Skytree and one of Tokyo’s oddest buildings, the Philippe Starck-designed offices for the beer brewer Asahi. As well as being part of a complex that includes restaurants, shops and even an aquarium, the Skytree’s observation decks provide by far the best panoramic views of Tokyo.
Chanko nabe, consisting of a dashi or chicken-broth soup base, large amounts of protein and served with rice, is a staple food eaten by sumo wrestlers.
Top-ranked sumo wrestlers parade on the dohyo (ring) prior to the day’s main bouts. You can get tickets for as little as ¥2,260 for what is a very unique spectacle.
AKIHABARA
Tokyo’s Geekiest Neighborhood
Akihabara in northeast Tokyo is geek land—a home for cosplayers, comic fans, anime lovers, Godzilla figurine collectors, retro arcade game addicts, and many others who proudly call themselves otaku. In one word, you can call it colorful. With a few more words—add techy, vibrant and frequently bizarre.
Akiba, as it’s known for short, started to attract otaku (geeks) in the late 1980s as part of the video game boom, and gaming is still big in the area, with a mix of retro and high-tech “game centers” (arcades) as well as stores like Retro Game Camp and Traders that have every conceivable kind of PC and console game available. Then came the anime and manga. Most obviously you can see this out in the streets, where it’s common to see otaku cosplayers dressed up as their favorite characters from anime, manga or video games—but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Start window shopping along Akiba’s main street, Chuo-dori, and it’s soon obvious just how otaku-saturated Akiba has become, not just with popular anime and manga stores like Animate and Mandrake, but with places like the multi-floor Don Quixote, Gee Store Akiba and plenty of other smaller shops selling cosplay outfits, model kits, trading cards, and all manner of other geeky gear. And no conversation about otaku can forget maid cafés, where young, doe-eyed waitresses in frilly French-maid outfits serve customers with huge doses of sickly sweet cuteness.
What about Akihabara before the otaku arrived? Then it was all about electronics, something that has its roots in post-war black-market trading of radio parts and has over the years morphed into a real mishmash of stores, from cramped backstreet electrical components and used computer stores like the numerous branches of Sofmap to robot specialists such as Tsukumo Robot Kingdom and giant home electronic megastores like Akky, Ishimaru Denki, Laox and the massive Yodobashi camera megastore on Akihabara Station’s east side.
A maid from one of Akiba’s maid cafés. You’ll often see them in the streets advertising their stores. At work, besides serving food and drink and fawning over customers, for a small fee the maids will also play games like janken (rock, paper, scissors). And it’s not just geared to geeky young men; women go, too—there are even butler cafés around just for them.
Chuo-dori is Akihabara’s main street, full of home-electronics stores, game arcades, comic shops, and other outlets aimed firmly at Japan’s computer-, anime-, and manga-loving otaku.
There’s no escaping anime and manga in Akiba—even on the street!
Gundam Café, designed to evoke the futuristic world of one of Japan’s most successful ever sci-fi media franchises, the Gundam series. Starting with the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979, it now spreads across TV, movies, video games, manga, and anime.
OMOTESANDO, HARAJUKU AND SHIBUYA
Tokyo’s Chic and Youthful Sides
Omotesando-dori is one of those examples of how Tokyo just keeps changing. One hundred years ago, this 0.6-mile-long (one kilometer), tree-lined boulevard functioned as the approach to the then newly constructed Meiji Shrine, which was built to enshrine the souls of the Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken, but over the years the street has morphed into a focal point for cutting-edge architecture, design and fashion.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
