Today I started out at Ikebukuro, heading further along the Meiji Dori. Not far past Sunshine 60 it turns residential, with the tall blocks of flats melting away, replaced by two storey wooden houses. There was a ‘recycle’ shop around the point at which it was changing over, a strange shop full of preowned crockery and high tech junk.
It must have snowed last night because I found a snowman, he was only little (about 15 inches high) but perfectly formed. There was no other evidence of snow up until that point and it didn’t seem that cold. A little further on some of the cars has light sprinklings of white on them, but it was mostly gone.
After a couple of junctions the road is joined by an expressway sweeping in from the north, which would have made an excellent entry for ‘curve’ in ventas photo competition had I been able to get the whole thing in a single shot. The expressway seemed to consist of two layers, running at around 15 and 30 metres high with its feet on the central reservation of the Meiji Dori.
Further along the expressway starts to sink, the bottom layer appears to enter a tunnel (well, I assume it does, theres nowhere else for it to go), the top layer descends to join the Meiji Dori at ground level, except I can’t work out how vehicles get inside it since it doesn’t seem to have an entrance either on the end or the side I’m on, they must get in somehow? Or maybe that goes into a tunnel too, I don’t know.
The junction immediately after the freeways end is where the tramway joins the road for a bit. There was a bridge there with grass coloured tarmac surface from which there was a stunning view across the valley toward Oji. Over the bridge was a small park with beautiful clean flowing water under a wooden deck, the park itself was full of some of the less affluent members of Tokyo society which made it a little daunting.
Down into the valley to Oji station, an unremarkable station square except for the three levels of bridges dominating it, Shinkansen line at the highest level, local lines in the middle, pedestrian bridge on the lower level, all running over the tramway/roadway combination, then with a subway line running below ground. Infrastructure, I love it.
Theres a proper supermarket here, I didn’t actually buy anything but had a quick wander around, its much bigger than any I’ve found near me (which are more like Tesco Metro or Harrods food hall). Good, but I didn’t fancy carting too much halfway across the city when I had no idea where I was going.
Hokutopia is another of those office/shopping combination buildings, but the guard outside looked severe enough that I didn’t want to risk heading inside incase it was actually just an office building, I did manage a photo of the giant ball containing a small digital clock outside.
Down to the subway next, onto the Namboku line, but head away from the city centre – the line terminates at Meguro, I go there enough during the week I don’t need to go again today. Ascend into drab nothingness, the highway is all there is, I forget the name of the place, but it doesn’t matter, its not like I need to know anything more about it.
A quick look at the local map shows there is a river not far away, should be worth a walk over there at least, then find my way back home.
The river is nearly as ugly as they all are here, at least this one has some green around it though. I get to the point where I had expected to be across the river and discover that actually I had only crossed one small part of it, the main section of the bridge being perhaps a kilometre wide, with the river meandering underneath. Theres a golf club in part of the reclaimed land there, its got two holes, both look extremely short and easy, but it does have a driving range too.
Entering another prefecture at the end of the bridge and the atmostphere changes – I feel less welcome, somehow. Perhaps its the sheer industrialness of the place I’ve landed, maybe paranoia, or something else. Theres a sign for a station so I follow that, past the British Cultural College (which seemed to have pictures of Hello Kitty in the window, or it could have been watership down?).
Kawaguchi is another place based around a station square, this one more impressive than Oji, but without the imposing infrastructure. Leading away from the central square theres a road of shops, all kinds of shops but nothing of interest, worth walking along in the hope of finding a decent second hand CD shop or another recycler, but they are rarer than towns like this.
A final loop around the high level walkways before returning home and I discover a xylophone on the wall of the bridge over the railway. Art here is so much more interactive than back home. Am I just blind to that we have in the UK? Hull has that echo-er thing, which must be art since there is no other explanation, are there others?