Japan Part 4 - Matthew's Super Hits TV Show

After being completely traumatized watching 5 minutes of Japanese pron at the hostel room - had some horrible psycho-thriller-stalker plot - which will take years of therapy to heal the scars - we decided to venture out for dinner nearby Akasaka - a riverside suburb famous for having the Asahi Beer Brewery located there.

We wandered around the river and along the Pachinko and Gaming district for about an hour in search of food. As Ant was feeling a little sick - he was feeling a tad unadventurous in terms of food. We must of walked past a 1000 restaurants with the whole lacquered food display thing happening - but Ant was a little toey about ordering items by pointing at them and the possibility that any of the dishes had fish in them (a big no-no in Ant's cookbook).

Feeling a bit defeated - we headed to Ueno by metro, where we encountered our first vending machine restaurant. What drawed us was the set of instructions which were in engrish. What you do is you pick a dish (via some dodgy photos or lacquered food display) - and choose its corresponding number in a vending machine. Once you have paid and got a ticket out of the machine - you hand it to an overindulgence chef who creates your conjunction pretty much straight away. I also had my first experience with an automatic beer vending machine - where you insert your money, pop a beer glass in the dispenser - and it dishes you up a beer - complete with a head. After the whole "I don't want fish" attitude from Ant - he accidentally ordered a fish noodle soup from the vending machine restaurant. But the moral of the story was that Ant ate his fish and didn't get any violent explosive toilet aftermaths.

The next morning - we woke up and got our usual early morning Japanese TV fix. Of note was a J-Pop show that we saw - where the aptly named "Kinki Kids" were number 4 on the charts. The Kinki Kids are like an aging backstreet boy band-style duo who sing crappy J-Pop songs (you don't really need to say "crappy" and "j-pop" together because it is like a double negative). A side note - my brother bought me a Kinki Kids t-shirt - which I wore to a "fun shirt day" at work once. It was the only time I've worn the shirt because people started to accuse that I was a "dodgy uncle".

In order to satisfy our Japanese old school culture fix - we headed on out via the metro to the Hie-Jinja Shrine in Kasumigaseki. It was an old school Shinto shrine (complete with red tori gates) which was smack bang in the middle of a skyscraper jungle. It was a great example of the strange mix of the old and new in Japan. Also of note - there was a "mecha" concrete tori gate - just to rub in the strange mix of old and new.

We wandered to (according to our touristy map) "the hottest of hot" tourist attractions - Roppongi Hills. As Mugatu, the villain in Zoolander would say - "Roppongi Hills is sooo hot right now...!". Roppongi Hills is a brand spanking new (well 2003 new) mecha commercial complex with lots of eclectic architecture and skyscrapers. There are (according to the tourist map) state of the art "Virgin" cinemas, a few art galleries, shops and stuff. The buildings are definitely kewl and there were a few bits of art around the place including a Berlin Bear (a whole series of bears painted around Berlin - which we had seen a couple of years ago in Berlin) and the giant spider thingy that looks like the giant spider thingy from the Tate Modern in London (which we had seen a couple of years ago in London).

We stumbled across the Asahi TV station (in Roppongi Hills) which made the Roppongi Hills visit definitely worth it. What drew our attention was a big cardboard cut out of the TV host who was in "Lost In Translation" (the really camp TV show with blonde hair which was really crazy). What we learned was that this guy is real and so is his show - called "Matthew's Best Hit TV" and you could even get Matthew's Best Hit merchandise from the Asahi gift shop in the lobby. Definitely worth checking out for all of you Japanese TV freeks.

After Roppongi - we headed to the Tokyo Government Metropolitan Towers in Shenjuku. We had decided not to fork out the $20AUD to go up the Roppongi tower but thought the free trip up the Metro Govt Towers represents greater value for money. Ant thought that perhaps we could see Mt Fuji as it was less smoggy - but unfortunately - it was still hella smoggy - and no Mt Fuji was to be seen. Nearby the towers is the Park Hyatt (aka hotel in "Lost in Translation"). I was pointing out to Ant saying - "that must be the pool at the top of the hotel!". I hadn't realised that we were becoming "Lost in Translation" trainspotters...

We wandered around Shenjuku (which is described as "full of energy and power, flourishing as the core of the Tokyo Metropolis" by our crappy Tokyo Map) aka Tokyo's downtown CBD area trying to find some lunchies. After agreeing to disagree - I had some seafood/tempura stuff (with bonus deep fried purple vegetables - yum) and Ant had some curried meat (with bonus scrambled eggs) - at separate restaurants.

After lunch - we both checked out the shopping strips of Shenjuku. Even though Ant has a reputation for being a notorious shopper - I managed to outshop him (buying a couple of japanesey PSP games - he only bought one t-shirt).

I had organised to meet my brother for dinner - who wanted to take us to the "Lock Up" Theatre Restaurant at Ikebukaro. After taking 1hr to get from Ueno to Ikebukara in a crazed attempt to save my brother 50Yen from not catching certain Metro lines (or something) which didn't work - we arrived at Lock Up. Lock Up is a prison theatre restaurant - where you get handcuffed by a leather clad police woman and taken to a cell (where in true japanese style - you need to take off your shoes in order to keep the cell floors clean). At around 10:30pm - the staff killed the lights - and there were a few random masked jason killers wandering around the prison trying to scare the guests. A mummy attacked me by pretending to "eat" my hands... Because my brother was laughing so hard... the mummy disappeared - then reappeared over our cell wall and jumped onto my brother - freeking him out. Hell - this beats Dirty Dicks for a good night out.