Day 2 - Ginza, Hibiya, Imperial Palace, Roppongi, Nishi Azabu

As Krusty disappeared off to work (I kept forgetting that this was a business trip...) I was a little disorientated, as I didn't really know this part of Tokyo. I just wandered around a little aimlessly until I reached Ginza to do a spot of Ginbura - or "Strolling in Ginza". Not that I have nearly enough cash to afford any of the luxury labels that the hoards of ladies who lunch covet as they sip their iced tea covered from head to toe in them... No literally, head to toe - the weather was perfect, very hot but with a regular breeze to keep it comfortable, but these gals were tightly clad in boots, sweaters, gloves and hats, topped off with sunglasses and umbrellas. No chance of them catching a tan and ruining the effects of the thousands of yen they had already spent on whitening cream. Anyway, I sweltered sans parasol around the eight blocks to marvel at the facades of the 10,000 shops, like the sparkly mirrored Swarowski boutique, or the luxe, golden Cartier one...

Of course I also couldn't really afford anything to eat, so I dashed into a side alley to find something cheaper, loving the balance of really wide roads that allow complete appreciation of the buildings and the smaller side alleys full of secret pubs and tiny shops. I found St Marc Cafe, which looked good enough, and enjoyed a Chococro (chocolate croissant) served by polite, smiley, helpful staff, which makes a change from Hong Kong service standards. There was no English, though, so I had to dig deep into my memory to act out the words for tea (cha) and cold (samui), forgetting what iced was. Surprisingly, I remember quite a bit, and once I got into it, I realised I miss this place and the challenge to learn its language. I somehow don't feel the urge to learn Cantonese in HK, perhaps because I don't need to. Here, without Japanese, it's really tough. Although it's become much easier than it was in 2004.

Unfortunately, at the end of my Ginbura, and even after fighting past the hoards of businessmen reading comics on their lunch break in the 7-11 combini (convenience store), I had failed to find a place to buy a sim card for my phone (or rather failed to find the Japanese words to locate the person who would sell me one), so I shuffled back to the hotel to get in touch with Krusty. While I waited for his call, I flipped through the TV channels, settling for TV Asahi. I think you can learn a lot about a country by looking at what's on TV (like the insane number of debates on TV in France, or reality TV in the UK...). Here I found that what's on people's minds is... well... I'm not sure. I saw a man trying to jump off a high rise only to be convinced not to by a policeman, whose best argument was to whip out a pair of scissors and a sheet of red paper and then cut out a heart shape out of it. This seemed to give the man the will to live again, somehow. Then I saw a man in a leather gimp costume singing karaoke, and a tranny in a rice paddy learning all about the harvest. What?!

It was time to leave the hotel again before I myself went to jump off the roof without any number of paper hearts to stop me, and so I went for a walk through nearby Hibiya Park. It's so lovely to see all of these people after work just talking the time to sit and enjoy nature (or were they just putting off going home?). Tokyo is full of green spots, and they really do provide oases of calm where it seems that the rest of the city and its incessant soundtrack just melts away. Nature is really important here. As the heart and soul of the park demonstrates - when Dr Seiroku Honda (the park's designer) heard that his giant gingko tree was to be felled to make room for a road in 1899, he said "move it elsewhere, or put my head on a stake." A little extreme, perhaps, but the Kubi-Kake (Head Stake) Gingko still stands.

The park opens out onto the Imperial Palace, or rather the moat and gravel around it, as us mere mortals have no right to go any closer to the Emperor's abode. After a long stroll admiring the palace from afar, I dove into the bowels of the subway system armed with a strange drink of almond milk with mango chunks, being careful to obey the vendor's request to "bewaru chokey topping", and made my way to Roppongi, the new business hub where Krusty has a business meeting. When I lived here this was also the absolute heart of sleaze, so we were sure to encounter a completely different type of "Nature" that night...

But Roppongi seems to have cleaned up a bit, and even though it was early, there were no signs of drunken expats throwing up on policemen's shoes, as there were last time I was here... We didn't take our chances though, and made our way to Nishi Azabu wih Krusty's colleagues for dinner in the feodal castle that inspired 'that' scene in Kill Bill, Gonpachi. It was a little Disneyesque, but very Japanese and Krusty loved it. He kept repeating that he was just expecting a load of ninjas to jump out and a take over. At last he was starting to get that 'Samurai' feeling he had been complaining about not getting at the airport...