Tokyo

I took the metro and then the monorail across the Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba which was on the other side of Tokyo Bay. I walked along the promenade past beach volleyball courts, views of the two-tier Rainbow Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty
Inside the Diver City Mall, there were lots of shops, eateries and games such as tenpin bowling, with a 20m high statue of Uniform Gundam outside.
Besides being a leisure district of Tokyo, it was also being developed as a technology district. I went inside the excellent Miraikan, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation which had opened in 2001. It had lots of exhibits, some hands-on, and sections dealing with robots, AI, climate change, earthquakes and other disasters, the brain, etc. You could spend all day there. There was also a cafe overlooking Odaiba where I had a snack lunch.
I stood in the front carriage of the Yurikamone monorail on the way back across Tokyo Bay, and then took the metro back to Shinjuku.
For dinner, I went to Omoide Yokocho, a famous alley behind Shinjuku Station, which had lots of small booths with stalls at the bar. The one I went in could sit eight. I had chicken and asparagus wrapped in bacon on skewers plus a draft beer.
In the evening on TV, there was a concert with a suite from Gotterdammerung. At the end, there was the same ritual as at the Suntory Hall concert with the head of each section rising before the whole section, and then the whole woodwind section rising. The conductor departed leaving the Leader to rise to take the applause before leading off the whole orchestra. The audience then departed, another example of the Japanese following the rules in a well-ordered society.Leggi altro