August 28th, 2004

This day of walking would decide the fate of WTFY 2K4!! So as not to blow it, I bit down on the bullet and walked the path teh alone. Without company I hoped to make up time lost on the last indie, and walk as long and hard as necessary to keep WTFY 2k4 on schedule! (Four days, not five.)

Did I mention it rained that day? Because it did.

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WALK THE FRIENDLY YAMANOTE 2004 START!

Shinagawa - 00000
Starting from Shinagawa was fun. The station:s design was open and easy to move around. Very un-Japanese in many ways.

Here:s a picture of a Shinkansen made out of Legos. Not the whole bullet train, but the very front of one. It was chained to the bench.

I exited the station and walked north on the inside of the loop. Had I gone out the east side of the station, I would:ve been on the outside of the loop. I kinda wished I had. On this side there wasn:t a whole lot of interesting things to see or do. Just boring old apartment buildings and BMW-car dealerships.

Feeling the need to drink something, I stopped off in a convenience store and got a bag of popcorn and some Coca Cola. They were having a promotion of some kind with little Sonic key chains. I got Amy, not Tails.

About 10 minutes later into the walk, I still really wanted to cross the tracks. There hadn:t been any major roads or pedestrian bridges of any kind, so I thought I was out of luck. Until I saw this. It:s a shallow tunnel for cars, cabs and motorcycles. On the side of this tunnel was a path for bikes and other foot traffic about three feet wide. The sign says "Max height - 1.5 meters". I peered in and, boy, they weren:t kidding. I thought it would be a good idea to use this thing to get under (and eventually across) the tracks, but I:m 1.8 meters tall. Time to ignore you again, logic.

Looks rather inviting, wouldn:t you say? For about the first 100 meters or so, I entered it and walked along slightly hunched over. I:m not exactly lacking in the height department. The few blows to the head I:ve suffered just by not ducking on the way out of the bathroom at my apartment will verify that.

By now, the light was all artificial, and the air was circulated by the cars going 40 miles an hour just a few feet away from me. After the first part, the tunnel got lower still. The ceiling swiftly jutted down to just barely over my shoulders. I hunched over even more and walked forward. The air got worse and the claustrophobia started to set in. The tunnel:s length wasn:t measured, but next time I:m around it I will. It did take five minutes to walk through. Which is a hella-long time to walk hunched over so low I could:ve tied my shoelaces at any given time I wanted to.

FREEDOM! It had started to rain by the time I:d emerged. And against my hopes, the other side of the tracks wasn:t anything interesting, just a river I couldn:t cross and a bunch of very expensive apartment buildings lording over it. ...Which meant that I had been on the interesting side of the tracks.

D'oh!

Not wanting to go back down the tunnel, I shrugged my shoulders, then I shrugged again because they were a little sore.

Five minutes later I came across a small park and found my way to a major road. I took this picture because it reminds my of my apartment. Roughly 200 PET bottles just lying around. Up the road a bit, I saw a bridge and a way to get back to the other side of the tracks. I returned to the inner-side of the Yamanote loop.

Crossing the bridge, I saw this wonderful sight. Tokyo Tower. Having never been there in the last 22 years (to the best of my knowledge) I decided to head over and check it out. And while I thought it would be "just over there" it turned out to be a 30 minute walk.

Huh. I never knew there was a building under Tokyo Tower. I had the choice of paying to go up to the observation decks or getting online for two hours and affording a train ticket home. Maybe next year I:ll see what:s up there... At least the museum or whatever is underneath it should be kind of nice to check out.

No such luck. A bunch of cheesy stalls selling trinkets, t-shirts and other goofy things tourists waste their money on. I sat down for a few minutes, eating my popcorn and relaxing for a bit before walking 30 minutes back to the bridge.

Tamachi - 04941
WEE! Finally, an hour and a half after I started the day:s walk, I made it to the first station. Not that I regret walking some 2880 steps and an hour off the path, but I think it was worth it. Definitely something I wouldn:t have done had someone been walking with me that day.

NOTE: the 2880 steps are not included in the day:s total. Ignoring the Tokyo Tower distraction, it:s been 4,941 steps so far today.

Passed another park. Sign funny.

Hamamatsuchō - 07091
Starting around this area, the walk got very boring. Lots of boring buildings, boring shops, boring construction. The off-and-on rain wasn:t helping.

Shimbashi - 09229
ARRRRGH!! More nothing!! Seriously, by the time WTFY 2k5 comes around, these areas had better improve. Absolutely no life or flavor to be found anywhere. It felt like I was walking around the "generic big city" set in some Hollywood movie about Chicago cops. Needless to say, I didn:t take too many pictures. Current time is 3:30 pm.

Sake. A versatile word. Bars and restaurants started to appear frequently. This was my first sign of re-entering anywhere interesting. Or at least an area with a nightlife.

Yūrakuchō - 10675
Hey hey! This is more like it. Stores everywhere, people walking around, and 10,000 steps done. I searched for air-conditioning.

Now I know there:s a Quizno's Subs here is Jay-pan. Grabbing lunch at this point would:ve been nice, but I kept walking, hoping for something more not-Quizno's.

Rock-On!! There:s a Sofmap here. They handle electronic things, DVDs, video games and such. I killed 50 minutes here, just walking around and breathing in cool, HP-refreshing A/C. I got a game half-off, totaling 150 yen. It:s the first game I:ve bought in over two weeks. The previous was way back around Takadanobaba.

Tōkyō - 12631
A short 15 minutes later, if that, I got to Tokyo station. Around this area are many banks, offices, skyscrapers and taxis. People on the street walk like they were 10 minutes late 20 minutes ago.

Kanda - 14237
I think I:ve been to Kanda around 2 years ago. I can:t clearly remember why, but who really cares. Karaoke bars, regular bars and convenience stores which sell alcohol surround the station. I ran out of Coca Cola back around Yūrakuchō so I found me a local Manboo to get some interweb time and free drinks. Non-alcoholic drinks, thank you very much.

An hour and 5 minutes later it:s back to the streets. 6:17 pm and I still have a little bit of strength left in me. I passed a store which sold kendo gear. I always wanted one of those bamboo-sword thingies. Now I know where to get one later on, should the need to own one suddenly arise.

"Shot Bar Zoid" is now the coolest bar officially according to me. Another thing to put down on my list of "things to do when I get back".

Akihabara - 16008
Legs... Can:t... MOVE! So I snapped the final picture for the evening and called it a night. What you see here is the main road going up and down Akihabara. Sega Arcade is to the left, and the station is to the left. This shot was taken at the bridge before I actually got to the station, so that:s why the station:s sign isn:t pictured here.

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Ride home was only 210 yen! I walked a lot! I ate spaghetti for dinner! (applause)

Another eight stations down, nine left. To be fair, the walk from Akihabara to Okachimachi to Uyeno is all of 35 minutes. It:s the other seven I:m worried about... The whole Tokyo Tower distraction did more damage than I initially thought. Had I not gone off-track to see it or had I not killed an hour just walking around the Sofmap, this indie would:ve ended up at Uyeno. And on that note...

Could I get some feedback on the length here? The first indie was 5 pictures. This one is 25 (pictures) long after edits. Before indie_015 went up, the average number on an indie was 10- or 11-ish. The last six indies, including this one, total 121, or 20 pictures per indie. Are 25 pictures too much for an indie or what? I:m not questioning your attention spans or anything, just curious. Cutting out some of the pictures wasn:t that hard, but I guess it simply means that the over-all quality is improving. Or something.

TO BE CONCLUDED??