Tokyo's Famous Tower

Tokyo Tower was built in the late 1950s as both a useful communications center and as a national celebration of their rebuilt economy.  Today it houses countless TV antennas and over 150 million people have toured it… including Godzilla and Mothra who managed to destroy the steel tower (which is taller than its inspiration in Paris).  We visited the home of the Noppon Brothers (TV-MA looking mascots “born” in 1998) last year while on a night out in Tokyo.  We saw the tower, which is the second tallest artificial structure in Japan, long before we got near it.  Its flood lamps lit the orange paint making the iron structure stick out against the innumerous business and residential buildings that litter the Tokyo landscape.



After purchasing our tickets we had the option to take an elevator up to the main observation deck or go below to an adolescent themed wax museum and other odd attractions.  We decided to go to the observation deck.  From there we had a unique view of the city, with hundreds of red aviation safety lights blinking on the horizon.  Considering the horizon, we realized how insanely huge the metropolis of Tokyo is as from every direction we turned was urban… there was no dark boundary marking the end of the city, at least from the naked eye.  We took the elevator to the upper observation deck, but did not stay long as Angela gets motion sickness and the tower swayed in the wind.



The Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011 in fact bent the tip of the Tower, but otherwise the structure remains sound.  We enjoyed being tourists but skipped the dinosaur wax museum.  Today Tokyo Sky Tree Tower is nearly complete in northern Tokyo, taller than Tokyo Tower and built to house digital TV communications along with restaurants and other commercial ventures.  I can only hope that Sky Tree will have a mascot as unique as Noppon!

Tokyo Lover's of Art

When we visited the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, this is what the line looked like.  (Yes, for a museum!)



This is how the guys felt about it.  We waited anyways.  It was an interesting experience to say the least.

Bad Beer is the Enemy!

My Senior Year of College I enrolled in a Brewing Science class and have ever since been hooked on good, quality beer.  When our friend Jonathan came to visit last fall (he had taken the class with me) we spent a day at one of Japan’s largest beer festivals.  Japan has a large beer industry of great, rice based beers including famous brands such as Yebisu, Sapporo, and Asahi.  This beer fest was fashioned as a “homebrew” craft style where there were few, if any, rice beers available.  The three of us rode the train to northern Tokyo and found ourselves at the Asahi Beer headquarters building, interesting considering they had nothing to do with the event.  With a small admission price we all got a free half pint glass and tickets to try ten beers.  The conference hall was packed, with a center aisle full of tapped kegs and a stage at the other end.  We decided to dive right in, though we could only read a few of the styles (nearly everything was in Japanese).  My overall impression on Japanese craft beer is they get an “A” for effort… but are missing something.  While they are the best at rice beers, when they  try to emulate European or American style barley and wheat ales or stouts, they get close but miss the mark.  Though the beer was just ok, the cultural experience was awesome.  When you taste test at an American winery, you get just enough wine to smell and taste it.  We were given nearly a full glass of beer with every test, so the beer was better towards the end as alcohol inhibited our ability to discern the flavors.  Every once in a while someone on the stage would obviously be raffling off prizes, but everything was in Japanese, so even if we won we wouldn’t know.  We quickly made some friends by giving away our tickets.  Another great find was running into an American living in Yokohama who publishes a local English magazine called “Japan Beer Times” and promotes local brews to be sold in bars.  He sold some great shirts stating in both English and Japanese that “Bad Beer is the Enemy.”  After buying a few he told us some local bars with good beer on tap.  We had been to one, Popeyes, and plan on visiting the others.  In the end I think the Japanese should stick with rice beers, but there was definitely much interest in quality craft beer, which can only make the world a better place!

Following in Howard's Footsteps

One of the first things we wanted to do in Japan was visit a site that Grandpa Howard did in 1945-1946 as part of the post-War occupying force.   He often tells of a visit he made one day with some shipmate into central Tokyo on a train from their ship in Yokosuka.  They rode the train past fields of burnt homes from US bombings, leaving only metal safes.



He said there was a Japanese girl on the train learning English through a vintage Reader’s Digest (interesting for the occupied country to embrace American culture so fast).  When they got to Tokyo the thing to do was visit the Imperial Palace, partly because it was not targeted by Allied bombing and was actually still intact.  All his sailor buddies got pictures taken in front a famous bridge on the palace grounds by a random Japanese photographer, who miraculously got the photos back to the correct ship.  Howard always finished this anecdote with his encounter with General MacArthur whose headquarters were nearby.  He watched as guards seemed to know precisely when to open the doors for the General to step out, wave at the Japanese well-wishers, and get into his famous black sedan.



Before we moved to Japan we spent an evening in Yorktown, and stumbled across Howard’s old photos.  We took a digital photo of his aging 1946 photograph from the Imperial Palace and used that as a reference to find the exact spot he stood over 65 years later.  On a nice late summer Saturday we took the train to the center of modern Tokyo to walk the outside of the palace grounds to find the photo spot.  The bridge was remarkably easy to find and is still THE place to get your photo taken.  Dozens of tourists, both international and Japanese, were lining up to take pictures with this bridge in the background.  In 1945 the Emperor officially renounced his deity status to a shocked country, but the place is still revered. And guarded.  Across the before mentioned bridge were stern looking uniformed guards that kind of reminded me of the Queen’s Guards in England.  I am pretty sure we were being watched the whole time.  But we got a photo of another Naval Gouger in the same spot as Petty Officer Howard did in the 1940s.