The second quarter of the Yamanote circle is the one near the Tokyo Bay. It is an elegant area full of skyscrapers. From the tall residential buildings with flats on the 40th floor with a view on the bay in Shinagawa, to the luxury hotels and business offices around Tokyo station. If in the first quarter of the Yamanote circle we saw Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya –the centres for young people’s fashion and entertainment- this quarter of the circle is more classic and turns to a more adult and business related public.
Near the Tokyo Station you can find the Imperial palace, which can represent the geographical centre of Tokyo. Around the Imperial palace, next to the moat, people go jogging at any time of the day –and among them many foreigners. Just as many temples in Japan cannot be seen from the outside but you will have to walk a long way in a forest or on a hill before being able to behold them, the Imperial palace cannot be seen from the outside. Only in a few occasions it is open to public visits, like on the Emperor’s birthday –now on the 23rd December.
Although it is regularly not permitted to enter and visit the park it is certainly worth having a walk in the area. The sunset is particularly stunning with, on one side -across the moat- the Imperial park with its closed gates, and on the other the financial heart of Tokyo with its modern buildings among which -if you look towards Minato and Shinagawa- the Tokyo Tower is particularly noticeable. It basically is an imitation of the Eiffel Tower, but rather higher and painted in red and white. It is one of the many symbols of Tokyo.
Arriving in Tokyo station we covered half of the Yamanote circle. Shinjuku and Tokyo, in fact, are linked by the Chuo line (central line) that cuts in two halves the Tokyo metropolitan area and divides the Yamanote circle into the Northern and Southern halves.
Let’s go back on the Yamanote and enter the third fourth of the circle. We get off in Akihabara and we visit the hypertechnological world we find in front of us. It is also a world for manga and cosplay fanatics. Akihabara, in fact, it is both an area for technology and computer shops with their mesmerizing lights and loud noises and the shop boys shouting the day’s offers, and a big centre for otaku culture, a term that can be roughly translated as nerd, or as a manga, anime e videogame fanatic, as well as cosplay, that is to dress like manga or videogame characters. The symbol of the cosplay in Akihabara is the maidcafé. In a maidcafé you can have a drink in a bar full of waitresses dressed like sexy housewives that welcome you saying “welcome honourable husband” and that will laugh and listen to anything you might want to tell them. You can also take pictures with them, who know all the most kawaii poses. The service must be paid and how this kind of service can be any sexy is something that the average non-otaku struggles to understand, but this is also a part of Japan that is worth seeing.
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