 Yanaka - old town |  Yanaka - old town |
Walking the other way from Nippori station, we take a wander through Yanaka, Tokyo's old town. It's a calm relief after the craziness of the rest of Tokyo, and there's a pretty shrine literally every five paces. We follow Yanaka's backstreets all the way down to Ueno where the National Museum is; have lunch then look round the small but well-stocked museum.
 Statue in the National Museum |  Kimono in the National Museum |
We walk down through Ueno Park as dusk falls and admire as the pretty lanterns painted with ukiyo-e patterns light up down the sides of the path. There's also a shrine of some sort guarded by 3 cats! It's a bit jarring to see all the neons of Ueno again after Yanaka and the park, but we reach it just at sunset so the light is gorgeous. I'd heard there's a big market in the area but it must have been closing up just as we arrived; there wasn't much else to see.
 Lamp in Ueno Park |  Sunset in Ueno |
We'd planned to go to Super Deluxe, a venue/bar/art space, in the evening, so hop on a train to Roppongi. Looking around for dinner we find the restaurant Gonpachi, which we'd read about in the guidebook as a semi-legendary place which apparently inspired the restaurant scene in Kill Bill (and the ex-Japanese president took George W Bush there some years ago). It's usually essential to book a reservation, but luckily on a Tuesday they fit us in on the kitchen-facing counter. It's in a beautiful refurbished warehouse building filled with lanterns and as you walk in the waiter announces your arrival and all the staff and chefs shout a greeting. Our waiter speaks excellent English and finds me some vegetarian food on the large tapas-style menu - tasty grilled tofu skewers and freshly-made soba noodles. Josh has Kobe beef skewers and proclaimed it definitely worth the money; the rice cooked in a boiling hot stone pot, flavoured with mustard leaves, is excellent too. One of the dishes I order turns up slightly late so I get a free green tea ice cream afterwards.
 Gonpachi restaurant |
We are still a bit early for Super Deluxe so get a beer in a pub over the road - made a mistake ordering imported Belgian beer because including the cover charge it's about 6 quid for a bottle of Hoegaarden - it did include a plate of cheese to nibble on, though. We head back up the road to Super Deluxe, which is a cool underground venue; they even brew their own ale on site. The crowd is young, international and design-y looking.
 Live bands at Superdeluxe |  Live bands at Superdeluxe |
The live bands are not my thing in the slightest - mostly weird noise-jazz - but there are some cool visuals done live by 3 people moving various objects and lights under the projectors. We last for 3 bands before the place gets really smoky (you can still smoke inside most venues in Tokyo, but not on the street, oddly) so we duck out and head back.
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