A night in Roppingi Hills…..

Having had a rest we headed to Roppingi Hills – a very swanky area in Tokyo, home to the Ritz. Roppingi literally means 6 trees but there quite a few more than that.

Coming from the subway the huge skyscrapers lit up the sky and the massive digital billboards did feel very reminiscent of Bladerunner.

Looking for affordable things to do on a Summer evening in Tokyo I found an open air digital light show which was free.

Situated in front of the Ritz and with a skyline view which included Tokyo Tower, it was stunning.

Not really knowing what to expect we were really suitably impressed. Described as a light and fog digital art garden we sat around a rectangle decking area. Dangling our feet below – refreshed by the ‘fog’ as atmospheric music played and swirls of mists ebbed and flowed, accompanied by lights coming and going.

It was a very calming experience.

Bridges linked some of the tower blocks and we crossed quite a few. I felt quite startled when an automated voice told me to be careful of the steps!

Later we went to an area called ASHIMIZU, where a riverbed had been fashioned, with lit up ‘canopies’ you could sit under whilst immersing your feet. This was brilliant as by this point my feet were quite tired!

There was even time at one point in the evening for Pete to be a demented geisha.

Finally heading back to Kanda Station to find somewhere to eat near our hotel. On the subway home there were many suited and booted business men who seemed worse for wear. There is very much a drinking culture after work apparently and station workers are accustomed to helping the drunker ones off the trains, even using wheelchairs at times. Higher salaried workers are given vouchers for taxis so that they don’t have to cope with the often lengthy journeys home when very much worse for wear!

Leaving Kanda Station we passed a number of women. As previously mentioned the Japanese are very helpful and these women seemed to encapsulate this. As business men passed in and out of the station the women approached them seemingly offering help of some kind – although they ignored us…. I wonder why? I think it makes sense why there is a ‘hotel’ round the corner from the station that hires rooms out by the hour.

Having only eaten a cereal bar all day we popped into a cafe playing jazz music.

Eating silken tofu with chopsticks is a very sloppy artform!

Picked up at cute cake from a shop on the way to the hotel. Seemed sad to eat it but it was very tasty.