This is part two of quite a few (probably four) ‘catch-up’ posts that I meant to do but in the end I got caught up watching all of the torrential storms we had. I don’t know why, but I could watch a storm for hours. I don’t even know why. All it does is remind me of England. The difference being when we have a storm in the UK, it’s just powerful enough to stop you doing anything, but nothing spectacular. When it rains in Japan, the drops are so hard they bore through buildings, and everyone walks around doing Matrix-esque bullet-time stunts, just to get a loaf of bread.

Anyway, part one of said series was the Koenji Awaodori, which was absoloutely brilliant. Part two was the trip I took up Tokyo tower. The thing that links these events was that my mum was with me. Although in all honesty the only thing that links them is that I forgot to blog about them, as I’m a terrible writer.

The Mighty Tower Of Tokyo

So that is Tokyo Tower. Half way up there is a two story white building, that’s where we went. You can pay more and go right up to the top, but apparently it’s not worth it unless it’s a mind-blowingly clear day (it wasn’t), so we didn’t bother.

The windows allow for a 360 view of Tokyo, and from the tower you can see Odaiba, Shinjuku and all the other places really rich people live. You can’t see Oji, but I think they might have just put up a giant mirror to block it from view. Nobody wants to travel half way around the world to see my dormitories, let me tell you.

Looking north east towards Atago, Onarimon, and Shimbashi.

As I’m terrible at geography I have no idea what exactly we’re looking at here, but as you can see the towers are very big and scary. When the Tokyo Sky Tree (the world’s soon-to-be tallest tower) is finished, you’ll be able to see it like a giant eyesore, I suppose.

Looking south east towards Odaiba and the dreaded immigration centre.

Here you can see the Odaiba wheel (which I wrote about aaaages ago here) as well as the end of the rainbow bridge, and more importantly, all the grey, depressing, identical buildings that make Tokyo just so friendly! In fact, if you look back over my blog posts, especially 06-07, it’s depressing how few photos actually don’t contain at least one concrete juggernaught. Oh well.

Anyway, that’s part one of ‘Oh whoops I have a blog I should write it’ over and done with! Tune in next week next month next year at some point for the next installment!

These photos are on Flickr, if you go there you can see much bigger versions.

Edit:Thanks to Drew in the comments for helping me work out where everything is.

Today I had my visa extended, and to do that I had to go to the Tokyo Immigration Office ( 入国管理局 ) in Shinagawa. It was a total and utter nightmare.

To sum up my frustration, I made a video. Click the image below to watch!

Every so often, you witness something so utterly different, so very apart from your own culture or comfort sphere, that it blows you away. To be honest, it only happened to me a few times in Japan. Maybe I’m not easily impressed. Maybe I’m more international than I realise. Nevertheless, attending Koenji’s annual Awaodori dance (Wikipedia Article) blew my mind into tiny fragments…

Basically, groups of people dancing something called ‘The Fool’s Dance’ parade their way around some of the streets of Koenji, a district of Tokyo. Each group dances their way around quite a long course, whilst literally thousands of energetic overenthusiastic drunk people cheer them on. It’s a fantastic celebration.

What blew my mind, though, was the reminder of how bizarrely open Japan can be. My mother, visiting Japan for only 10 days, jumped at the chance to borrow my friends yukata. Now in England, if a foreigner turned out in traditional English clothing (whatever that is), everyone would shake their heads and mutter about how tacky it was. But in Koenji? Not at all – everyone was far too busy joining in and ignoring the rain. Hundreds of times both the crowd and the dancers smiled and nodded at her, acknowledging and appreciating interest in their culture and traditions.

In short, the festival brought out the best in everyone.

These photos show some of the amazing clothes the dancers were wearing, but to do them justice I uploaded some pictures here in huge dimensions. Despite the downpour, I hope you guys can check out the awesome effort that went into their attire.

So, I officially annouce that when I come over here to study in September 2009, I will join an Awaodori dance troupe, and perform in August 2010. That’s a promise.

Koenji Awaodori Photo Gallery

Just when you thought I’d given up on videos altogether!

It’s been far too long since my last update, and even longer since a text based one. So apologies for that. As you may be aware, the camcorder I used is currently somewhat out of action, so until I find some other way to get it working, it’s text all the way, baby! (Plus the occasional dorms-based video, I suppose).

Anyway, yesterday I, the two current volunteers, plus the father and sister of one of them, headed to the SEGA Joypolis amusement park in Odaiba. Rather than talk about what I did in boring chronological order, here are my thoughts on a few of the most memorable rides;

Halfpipe Canyon

This ride is fantastic. Basically you and one other person are strapped to a giant snowboard that swings in a giant 180 degrees halfpipe, and whilst you are in the middle you must quickly rock your feet back and forth, causing the board itself to spin around. You get 1 point for doing it at the top of a turn and three if you do it in the middle. I think you go for around 90 seconds, and the winners get a big round of applause from the spectators. It’s a lot harder than it looks.

Room Of Living Dolls

These things are in quite a lot of theme parks, I think. You sit in the middle of a room, the place goes black and a load of scary music and talking happens, with the occasional flash of light or something. This one is actually a really well done one – you wear headphones and a creepy grandma cuts your hair, then asks to take your ears and eyes to give to her living Japanese doll. I won’t spoil it too much, but it’s not very tacky at all, although it is only in Japanese. I managed to understand most of it, but if you’re not a speaker then it’s just going to sound like a lot of jibberish with the occasional gory sound effect.

Prisonbreak -Breakout-

You’re taken into the room with an actor, and must break out of prison. I’m going to talk about my experience here – the woman we got was hilarious. At one point one of the guards fires his gun at her, and she was commando rolling all over the place to avoid his “bullets”. It was fantastic – the choices you make are a bit unfair (if you choose the wrong way, you die) but the ride itself is fantastic fun, although I guess if you got a bored actor (one of the people on the haunted dolls one looked so bored it ruined the end of the experience) it wouldn’t be as good. I would say this is a very short ‘ride’, so if there’s a big queue it’s probably not worth it.

Burnout Running

One of the best rides – up to four of you play at once. You have a running machine treadmill thing and a button. You do three events – 100m, hurdles & long jump, each of which involves running really fast and hitting the ‘action’ button at the right time. It’s really good fun, this one, especially if you do what we did and put naughty words as your three letter name. Nothing like being beaten in a long jump by Mr. WTF.

They were my favourite three rides. Here’s a quick run down of a few others;

Outrun 2 SP - This is cool, you have a four player race and each of you sit in a real car that moves around with you. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that I was rubbish at getting the car to drift, which is the key to victory. Oh well.

Let’s Go Jungle! Special - Is one of those ‘point your gun at the screen and shoot everything that moves’ games, the ‘everything’ here being spiders and so forth. You sit in a sort of pod that spins you around so you fire both in front and behind of your characters. It’s quite good, although viciously difficult.

House Of The Dead 4 - Exactly the same as Let’s Go Jungle! but with zombies instead of spiders.

Spin Bullet - This is a really short rollercoaster that at one point goes outside the building and gives you a great look at Odaiba. The problem? This ride beats the living hell out of you. I hated it because it nearly castrated me. Ouch.

So there you go! If you have a spare day in Tokyo do head over to Joypolis. If you go after 5pm you pay a small entrance fee and all the rides are free! Success! Go on a weekday if you can to avoid the crush. I’d also recommend eating before you go in, unless you’re a big fan of over inflation.