It's Saturday Night

Saturday night started out with a restaurant hunt in the Roppongi area. I went looking for Shunju Roppongi which was supposed to be a great restaurant by some renowned designer or the other. What I found was an empty commercial space that looked like it had been locked up for some time. I guess they went outta business, oh well. Luckily Roppongi is filled with great places to eat and finding a substitute was just a matter of taking a leisurely stroll down Gaien Higashi Dori. I decided to go Chinese for dinner and stumbled into this little family ran resturaunt that turned out to be delicious. It seems that almost any food I find around Tokyo, no matter what the ethnicity, tastes great. This Chinese food was better than most I've had in China, but that's not saying a lot.

After dinner it was time to tackle Tokyo Tower, which was a 15 minute walk away. I got to the tower just when it was being lit for the night. The bright blue lighting dotting up the tower made a great contrast to the intense red lights at the base. This would be my first time going up into the observatory and I was ready. As I got to the ticket booth I noticed that there were actually two observatories. The one at the very top takes about an hour to get to considering the lines, etc. The main observatory, which is a few hundred feet lower, takes about 5 minutes and costs less. I went for the main observatory this time around. I'll come back for the other one another day.

The view from atop the tower was worth it all. From the main observatory you have a panoramic view of Tokyo in all directions. Very few buildings obstruct the view at that level and you can see the city disappear into the horizon. On a very clear day you should be able to see mount Fuji and the rest of the mountain range in the distance. The next time I come I'll have to bring an actual camera with me. For this trip I relied on my trusty iPhone to snap my pics.

After Tokyo tower it was back to the apartment to change and then out to a nightclub, or two. This would be my first time hitting the party scene on this trip to Tokyo. I made it to a couple recommended places which were off the main Roppongi area and had very few foreigners. Both places had great music, multiple levels, and incredibly over priced drinks. I stuck with water for the night but that still cost me 5 Yen a bottle - ouch. The clubs were your typical metropolitan night clubs with 90% Japanese attendees and zero disorderly conduct. And now I'll leave you with a little video to end my post, enjoy.

Labels: Japan, Tokyo