北へTactical Deployment

Roppongi Hills is just a little north-east of Meguro. Perhaps more relevantly, it’s not far from Shibuya – an upmarket shopping district with a more refined and stylish touch. It also adjoins a commercial area with plenty of offices.

This is one of Ast's photos - security wouldn't let us past the lobby to find out just what The Pokemon Company does here

Ascending from the station we find ourselves entering a large cavernous atrium, surrounded by various shops, cafes and TV screens – it certainly does no harm for one’s image. Everything about the place exudes a sense of luxury and class – clean, spacious and well-lit.

You can see some of the oval-shaped roof near the top, I think it's about 30m in diameter, and this is the small building

Stepping out into daylight is a weird experience – it’s a wide open area, with grass, trees and park benches. It’s also pretty busy for a Tuesday. While Ast went off to find a toilet, I sat down and tried to see if I could snarf some wifi (unsuccessfully).

It's *that* kinda wanky establishment, they've wrapped all the trees up like presents.

Roppongi Hills was under attack by alien spiders at the time of this report. We apologise for any inconvenience caused-degozaimasu.

The most obvious feature is the 54-storey Mori tower, directly in front of the station exit. The lower half a dozen or so levels are for shopping, while the upper levels are mostly corporate office space. As seen in the top photo, there’s plenty of well-known companies with operations here. The shopping is a warren of tunnels and levels, attached in parts to a hotel, cinemas, and gardens. It’s not entirely different from some of the shinier Westfield complexes (like Bondi Junction), but with so much less horrible.

You can't tell from here, but this is an elaborate display sitting in a small water feature inside one of the shopping arcades

Winding our way up from the lower levels we arrive on a plateau overlooking a hillside to the east. It’s steep, and a series of stairways and walkways have been built into the hill. Were it a little more complex and cave-ish, it wouldn’t be out of place in Myst.

Think what you will of the smog over the city, I just can't get over the deep blue sky here.

From the hillside there’s a fair view out over the city. Tokyo Tower is pretty much directly to the east. Below us a decidedly western-style garden is well-maintained and enjoyed by families, couples and friends. A little to the south is a small theatre of sorts, where there’s a choral performance taking place.

Overlooking the garden from the east side of the hill. The TV Asahi building is visible on the right.

One of the more curious scenes we spotted. The dog (a greyhound with long hair?) looked thoroughly dazed and confused, while the kids were delighted to play with a very docile pet. Moments earlier its owner was feeding the dog potato wedges and watching TV on their phone.

TV Asahi’s headquarters are right next door, which were open for some sort of anniversary festivities by my guess. On display down one end was a series of stalls and boards for one of their more popular programs, 相棒 (Aibou, “partner” in the sense of camaraderie). It’s a cop action show, and it’s been popular enough to warrant several full seasons (then again, there’s Zero no Tsukaima too, right?).

You can tell what sort of cop-duo it'll be - the older and wiser detective, immacutely dressed and very intellectual, teamed with the younger, rasher, spur of the moment, not-quite-rookie-but-inexperienced cop.

That pretty much rounds out the day for us. We’ve plans to meet up with a local contact sometime, as well as make battle plans for comiket.

Roppongi may have the highest concentration of Little Dogs in all of Tokyo.

There was a machine in the tv asahi building that takes 10yen coins and stamps these little medallions for you. This is for V-san, he digs Doraemon.

So it’s like Moyashimon, but not as cute…

This one’s almost too easy, so it doesn’t deserve a planning entry. Today we’re heading to the Meguro Parasitological Museum. Don’t ask how we decided this, just blame the internet.

Meguro is one of the 23 city wards of Tokyo, roughly south-south-west of The Exciting Bits (where we’re staying). As a result, it’s well-serviced by JR and the Metro, so getting here is dead simple. As if that weren’t enough, the museum has a guide in English for visitors.

We weren’t in a great hurry, having left the hotel around 11:00. Once we got off the train around midday it was a pleasant walk down Meguro-dori to the museum. The sun is out and there’s a light breeze – you could be forgiven for thinking it was autumn. Being a Tuesday, it’s business as usual and there are plenty of people about. It’s definitely nowhere near as bustling as Tokyo-proper, but it’s still distinctly city-ish. As always, there’s evidence of construction works here and there.

The bridge over Meguro river, along Meguro-dori not far from the station.

The museum itself is a tall but unassuming six-storey building, a little way up the hill past Yamate-dori. While its biggest claim to fame is being the world’s only parasitological museum, they’re also a serious research centre. As well as having a large catalogue of specimens, they perform studies and produce publications. Photography inside is a bit challenging, so you’ll have to trust me that there’s two whole floors of squirm-inducing parasites on display there.

The first floor is mostly samples of varying sizes preserved in jars of formalin or under perspex. They vary in size from “barely visible” up to “golly that’s quite large”, but it all pales in comparison to what you’ll find upstairs – behold the 8.8 metre ribbon they keep there to give visitors a real idea of just how long the world’s longest tapeworm is (it’s hard to appreciate the scale of the folded and preserved one on the wall). Along with this you’ll find light-up maps of where you’ll find other parasites around Japan, and an oddball selection of goods in their gift-shop. If you venture off into the other attached rooms you can find the original writings from the dude who opened the museum in 1953, and pioneered a lot of work in the field.

The museum is government-assisted, but otherwise relies on donations (entry is free). Seeing as you’ve come all the way out here, it’d be nice to make a donation.

Decidedly pleased that we’d not eaten earlier, we started heading back towards the station. We’re not averse to the local food (except Ast, who might die if he eats too much seafood), but we’re too lazy to be adventurous, so we ended up getting something oily at Mosburger before visiting the Lawsons next door.

Across the intersection from Lawsons we spotted a shrine on the way past. As fans of miko-related pursuits, this was worth a visit. As if to prove its adaptability and relevance, the Ohtori shrine has a driveway and can accomodate cars, suitable for the urban setting. Also curious was that there was noone to be found. Do attendants get lunch breaks..?

Ohtori seemed to have a lot more gold than other shrines we've seen. The sign on the left with the red stripe tells whether you'll have a lucky or an unlucky year, based on your birth-year.

An omikuji (fortune) vending machine - that'd explain why there's noone here. As Ast notes, miko robots are only a matter of time.

It’s a tranquil place, and we could have happily sat around relaxing for a while, but we had places to be. Next stop, Roppongi Hills.