April 15, 2001

I took the train from Yokohama to Tokyo station:
	I walked past the Palace Hotel, which faces the Imperial Palace. I would say it was built in the '50's, but I don't know.
I took the subway (Tozai Sen) one stop to get to the National Gallery of Modern Art. It was closed until 2003 for rennovation. The National Gallery of Modern Art's Craft Museum was near by so I went to that instead.	Craft Gallery
		Budokahn I had a Cheap Trick Live at Budokahn Album once.
I don't know what this building is, but it looks cool.
		I ate lunch at a fast soba noodle shop. I wanted the soba and curry set. You pay for your meal by buying a ticket from a vending machine. In order to remember what I wanted for lunch I took a picture of the sign in the window. That way I could get the right button on the vending machine.
	Edo-Tokyo Museum
The Edo-Tokyo traces the history of Tokyo from a small fishing village in the early 1600's to today's 11 million person city. If the economy doesn't pick up soon it could be a fishing village again.

I have always stayed at the Ocean Terrace Hotel in Fujisawa on my trips to Japan. It used to be a much nicer hotel than it is now but I think they are having trouble earning enough to renovate the rooms. I stay there because I know it and it is close to the IBM Fujisawa plant.

Akihabara

I took the train in to Shinjuku station. Near Shinjuku are several cool stores:

• Yodobashi Camera
  This place has every photographic item in production I think. The basement holds the biggest selection of film anywhere in the world, in big open grocery store style cases
• Tokyu Hands
  Tokyu Hands: The Creative Life Store has all kinds of raw materials and tools for almost any hobby. I bought some plastic bottles and glow in the dark tape.
• Kinokunia Book Store
  The best selection of foreign books in town. I found books from European publishers I had never seen before. Unfortunately for Kinokunia I connected to the Internet from my hotel room and found Amazon has them for a much lower price. (The Internet is cool).

Big Site

From Shinjuku I hoped the subway (Marunouchi Line) over to Akihabara the electronics retailing section of Tokyo. I like to stop there at least once on my trips to Japan to get an idea of what is new and different. I was surprise to find that CD-Recordable media is the same price in Japan as it is in the US. Usually everything is more expensive in Japan. The cost of a Coke from the vending machines has gone up from 110 yen to 120 yen.

I was headed for the Oriental Bazaar but I got sidetracked at Shimbashi. There is a new convention center called Big Site located in Tokyo Bay. A new transit system links Shimbashi station with the new office, entertainment, and convention complex. The train has rubber tires and does a 360 degree loop to gain elevation to get across a suspension bridge. The main building is four inverted peramids, a lot like four copies of the Canada pavilion at the Expo '67.