OMG LOOK MOM! IT'S LIKE I'M DRIVING
August 6 2008, 1:02pm
Google unleashed their “Street View” feature for Tokyo google maps yesterday. For those who don’t know, Street View a feature whereby you can get a 360 degree view of any point on a map, as if you were standing right there in the street. Google have literally crawled the entire metropolitan area enabling anyone in the world to get an amazingly fluid, candid look at this city. The results have me simultaneously scraping my jaw from the floor and hurriedly bringing in my dayglo pink underwear from the drying rack outside.
I may never need to go outside again. Everything that is outside is now on my computer. This is of course all part of Google’s “Roadmap to Human Race Assimilation”, a whitepaper on which I briefly read through last year. It all begins with us spending time innocuously walking through the streets on google maps, gradually spending more and more time there, until real life and Street View become indistinct and one day you double-click on a pedestrian and he cranes his neck around, arms shoot out of your screen and pull you in, digitising your flesh into the internet in one quick, painless motion. I’m pretty sure there’s already a jquery plugin that does this.
Walk a mile in my shoes!
In celebration of Tokyo Street View, have a look at some of my regular / favourite spots in Tokyo, so you know where to wait for me, axe in hand, all crazy-eyed, like.
This is my supermarket. There are many like it but this one is mine.
It may not look like much, but it’s open 24 hours, which is handy when you run out of bogroll. PROTIP: don’t buy bogroll from convenience stores because they sell thicker rolls that run out quicker. It’s a scientific fact that convenience stores earn most of their revenue through clever scarcity manipulation like this. Fiends! Also, the convenience stores near me don’t sell Guinness, and this supermarket does. It’s a no-brainer. Scroll north-west to see the dozen-or-so train tracks that make up Tokyo station.
Marunouchi
Even though I still find this place nigh-on impossible to pronounce without sounding slurry and inebriated, it’s definitely one of my favourite spots in Tokyo. Wide, pedestrian-friendly roads, not many people and hardly any cars. Paradoxical when you consider that this is the very center of Japan’s financial industry. PROTIP: Train routes make it seem further than it actually is, but you can walk to Ginza from Marunouchi in about 10 minutes. A rather pleasant walk it is, too.
Ginza / Yurakucho
I love to go and walk around Ginza at the weekend for a few reasons. One, I can walk home from there. Two, they close the roads to traffic meaning everyone can go wherever they like. Three, it has some amazing examples of architecture. PROTIP: Famous Ginza department stores Matsuya, Matsuzakaya and Mitsukoshi are largely indiscernible from each other. Skip em. Go buy a mac at the Apple store instead.
The curvy DeBeers building:
Hermes store, made up of glass lego bricks:
Cheapo thai food place where everything on the menu is 630-yen and the trains rattle your plate every 2 minutes as they pass overhead.
The bit of grass infront of the Imperial Palace
You’ll find better-kept grass only on the world’s finest golf courses. I’m often baffled as to why there are so few people at this park. It’s not illegal or some kind of imperial faux pas to plonk yourself down here with a book, but no one does. Even with a main road nearby it’s still quieter than Yoyogi park I think, because there are naff-all people. PROTIP: Don’t set up a tent and live here. There’s actually a sign saying that is prohibited.
Roppongi
Tokyo Midtown - Tokyo’s latest salute to materialism. A couple of decent restaurants (Union Square is still a favourite of mine) and a very competent Choclatier, Jean Paul Hevin, call this home. PROTIP: If you ever get approached by a pushy club / bar tout in Roppongi, the best tactic is to immediately drop to the floor and soil yourself.
An inexplicably cheap Chinese restaurant (greasy, hearty northern-style food), right smack opposite one of the fanciest hotels in Tokyo, the Grand Hyatt. Good place for a post-karaoke food stop.
Well that’s yer lot
Got a favourite spot in Tokyo? Show me on Street View! First person to link to my apartment building gets 10 shiny stalker points
