajuku district, namely Tageishita-Dori Street, where "dark lolitas", painted like dolls, are usually concentrated. But we were unlucky and only a few original suits and backpacks fell victim to our hunt. By the way, on the same street is the largest in Japan "100-yennik", a store where all sorts of things for the home are sold at a price of 105 yen apiece.
For dinner, the company took us to a national restaurant and introduced us to another type of Japanese "party" food. If broth was boiling in the shabu-shabu in the center of the table, now there was a Japanese round grill on which we fried vegetables and meat of various types and methods of cutting.
It looks great and is delicious to eat, but personally I liked the "boiled" shabu-shabu more. Still, overcooking meat is very easy, but it is impossible to digest. Yes, and boiling water is more conducive to measured communication than constantly burning meat. It was Friday, the restaurant was full...of men. In addition to the women from our group, we did not see any more in the entire restaurant. These are the principles of the Japanese family - women are at home with children, and men are "on the front line" not only during the day, but also in the evening. Almost all the men came right after work, you could see it in their suits and ties.
Go to the Club. Everyone understands that visiting Tokyo and not going to a dance club is a sin. Our whole group sinned, and only three righteous people went in search of adventure. I received recommendations about the Womb club from a wonderful person who has been passionate about music and Japan since childhood. For this I am extremely grateful to her. I did not discuss her advice and did not question it.
The adventure began with planning a route from the hotel to the club.
The main difficulty is that not all streets in Japan have names. Therefore, the addresses consist of the name of the area and instructions on how to get there, and for mail they look like a set of numbers through a dash. This is strange and incomprehensible to a Westerner. Therefore, even with the address of the institution, it is difficult to understand exactly where it is located. Luckily Google. Maps knows how to search not only by address, but also by the name of the institution, and he knew the Womb club in the Shibuya area. The second problem is the subway.
Tokyo subway. You may have already seen the Tokyo subway map. To a Kievan, and to a Muscovite too, it will seem like horror. But in fact, everything turns out to be easier. This is because instead of advertising and architectural delights, the Tokyo subway is hung with signs, maps, diagrams and tables (see photo).
For example, stations have not only a line diagram, but also a street exit diagram (stations sometimes turn out to be 2-3 and even 4-storey with a huge number of exits), the exact time of arrival and departure of each train, etc. . The subway closes at about midnight and reopens at half past four in the morning, and that suited us. Clubs start working from 11-12 at night, so we drove around midnight. The subway is full at this time. Basically, tired and sleepy managers return from work. Intelligent girls and young men in business suits fall asleep in carriages and at stations, sitting and standing. At such moments, some words about the heavy traditions of the Japanese are filled with meaning. People work hard on their pensions, giving their youth to the company they work for.
Around 1:30 am, we take the escalator up from Shibuya Station...and we're in real rush hour. There are a lot of cars on the street, a lot of people (see photo).
During the day I did not see such crowds of people as at night. At half past one, everything is open from fast food to hairdressers. Looking ahead, I will say that when we returned from the club at 4:30 in the morning, a third of the establishments continued to work, and there were still quite a lot of people on the streets. At 4:30 in the morning we ate from the sushi tape in a restaurant where there were a lot of people. I have never seen such a night movement in Manhattan.
Club Womb - great! Something similar to the Kyiv Cinema, but this review is no longer for a travel site.
To be continued!
