Visits to Japan (Tokyo)

Visits to Tokyo

Bravo originality, go to a country to visit his capital ... Yeah, but it's a must. Tokyo is not described as cosmopolitan for nothing. Tokyo is modernity and tradition that live in harmony, it's the electric city of Akihabara on one side and the Asakusa folklore district on the other, and so much more ... and yes , it's beautiful.

- Shinjuku-Gyoen Park

A few hectometres of the business district of Shinjuku, the largest park of the city offers on about 59 ha, 20 000 trees (including 1500 cherry trees celebrated throughout the country in the spring !!) and a successful landscape result !!
Access is not free, but it's worth more than a look !! Huge spaces beautifully landscaped either French, English or Japanese.
The greenhouse is also worth seeing. A tea house is stashed near the Japanese portion.

- Shibuya

The world's most famous crossroads and zebra crossings are in this busy, rather cheap neighborhood outside many department stores.
It does not lose a whole day, given the lack of centers of interest available on site.
Just the time to look at the statue of the famous Hachikō, the city's classic meeting point (the equivalent of the St-Michel fountain of the parigots), to roam the Mandarake rays, without missing the fascinating ballet of the cohorts of Hundreds of pedestrians constantly crossing each other, passing New York for a friendly, almost depopulated village ...

- Ginza

If you are a fan of luxury and architecture, Ginza is your neighborhood!
All major brands have their shop, nestled in their building, necessarily drawn by an archi under MDMA!
There is frankly more horrible neighborhood, but we must recognize that the visual audacity of some buildings is often successful. Do not miss visiting the beautiful and ancient Haibara Kyukyodo stationery near the Wako building.

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- Kappabashi-dori

Kappabashi-dori is more commonly known as the "utensil district".
This long avenue (as well as its small perpendicular streets) is a little "the Path of the restaurateurs", version professional equipment of kitchen.
If you are looking for Japanese signage, a useless signboard, expensive knives, a shrimp or a plastic beer, you will surely find your "happiness" on this artery and its side channels.

- Tsukiji Market

If you want to see Japanese people do not spontaneously say hello, make mouth, clout outside authorized areas (in Tokyo, as in other major cities, smoking in the street is prohibited, areas are developed and reported for this activity), the market of Tsukiji is the ideal place to observe "the dark side of the nervous Japanese, who works among the hordes of tourists" !!
The largest fish market in the world, which has been announced for years the move to a more "adapted" site, does not end up fascinating the legions of curious.
If the prospect of seeing gigantic carcasses of bluefin tuna fed to the grinder, observing oddities, crustaceans or other living cephalopods excites you, then you will spend a good time in this huge hall destroyed, whose wanderings require vigilance of all moments (very high percussion risk with local Fenwick).
The adjacent streets are armored with gargoyles that offer breakfast for amateur pigeons and local customers.

- Yanaka Cemetery and neighborhood

Like Père-Lachaise (this typical French disease that always consists of comparing places compared to home !!), the Yanaka cemetery is a bucolic place to walk, throwing you for a couple of hours outside. the teeming megacity, home to the mausoleums of some legendary personalities (including the last shōgun) and other endemic heroes, as well as a strong living feline community ...
The surrounding area is aesthetically pleasing, giving the impression of walking in a large village concealing a multitude of temples as deserted as appeasing ...

- Omotesandō

Considered as the "Champs-Elysees of Tokyo", Omotesandō is the most frontal competitor district of Ginza, in terms of luxury shops and architecture.
The big brands have invested in these two neighborhoods !! This is again a debauchery of buildings "dizaïgneu" and luxury ostentatious.
Largely less intimidating and selective than the shops of the Place Vendôme, one can enter the latter, in "poor curious". This is also the "4F" of the "Gyre Tower" that can be local lunch without much ruin, in 丸角 (almost opposite the Tokyo version of Pre-Glass), in traditional posture version, with nice urban view from the mezzanine, to enjoy soups, vegetables and shellfish tempura ...

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- Zōjō-ji Park

If the Tokyo Tower has only a very limited interest for the average French (dubious copy of the Eiffel Tower), the neighboring Buddhist park of Zōjō-ji is quite intriguing to linger.
The Boeotian who slumbers in me stopped at the visual eccentricity of the statuettes, not to burst into precious synapses to try to understand the meaning and symbols staged.

- Asakusa Hotel Sky Bar & Asahi Sky Room

Tokyo is a vertiginous city certainly, but is not a megalopolis stuffed with skyscrapers.
Also, one can easily "kiss" the view of the impressive panoramas of the city, without having to climb hundreds of meters high (even if the Tokyo Sky Tree with its 634 meters of verticality is a very visible exception)!
The "sky bars" are the perfect way to see the city from another angle.
The Asahi Sky Tower sits alongside the "Super Dry Hall", nickname vachard given by the Tokyo to the work of Philippe Starck. The set belongs to Asahi breweries.
On the 26th floor of the tower, the Asahi Sky Room (another "Asahi bar" sits on the forecourt of the "Super Dry Hall") offers light and thirst-quenching beers.
As for the sky bar of the "Asakusa Hotel" (27F), its access is possible only by taking a formula "nibbles + a drink of your choice" to 2300 yen (about 17 €).
An offer available at the "Grill Bar" (the hotel must have 6 or 7 restaurants, plus an exclusive private bar one floor above).
The place is more cozy than the Asahi Sky Room, more eccentric too !!
But again, the panorama must be worthy of the famous and expensive Park Hyatt of Shinjuku.

Here are some crumbs of this city, difficult impossible to summarize because of its dimensions, its diversity, its complexity ...
To return there 20 times, during 1 month, must be hardly enough to touch the outlines.