Sunday, November 4, 2007

Shinjuku (新宿) - updated/recovered

The main thing that made me want to visit Shinjuku was the Tokyo Metropolitan Building which I must admit is pretty darn impressive. It's almost like taken straight out of a post-modern anime story (actually I read somewhere that the building does show up in at least one anime). The building itself is flanked by many other buildings of similar design. I heard that one could visit the top floor which I am pretty sure would have an amazing view but I did not see any signs for that and my father was not in the mood for walking around the building. It seems like on Sundays the whole neighborhood of that building is pretty calm. We saw may be 20 or so people total in 10 minutes of walking around. That number is pretty much negligible in Tokyo...



The Shinjuku JR/Subway station is one of the most heavily used stations and it was no different today. There are immense underground passageways linking the station entrance to the government buildings neighborhood as well as some deparment stores. It must be because it was a sunday afternoon that the stores in the passageway and spots where I think street performers perform were all closed and deserted. I was not impressed much with the deparment stores and street vendors that I saw. One funny thing I saw was that Yodabashi Camera, which is a huge electronics store chain, basically seems to have bought 6 buildings close to one another and made each one a different department (i.e. one store selling just watches, one concentrating on computers and peripherals, etc.). I also saw a lot of arcades but did not get a chance to check them out. I think I will go back on a Saturday to check out the place again.

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