More Japan...
Where was I?
Oh, right, the crossroads.
Well, here's a picture of it at ground-level:
And that's not a particularly busy time. Went on it today and there was probably twice as many people there!
So, later I wondered around town by foot. Shibuya is a pretty cool area - I'm one of the oldest people here - everyone else looks like they're in their 20's!
Anyway, I wondered up the hill from the hotel and went towards a shrine..hang on, I'll draw a map.
Phew, there you go :
Right, that's easier.
The red circle at the bottom is where my hotel and that crossroads are located.
The wiggly red line is where I walked on Sunday. The first red circle you come to is Harajuku, and that's where they all dress up on a sunday...like this :
Then I wondered off to the temple itself. No, wait, I think it's a shrine, not a temple. They're two different things in Japan, one's Buddist and the other's something else. You're on the web, look it up. I'm jetlagged!
Apparently, there will be more on that tomorrow, because it's not letting me post any more pictures. Boo!
That'll make this next part less interesting, not that I have any pictures of the juicy bit!
So, if you've managed to get this far, you might be wondering what the blue wiggle on the map represents. Well, it's my walk to the office, where I went today.
Not much to report on that - well, not to you, because it's pretty dull, although they will be bloody riveted at work let me tell you.
Anyhow, after work, Philip who I've been visiting took me out to eat and it transpires to see some of the seedier stuff. I was seriously spooked to be honest. We're walking around town after the meal when someone comes up to us on the street and asks if we want to see his club, so Philip says 'sure' and we get in an extremely dodgy looking lift (seriously - it had some sort of dirty cloth covering the floor and walls, like if you needed to clear up blood you could just lift it out and replace it!). Takes us up 6 floors to see a tiny room with 3 or 4 hookers in it.
Me, being reluctant to partake he then takes us to another floor with his better girls! Again I refused (they were nicer, but I found the whole scene too tragic for words to be honest). So we came out. I thought we were dead, but everyone was extremely polite, and in fact they didn't even try the hard sell particularly on us.
As we came out, the owners friend said "You took them to the third floor and they're still not interested!". It's sad - they show you the best ones last...like cattle. Oh gosh, I've sounding all PC. It's not that I think it's wrong in some Daily Mail moral crusader kind of way, I just think it's sad.
So this place is more liberated than you'd think, and amazingly seems very safe and polite with it. My collegue (he lives here, but he's actually a canadian of chinese descent!) says that these places are perfectly safe, and I think he's probably right.
We had beef to eat by the way. It's honestly the most tender and best steak I've ever tasted. This wasn't even Kobi beef - just good Japanese steak. The guy showed it to us first and then cooked it on an open charcole grill in the same room. Very nice it was too. I'd post a picture, but apparently I can't. Maybe tomorrow!
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