Summer journey - Week 2: a thrilling ride, a pretty park and more of Ueno

My second weekend in Tokyo was spent quite well, visiting a variety of places, including one that I deemed the best site that went to all summer.

On Saturday, April 22, I met up with Katlo and Sagnik near their home and office at Mori Towers, Roppongi. From there we proceeded to the northeastern part of Tokyo, to see the Sensoji Temple. It's the most important Buddhist temple in Tokyo - with a complex consisting of many temples and other buildings. The path leading to the main temple is lined with dozens of shops, most selling food or souvenirs. It was from some of these shops that I bought quite a few gifts for my friends - some on that day, and the rest on another visit late in May, by when I had become quite desperate for anything to take back to India.

I enjoyed Sensoji Temple. We tried some food there - Katlo and Sagnik bought a rice candy (which neither liked at all), and then we all bought a piece of maize each. I dropped mine quite early - leading to a rather annoying struggle to find a suitable dustbin to dump the wasted food into. The temple complex is quite clean, despite the large crowds thronging the venue. Katlo lamented that if only we in India had maintained our cultural sites better, they could easily surpass most other places in the world as tourist centres. He believes that it's primarily a function of our poverty, rather than any cultural/national trait of ours - I tend to agree now.

From Sensoji, we walked to a Metro station that was a one stop away from the one closest to us. Walking along the roads in a foreign city is important to get a feel for the city. Using the Metro efficiently would have saved us much time, but at the cost of missing out on the pleasures of walking on roads that were not adjacent to tourist points. On every weekend after that, I tried to walk as much as possible, even skipping the nearest stations to be able to see more of the city surface.

Taking a Metro train to Kasuga, we reached the area near Tokyo Dome. The Dome houses the city's baseball stadium, and also an amusement park. We had intentions of riding a rollercoaster called the Thunder Dolphin. I had a look at it, and was really unnerved. But first, we wanted to see the Koishikawa Korakuen Garden - the oldest garden in Tokyo, which some people in my companions' office (both Katlo and Sagnik were interns in Lehman Brothers) recommended. In fact our entire day's journey was based on advice from the Lehman office. We reached the Garden at 4:40 or 4:45. It closed at 5, with the last entry being at 4:30. A ticket costed 300 yen. In the first of many instances when we encountered extremely helpful public officials in Japan, the people at the ticket counter allowed us to enter the garden without buying tickets. We were there for only 15 minutes, but those were really serene and even wondrous minutes. Beautiful flowers, lovely landscaped lawns, a pond with brilliantly coloured red/orange fishes and the backdrop of a monstrous roller coaster faintly audible and partly visible beyond the greenery of the garden all made this simply the best place I went to in Tokyo and in Japan.

After the serenity of the garden came the thrill of the rollercoaster! Both Sagnik and I were a little scared, but my sarcasm and dares riled him and at the same time made it impossible for me to not sit in the ride too. The near vertical fall at the beginning of the ride completely terrified me for 2-3 seconds! I was too scared to shout even! Then fear was replaced with thrill and joy, and the view of Tokyo from the top of the Thunder Dolphin is quite spectacular, even with its high speeds and rapid turns. Though it cost us 1000 yen each, all of us felt that the ride-operators/owners could have easily charged 2000-3000 yen without losing many of their customers.

A short walk through the local mall and a slightly longer ride to Roppongi later, I was having dinner at the 'Jewel of India' with Katlo and Sagnik. Got myself a calling card on the same night from a small shop called Tokyo Halal Foods. By 9:15, I was home and ready for another day of travelling.

The next day I went to Ueno Park. This time I was alone and planned to see the Science Museum and the Tokyo National Museum (housing historical art) in 2-3 hours and then join Jolly for some trip he was planning to Meiji Park (Ueno is in northeastern Tokyo and Meiji is in southwestern Tokyo). The Science Museum itself took about 3 hours, despite my rushing through many sections! The National Museum has 3 buildings - one main and two adjuncts. I could only cover the main building in over two hours of wandering. I thought then that I would go back and finish the other two wings of the Museum as well, but never got the necessary time :(

Both museums are wonderful. The exhibits of the dinosaurs are worth watching. So is the exhibit of stuffed mammals. On the terrace, there is a very pretty garden of bonsai cultivations. The National Museum has done an excellent job of narrating Japan's history through art. From the heavily-Indian-Buddhism-influenced Japan in the first 3-4 centuries after Christ to the Japan ready to adopt Western technology in the mid-1800s, the museum offers insight into changing attitudes, trends and political interests in Japanese history.

And thus ended my second week in Tokyo. Was in holiday planning mode by then, deciding how I would complete my circuit of the city. How things actually turned out is another story!