Day 2 - some exploring
Tokyo Travel Blog
› entry 2 of 15 › view all entriesAugust 13th, 2009 – by: andytite

Hibiya Park on a sunny, and sweaty morning.
We were aiming for the Marunouchi district, and on our way there we came across Hibiya Park. Designated a park in 1903 at the height of the Meiji Restoration, the area is surprisingly large, and has a Central Park vibe as you can look over the trees to see the surrounding sky scrapers looming above you.

Looking up at the some of the towering monoliths of capitalism gone made. (Not in picture: insanely loud cicada chirruping)
We emerged from the park to be greeted by the wide most and unwelcoming walls of the Imperial Palace gardens. We skirted these for a while, admiring the koi, herons and huge dragonflies flitting in and around the green water. We then broke off into the city.
As penance for his ineptitude with booking his holiday, my companion had to have a couple of meetings the following day with some investment firms.

A nice pond - I was tempted to dive in to cool off!
Meeting venues found, (possibly), we decided to commence with some more touristy sight seeing and jumped on the metro to head to the Edo-Tokyo museum in the Sumida-ku area of the city.

About as much as you're allowed to see of the Imperial Palace - well the walls of the garden anyway.

After spending a couple of happy hours being diverted by the museum, we left and sat on the roof garden looking up in awe at the design of the building itself, and at the surrounding views of the nearby buildings. This was almost as good at the attraction itself! By now, however, the heat and jet lag were taking their toll, so we headed back to the hotel for a 'brief' nap...
Later, much, hunger bit so once more we braved the bustling streets of the metropolis, this time in search of some grub. My companion, after many hours of scrutiny of the Bible had selected a restaurant called Inakaya in the Roppongi area. It served, he told me, robatayaki. When this didn't illicit a cheer, or indeed reaction from me he went on to explain in that patient way one talks to an idiot that this was grilled food.

Marunouchi
Turns out the flipping place was hard to find, hampered by two things: 1) our inability to read kanji causing us to walk past it twice without realising, and 2) the amount of people trying to grab us and hurl us into strip clubs. With admirable persistence, these hawkers of the female form of Roppongi were loathe to let two muppet tourists clutching a fistfull of yen each escape; and our journey soon became reminiscent of Luke Skywalker's attempts to blow up the Death Star as we scurried left and right, up and down alleys and all over the show to avoid them. Finally, we made it to Inakaya.
The food was amazing. The establishment was no less.

Pillars covered in foliage? Great idea!
Finally, it was time to go. With some more shouts of encouragement from the staff the bill appeared. This was the moment we nearly fell off our chairs.

European town hall meets skyscraper.


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Tokyo Restaurants, Cafes & Food review
A little bit mad, very hard to find, but great food!
We found this place as a footnote in the Lonely Planet guidebook. It served robatayaki,a traditional Japanese selection of food that's grilled on hot… read entire review