Drinks and Fish in the Bitter Valley

First things first, alcohol is remarkably cheap in Japan. Like massively cheap. They also have a very liberal attitude towards alcohol sales, with alcoholic drinks being available from supermarkets, department stores, liquor/tobacco stores, vending machines, and even pharmacies!

This works out at about $80 for 3 litres...

...and this about $25

Some of us in the hall thought we'd go and buy a bottle of something for Friday night, as it was raining pretty hard and noone really wanted to go out. With a prelude that sounds like the start of a joke - an American, a Hungarian and a New Zealander walk into a convenience store, we came away with 700ml of Japan's famous domestically produced whisky, Suntory. All for a very reasonably priced $15! We bought assorted snacks to go with (such as the pictured Pringles), and set about playing cards for the evening, with a very enjoyable time had by all. 

For the occasion I also purchased a 'Strong Zero', which is basically an RTD in NZ, only far less sweet, being sugar free (hence the 'zero' in the name), but as you can see, they are 9%. These retail for about $2.20 in supermarkets, so how the entire Japanese population isn't blotto the entire time I do not know. Ordinarily this isn't what I'd drink, but I'd seen some documentary or news piece on them, and so I figured I'd give them a try - nothing terribly remarkable, but good to do! The evening ended with the receptionists of the hall coming around at about 11.45, telling us we needed to wrap up by midnight - not that we were being loud (we weren't), but midnight is when the common room needs to be empty apparently. Fine to do it in your room though, curiously. What made things even funnier was that on a weeknight a similar situation had occurred, though sans alcohol, and no hall monitoring took place, with things wrapping up after midnight with no instruction from anyone.

For Saturday, the hall in all it's infinite wisdom, had set about doing this:

"There will be no elevators, power or water between 8.30 and 12 on Saturday morning"

Needless to say I was not looking forward to experiencing this, so I made myself get up early on Saturday, with the intention of going and exploring Shibuya. Shibuya is a part of Tokyo, downtown and popular with young people, but with some high market shopping as well. It used to be the site of the Shibuya family castle, and for whatever reason, their name translates to 'Bitter/Astringent Valley' - a bit unfortunate really! It is famous for having the busy street crossing that is often featured in movies, and also Hachiko square, which is where a loyal Shiba-inu dog named Hachiko would wait for his deceased master from 1923 to 1935, becoming a celebrity in the process. There is a statue of him now, which was packed with people, and for some reason a cat when I went there. In all honesty, I was totally oblivious where I was at the time, just seeing people around a dog statue for some reason, and only later did I think, 'ohhhhh, that was Hachiko' - I'm such a bad tourist/Japophile.

Speaking of statues, Shibuya seems to be full of them! Ranging from what I'd call traditional sculpture to more contemporary stuff, and then marketing and promotional ones - all bases are covered!

Trying to be like Belgium's peeing boy maybe?

This one was called 'A Fruit'

A restaurant dealing in fugu, or blowfish. Notice the tank of them in bottom right.

Col. Sanders sells beer in Japan! Fried chicken and beer, my two favourite things!

I do not know who this dog is, but they are a little worse for wear...

Headphones?

Stormtroopers protecting one of the tills in Tower Records

My strategy to exploring Shibuya was to walk up one side of a street until it looked like there was nothing much else to be had, then cross over and return to the centre, before moving to the next street. This approach took me past many weird and wonderful billboards, shops and signs, and pop up displays such as these:

For some typical British fare?

Naturally Disney has a presence in Shibuya

The Unexpected. Expect it.

This last one was a promotion run by some new mobile game, and there was a huge throng of people gathered around. Curious, I joined a queue and when it came to be my turn, I tried through balls into the rainbow coloured eye, which raised up to reveal a cavity inside. Unfortunately I could not manage it, having one bounce off the lip, but for those who could, the dragon would rotate it's head 360 degrees, and then spit out a coloured egg. This egg could then be exchanged for a prize, and those who got gold ones, a 1500 yen voucher for the department store adjacent to the display was also given. For my efforts, I was given a plastic document folder with the game logo on - free stationery is free stationery so I'm not complaining!

Perhaps the best display though was for the mega store Donkihote (think Don Quixote). This store sells literally EVERYTHING, from cosmetics and clothes to fresh fruit and veges to bedding, electronics, lollies and bicycles. I had previously bought a Pikachu onesie when I was here last from another Donkihote, and so coming to the MEGA DONKI store I had to take a look inside (all 6 floors).

Upon reading an emergency existed, I panicked, needless to say

The contents were weird and wonderful as you can see, though I have a slight bias towards Star Wars things (including the Star Wars Character Heads that store your waterbottle - yes please!). However the thing that took the cake for me was at the entrance. As part of some collaboration with Palau, they had several large aquariums holding various tropical fish species. I was quite amused at my response relative to those of the people around me, who were acting as if it were nothing special - only in Japan I suppose!

I found Nemo!

This weird and wonderful display was a sight to behold, and I spent quite some time there enjoying the colours and array of species there. I'd earlier seen a single species aquarium, at the blowfish restaurant, which had a big holding tank of the fish, presumably so you could say, 'I'll have that one, and please prepare it well so I don't die"

Moving on, I found myself some lunch, had a look at some shoe shops (I will do a blog post on shoes in the future), and then retired to a cafe where there was free wifi. 

Some very tasty ramen noodle soup

By this point I'd been on my feet for a good 5 or so hours, and was enjoying the cool air and seating in the cafe. I'd previously arranged to go to an art book show with a friend close by, so when she said she was heading there I made my way to meet with her. This took us to a very hip and happening part of Tokyo with lots of expensive boutique art stores and plenty of displays. Unfortunately we had arrived at about the time the last lot of people were being allowed in, so we had just missed that, but I was more than content taking a little meander around the other galleries that were present.

This bottom one was in an art gallery that deals in ink work, and they had an entire wall of pigment powders in glass jars, with a spectacular array of colours on show; I'd say the wall was 30m long and 3m high - I'd hate to have to clean up after an earthquake!

My wanderings took me on into the evening, seeing all kinds of things, meeting different people and generally being dumbstruck by the sensory overload of sight, smell, sound and taste. I came across Tower Records, one of the largest music stores in the world:

However, and on this note I will finish, because this will be a standalone blog entry when I make my way here properly, but I was intrigued by this cool, forested building:

Walking inside, there was something of a plaza which had all manner of food options, but one in particular took my breath away:

The Holy destination for New Zealanders!

Now bearing in mind I have not read nor heard anything about this place, I am wanting to go in with an open mind, but I am immensely looking forward to experiencing one of their meat pies and seeing how it stacks against the classic NZ Dairy pie (probably a bit more expensive but what an experience).

So there you have it, two blog posts in one day, how about that! Until next time!

Troy :)