Akihabara and the University of Tokyo
"For lunch I ate at the restaurant in the adjacent Mitsui Bank building—Japanese tofu was delicious."
Day two of the Japan trip.
We queued at the Imperial Palace early in the morning—you need an online reservation in advance, and we hadn’t made one in time, so we could only do a quick walk around the outer grounds. The East Garden was open without reservation; we went through and then moved on.
Lunch at the restaurant in the adjacent Mitsui Bank building. Japanese tofu: silken, in a light dashi broth, genuinely delicious. I think about it still.
A bookstore nearby: almost entirely in Japanese characters, almost entirely readable. I spent longer there than I’d planned.
Tokyo Station is worth noting—the Marunouchi brick facade is a genuine piece of Meiji-era architecture, built in 1914, destroyed in WWII, rebuilt in 2012 to the original design. It manages to feel both grand and human-scaled.
Afternoon: Akihabara. The electronics district is everything the stereotype suggests, but the density is still surprising in person—floor after floor of used components, then an entire building of garage kits and figures, then maid cafes, then a pachinko hall, then back to electronics. I bought two used figures. I will not say which ones.
Then the Tokyo National Museum. The permanent galleries contain an extraordinary amount of Chinese material—bronzes, Tang dynasty ceramics, Song paintings. There is a specific feeling in finding your own history housed in someone else’s building, displayed with a care and context that the originating culture doesn’t always provide for itself.
Late afternoon: the University of Tokyo, Akamon (Red Gate). I stood at the gate for a while. I would like to study here someday.
