Ikebukuro...

Asia » Japan » Tokyo
April 27th 2006

Published: June 12th 2006

Edit Blog Post

AdamKent

Toyota concept car

Toyota Auto Salon Amlux Tokyo, Ikebukuro

Still keeping myself busy. Yesterday I went back to Akihabara ("electric town") and had a look around one of the biggest electronics department stores. Somehow, I successfully navigated the nine, mammoth floors to find a spare memory card and battery for my camera. Hopefully this should avoid any repeat of the 'tiger temple' visit in Thailand, even if I forget to charge my usual battery again ! Rounded off the night by visiting 'Bar Stella' in Asakusa and working my way through half of their drinks menu.

Anyway, a fairly early start this morning to get across town to Ikebukuro. There is a major terminal station in Ikebukuro (as with most places in Tokyo), sandwiched between the west and east sides of the district. The west side is a culture zone, with art galleries and theatres, but I headed for the more entertainments based east side. I started the day at the 'Toyota Auto Salon Amlux Tokyo'. Definately a good one for the petrolheads, and a welcome change from the usual sights. Free entry, and four or five floors with cars and interactive things to play with. At ground level they havea Toyota Formula One car, and the F1 engine

Toyota concept car

It has even got one of those old-woman hairsalon dryers built in...

in a perspex case, which all looks very impressive. From there on up, each floor has different types of cars (although I can't work out how they got them all up there!). A lot of the cars are actually just standard production models, which to be honest, hardly drew my attention at all. But there were some cool ones to be found throughout the building. A seriously funky looking, silver concept car plastered in these sort of pulsing, colour changing LED's. No idea what the intended use of this thing was as all the signs were in Japanese, but it was very hypnotic to look at ! Another one that caught my eye was what looks like a small, pimped up boy-racer car. This is actually a new production model called the bB, but is unfortuneately only due for release to the Japanese and US markets. The top-spec version with all the optional extras has nine, woofer speakers including one at the base of the dash, which are surrounded in a cool, glowing circle of blue LED, and flames up the side ! They even provide a customisation catalogue with dozens of options to pimp it even further, for a

Old Japanese coin

Ancient Orient Museum, Ikebukuro

price. Finished off by looking at a bright yellow GT car on the basement level and having a game of GT4 on the provided racing simulators.

My next stop was 'Sunshine City', an entertainments centre consisting of three gigantic towers conjoined at ground level. I decided to try the 'Ancient Orient Museum', as this may have some cultural or educational value to justify the rest of the day out. As it turns out, it didn't particularly. The current exhibition is 'coins of the ancient world', and although interesting to look at, I didn't have a clue what any of the signs said because it was all in Japanese... At least I managed to get in cheap by pretending to be a student, and saying I must have left my student card back at the hostel. Next on my list was also within the 'Sunshine City' complex, the aquarium on the 10th floor of the shortest building. I have no idea why or how they built an aquarium on the 10th floor, but it was actually really big, and unexpectedly entertaining too. There was obviously a daytrip for a couple of hondred Japanese infant-school children, who were transfixed by the

Terrapin

Sunshine City Aquarium, Ikebukuro

performing seal show ! They were interesting to watch, but I think in performing animal stakes, the monkey school in Thailand beat the seals. They did appear to have a few rather random animals there though. I never realised before that pot-bellied pigs and miniature ponies are obviously aquatic animals ! After Tsukiji, it is surprising that I'm not sick of the sight of any more fish, but the main aquarium kept me entertained for long enough.

So, not entirely sure what I'm going to do next, but keep checking back to find out what it is !!

Additional photos below

Photos: 25, Displayed: 24