First we took a tour of the Imperial Palace. Not of the palace itself, mind you, just the grounds that surround it. It was pretty gorgeous. I should point out that most of the things we saw which involved nature in any way come with the caveat that it would have looked nicer in the spring. The things I saw were undeniably beautiful and the weather was great, but it was still early February. Lots of the trees were bare and some of the flowers hadn't quite started to bud yet. That being said though, the Imperial Palace had some pretty fantastic grounds and architecture. There were a few old structures still remaining which used to house the samurai who guarded the emperor that looked really cool.
Afterwards we went to the Shibuyah Crossing, which is rumoured to be the busiest intersection in the world. I wouldn't be surprised at all of this was true. There were so many people that for a moment I couldn't even see myself through the crowd. There was some great shopping to be had in this area, including a massive Tower Records with music from all over the world. We spent some time here before moving on to Shinjuku, which is where the real craziness was: the Robot Restaurant.
To save you some googling, the Robot Restaurant is basically a two-hour long show where people dress in crazy costumes and do awesome stuff. There was a girl in a silver-white wig just rocking the fuck out on some drums, a dude playing a bass guitar wearing a horse-head mask, a synchronized Michael Jackson dance including the famous lean during Smooth Criminal and of course the show itself. The "plot," if it can so be called, was basically this: there once was a peaceful forest planet, and then the evil robot empire invaded, and then they fought. There were people riding giant mecha-tanks, lizards, sharks, a giant monkey flying on a giant moth that breathed fire. It blew my mind to pieces and then blew up the individual pieces.
Before going to the Restaurant we actually met up with our friends Sara and Olivia who were headed there at the same time. I believe before the show they told me, "We can't stay out and drink too late because we have to be on an early bus tomorrow." About thirty minutes later the first intermission was called and something to the effect of, "Eh, fuck that," was said, so we drank a lot. When the show was over we went to the Golden Gai district and found the world's tiniest pub and drank entirely too much beer and sake for three people.
I woke up...somewhere, on day 3 and proceeded to get incredibly lost on the Tokyo subway system for about an hour. It turns out if you get on a train heading in the wrong direction on the Tokyo subway, you can't just get out and cross the platform and get on the other train. Because sometimes that train will be on a completely different line and you'll wind up in, like, Alaska or something. But day three is also when I got to have Japanese sushi for the first time and go to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, which has an excellent observation area for free views of the city. Day three was a pretty chill day of shopping, drinking and ramen, which was nice because I was nursing the sort of hangover that could end a career.
I slept well that night, which was good because day 4 would bring just an unreasonable amount of walking.
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