A Shinkansen to civilization

… and there were two Bullet Trains (Shinkansens), one in each side of the tracks, one of them had a pointy nose and the other a rather funny nose almost flat on the bottom, anyhow I took pictures of both of them that I’ll show you later, it is quite amazing to see that sort of technology in everyday life, yeah, yeah there is the TGV and the German train or whatever but still is an amazing piece of transportation.
 
We hoped in the one with the flat nose (apparently the fastest of the two) and we got to Tokyo in 2 hours (rather than in 8 like in the normal train or bus), so Tokyo like expected was chaos, we got to the hotel which was in Shinjuku – don’t know how to spell it, in the Kabuki-cho area, apparently the red ditrict of the city, hey! Don’t blame me, my boss sent me there, well the hotel wasn’t that bad, the good part is that it had a bed!!! Yes, finally a few centimeters away from the floor, and internet, oh! By the way the Electricity was a problem, it took us a good 20 minutes to figure out that you have to put the key on a small hole in the entrance for the electricity to work, of course when you leave you either leave your key locked in or you turn all your lights off :) nice trick if you think about it.
 
We went to this Mexican restaurant that I heard about near Harajuku named Fonda de la Madrugada, pretty nice although a little expensive then we went to Shibuya to check out the Shibuya girls, these weirdos that tan their skin everyday and use excesive makeup (you can actually check out some pics here in my log), the surprise was when we found Shibuya boys which were even more … exotic. UH! I got to see the big screens, you know those that can show a dinosaur or elephant in this huge size. Also in shibuya in the station there is the statue of this dog called Hatchiko or something like that, and is a dog who used to pick up his owner every day at the train station, but then one day the owner died but the dog kept coming to the station everyday for 11 years until his own death. Now that’s what I call loyalty.
 
The next day also in Harajuku we explored Meiji Shrine, amazing of course, though pretty young only 100 years old or so, in the temple I got to see the change of meals for the deity which is a whole ritual. Then there were some models for a wedding photo session, pretty amazing, but the best part was outside, where there were a lot of Goths teenagers just hangin out, of course everybody was taking pictures of them (this is when you know you’re ina big city), then we walked to a source of music and there were all these Elvis-wannabe Japanese guys just dancing in the middle of the street, that was awsome!
 
The tokyo tower is apparently bigger than the Eiffel tower although it didn’t seem to me, and of course is not as aesthetic as the later but well it’s a tower, we went to the middle floor which was not as expensive and there well just saw the city and I had a glass of cold green tea, I love that stuff.
 
On the following day we went to the main event which was the Tokyo University, yeah I know im a geek so what?, anyhow they showed us some pretty cool projects, I cant describe them because I know your not interested on this but I can tell you I saw an invisibility Jacket. Then we went to the Sony CS Labs where some other cool projects were shown to us, amazing stuff is going on over there too, the next day we went again to Tokyo university but just to Hongo campus (the main campus) for even more projects all of them again were cool, people in this country work really hard.
 
Uh! I forgot to tell you, we went to Asakusa were there is this temple with two demons on the sides, apparently they are the gods of thunder, but on the entrance there was a market for souvenirs which I couldn’t take advantage of so I had to come back the day after, inside the temple or in the entrance rather there was a vessel with some smoke apparently with healing properties which of course I tried (what the hell, cant hurt right?).
 
On the last day in the morning (I’m sorry for all the time line mess in this story) I went to check out the entrance of this temple called Hie Jinje or something similar which was really nice, uh! Side note, on the way there I left my Lonely Planet book in the metro station and I had to go back one station to pick it up, of course with no problem it was there ;) that only happens in Japan.
 
The Tokyo castle where the emperor lives was nice but not worthy of a detailed explanation, in fact I think Nijo-jo in Kyoto has better gardens, although what I can tell you is that I was carrying this bag with wheels with me and my backpack and of course my camera, my lonely planet guide and etc in a god only know how many degrees weather but was pretty hot and I was sweatting soooo much, incredible I can barely believe how much I wet my shirt, poor people in the metro, they all suffered my smell, specially in the rush hour of Shinjuku which is the so called biggest metro station in the world, and of course in Japan and Tokyo specially, the most crowded.
 
In Asakusa like I said I went shopping, some nice hand-crafts can be found there though not cheap, I got some sandals for my sister and some more souvenirs for the family, although I have no idea how to bring them back home, also some postcards and a nice little …