Japan's Largest Shield Tunnel

It's 1400hrs on Thursday the 3rd of July and we are waiting in front of the Hachiko statue, ready to be taken to see Japan's largest shield tunnel. Whilst waiting for everyone to arrive, we noticed a small white cat had been placed under Hachiko...

Cat-chiko (hahaha...*ahem*)

We walked to Shimizu's offices nearby for a quick slide show about the whole project - mainly about why the tunnels had to be built one on top of another (lack of space) and the issues involved in turning the huge machine around to dig the second tunnel after it had finished the first one.

(left) Shaft 2, where we exited from, you'll notice the whole construction area is covered so that noise and dust does not disturb people near by. (right) down shaft 1, note how close the tunnels are! only 1.5m seperates them and each tunnel is nearly 13m in diameter.

me on the way down shaft 1

(left) the back of the shield tunnel, very clean....(right) the machinery that follows to control the flow of slurry to the face and take away the muck which is dug out. It is currently digging the bottom tunnel.

(left) the tunnel lining - black is ductile cast iron, and white is stiffer steel (right) a complicated s-bend in the tunnel, it is also sloping upwards. - the shield tunnel is programmed to dig this shape and CAD is used to design the individual lining segments...
We emerged at Shaft2. The tunnels only had about 20 or so people working in them (very small work force for such a complex project) it was very clean and well organised - but also very expensive. I am told that the shield tunnelling machine was designed for this project and this project only. After it has finished here, it will be disassembled and then melted for scrap.

Birthday stuff...

Having already taken me on a bead shopping-spree in Asakusa Bashi [浅草橋] last saturday, Greg took me to a very nice French restaurant in Hiroo [広尾] called Chez Tomo.

We entered past the open kitchen and the signatures of the Troigros Brothers (two very famous French Chefs whose restaurant Tomo used to work in when he was in France) and then turned the corner to a very peaceful, white-dressed dining area. Tomo apparently cooks for the love of food and only just covers costs on lunches, and as the majority of his customers are regulars, he changes the menu often.

I had a very nice foie gras fish terrine (very nice foie gras!) and Greg went for a form of black pudding (which looked more like a chocolate brownie. I have to say I prefered the look of mine, the idea of a slab of blood didn't really appeal. on the other hand the slab of blood didn't look or taste anything like what I expected and it had a surprisingly soft texture. Moving on, we both took the hot and cold veges which arrived on a square plate neatly laid out in a grid. There each of the 30 or so little veges were all different, and we spent most of the time working out what they were before eliminating them one by one. For the main course I took white fish in a tomato soup which came with a prawn sitting on a bed of finely diced vegetables. Dessert, which is usually the most difficult to avoid dairy products, they offered me several non-cow related options involving fruit and sugar. I took the cherries, which then reappeared in a very tasty red wine sauce. In addition to the tastiness, the sauce also tried to make me more drunk.

The food at Chez Tomo was excellent, and I was particularly impressed with their ease at dealing with my anti-cow product allergys. The atmosphere was more cosy, and the service more personal than L'Atelier, and we hope to go again...

The second-half of the afternoon involved heading to Shibuya and buying tickets for Indiana Jones, which was out on general release the very same day.

After the movie, we went to Tight to wait for people joining us for dinner...which was at ISM (our favourite hard-to-find restaurant)...a lovely lunch and a great night with friends all arranged by my Greg. Merci Buckets.

Tiffin Reunion - part2c [Shibuya]

It’s Monday, so I head into uni and leave Emily to go to Asakusa before meeting the others for a day of sightseeing. I thought I would just go in and work on my presentation that I have to do each term to both my lab [Hongo Campus] and Koseki lab [Komaba Campus] so that they know what I’m doing and to show what I’ve been doing for the past 6 months; which isn’t much…ooops. Anyway, not so simple. At about 9am I get an email from Isobel saying that it’s actually today that is best for returning the tent (I borrowed a tent – *deluxe* apparently, but I never got to try it out so I wouldn’t know – for a climbing trip to Ogawayama; very good Granite I’m told, But the trip fell through; so no climbing.) and Isobel needed the tent back for some running event she seemed to be trying to pull together. I had obviously misunderstood the email she had sent earlier that morning so anyway, I went back to my apartment o pick up the tent then came back to uni for my 430 lecture then left, with the tent, to meet Isobel at Nagatacho. Had a nice but short chat then we jumped on to the Hanomazon line and I headed off to Shibuya to meet the Brits.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t had time to make a reservation with the restaurant, which is always packed. It’s a very popular restaurant and thus a reservation is really the best idea if you want to eat some thing that day; I was shown the restaurant by Amy – an unofficial mentor of sorts; Malaysian Chinese and doing a PhD at Todai as well.

This restaurant is pretty damned hard to find if you aren’t shown where it is. It has a very well hidden entrance which you have to walk through and behind a building to find. From under the small plastic canopy which covers the little walkway leading to the entrance to the left of you train lines are about a meter from you. Then, when you do get to it, it’s literally a hobbit sized wooden sliding door, which even I have to crouch to get through. Once through the door you enter a different world. The calls of the staff shouting orders and welcomes to customers, the smell and sounds of food cooking, and the busy chatter of the guests fills the air. There is a very small entrance area with a big flat-topped stone which steps up to the floor level of the restaurant. There are small cupboards for shoes and from the entrance area you can see the chefs counter with guests seated around. I try to explain to the guy who greets us that we want to eat there tonight but don’t have a reservation. He looks a little sceptical, in a friendly and apologetic way, and has to discuss with a fellow waitress who spoke English, that they didn’t really have space, but if we came back at 930pm we could be squeezed into a booth meant to seat 4. ‘paaaah! That’s fine!’ I say. So, we head off to Tight to await dinner. I personally thing that the wait will be worth it, even though I’ve not been in there yet…

I drop the girls off at Tight, then accompany Ian to Bic Camera so that he can buy himself a camera. He says he needs to replace his because it’s broken…I think he just wants a new toy...So, yeah, we have a little look at the selection, and try and work out how their labelling system for the camera specifications works. We harangue a couple of shop assistants for a while, trying to work out in broken Japanese what all the numbers mean.

Ian makes his choice pretty damn quickly and within about half an hour he’s chosen his camera…we then buy the thing and use some of the points to get a SD card, then head back to the bar.

We get to Tight to find Isabella, Laura and Emily a little tipsy, they seem to have found a new drink of choice…kahlua and milk, and have already made their way through 2 each. Tight is *packed*, which isn’t hard, but is fun to see. There are the most number of people that I’ve seen in the bar, ever, 9 (if I remember correctly). Squeezed into the bar and wedging themselves above the stairs by bridging between the wall and the banisters.

I could tell that Emily was hungry, because she started chewing on the coasters and asked me what time it was every 5 minutes…and when the time was nigh, we trotted off back to the restaurant. At the restaurant, we were led down some stairs to the basement where there was more seating, and were taken to a western-style seated booth, which happily seated the 5 of us. They took one look at us and handed us the English menu; which was great, because it had some pictures of the food too. We started with some salad; which apparently incurred a service fee, and it was tasty! The crispy noodle-like stuff was particularly ingenious, to complement the softness of the veggies, and topped with a lovely dressing. To follow that, we got hold of some, kimchee, fresh tofu, beans in black sugar, jimuchee pancake, and some fried veggies.
I had to take a break from the ordering to eat some of the salad before it all disappeared…then I ordered some Strawberry Shoujuu (fruit wine), as recommended by Amy as well as ebi mayo and negitoro-something-something.

Ian was enamoured by the selection of food, and proclaimed that the meal just went from strength to strength…then ranted a little about how amazing the sauce on the Ebi mayo was; I said ‘…well…it probably involves mayonnaise for one; on account of the name and tomato sauce…’ on the bright side he still loved it despite a dislike of mayonnaise. The Strawberry Shoujuu, seemed to go down well too, it actually involved real strawberries and had the general aura of something which wasn’t alcoholic. I’m sure this makes it very dangerous.

Time to go home and get some rest I think, they all have an early start tomorrow to get a train to somewhere which isn’t Tokyo. And yes, I’m applying the same kind of geographical ethic I have for the UK: where there is London, and ‘Other places which aren’t London’; Japan has a more complex system of: Tokyo, near Tokyo, and ‘Other places which aren’t Tokyo’.

I *love* this restaurant…something tells me that I’ll be here again…

Tiffin reunion - part 2b [Harajuku and Shibuya]

So, it's sunday the 13th and last night we agreed on meeting at Harajuku at 2pm on the account that I was refusing to get out of bed early on the account of having the plague. What ended up happening was that Is and Ian phoned to say that they would be late; issues with moving bags and checking in at hotels and all that palava. So, we rearrange to 2:45ish...In the mean time, Emily and I happen to pass through the Tokyo International Forum; which has a very cool market on sundays, there are stall selling yukatas, jewellery, Japanese crockery, antiques, handbags...a good way to waste a few minutes/hours. We get a little distracted and end up buying yukatas, which I've been wanting for ages...well since I stayed at a ryokan in Hakone.

This shopping excursion results in some unforeseen lateness, despite the fact that we were going to be early...we eventually get to the craziness of Harajuku station at about 3pm where we find Ian, Is and Laura in the mist of the throng. I then walk them to the bridge outside Meiji Jingu Mae to look at the cool kids hanging out in their crazy clothes and the statutory group of ‘Free Hugs’ placard holding people. Then on to Meiji Jingu and Yoyogi park itself; where I had been told that there was a Thai festival still on…we walked around in to the temple which sent the architects in to a frenzy at how cool the Japanese roofs are, lots of pictures ensued. The temple had a minimum of three weddings that day, we watched three of the processions with their immaculately dressed bride, groom, guests, and ministers.


We then took a little walk around to try and find the Thai festival, but after about ten minutes I decided that it wasn’t actually there. So, we headed to the depths of Harajuku to find the okonomiyaki restaurant that I took my brother to at Christmas.

We order several Okonomiyaki’s (with egg and flour), and a monjayaki (just veggies and some meat or seafood with a little water and starch). As soon as the first one arrives we get on with the business of cooking the thing so that we can eat the bugger. It’s great fun, everyone gets around to attacking the stuff on the hot plate with the spatulas. Emily was forced to defend her okonomiyaki with some spatulas to prevent contamination from the other meaty thing being cooked on the other side of the plate. The vegetarian option was damned nice, but there was a really good Jimuchee okonomiyaki which was rather small, but *very* good…






After finishing with the whole eating and whacking food with spatulas, we ventured out to the main shopping place in Harajuku; Takeshita Street. There are some pretty funky shops down there; very Camden-esque just with more sock shops containing more leg adornment items than you could shake a stick at. There’s the funky dog fashion shop too….with the little outfits for your tiny mutt. Emily and Is are very distracted by the shopping opportunities, and there is ample window shopping going on. We did stop to introduce Laura and Emily to the joy of Japanese Crepes; although the one they bought here didn’t look half as good as the one that Is and Ian managed to get in Ueno park.

After all the walking around we are all pretty tired, and Is, Ian and Laura have to go and sort out their bags and hotel stuff, so they head home from Harajuku but Emily and I drag ourselves to Shibuya on the way home to go have a snoop around and watch the crazy Shibuya crossing. We pause for a coffee at the Starbucks which overlooks the crossing before heading back home.

TiGhT. Yes, so it is…

I* have found the worlds coolest bar. You may think that you have found the coolest bar, but you’re wrong. It’s in Shibuya, Tokyo (just so you know). It all started when I had been stupid and missed my last train home when we had been out in ‘What the Dickens’^. This resulted in a rather spontaneous all-nighter, the best place for which was Shibuya, so after leaping off the train in the direction of home, just as the doors were closing, we got on one in the other direction heading back to Shibuya. It was the last train of the night, so it was already past the point of no return. We headed up the main street and found a little standing-room-only bar, which was packed with bodies. It had a cunning sign stuck on to the glass of the window which as fast steaming up, stating that all beers were 200yen each. So, we ventured into the throng and ordered our beers. We ended up chatting to a really nice pair of blokes, one was Japanese and the other was Australian. The Japanese guy seemed to pick up straight away that I was British. Apparently I dress just like one. Nice.

Anyway, we asked them if they new any good places that were open all night, and the Japanese guy was really helpful and after a couple of beers he took us around Shibuya pointing out clubs and bars that he recommended, whilst the Aussie headed home. The rock bar that he suggested was unfortunately shut, but the route we took to the club took us past a 24hour jeans shop. Should you need to buy a new pair of jeans at 3am it is possible in Tokyo….all seems a bit weird if you ask me. So, he carried on with his tour of Shibuya and the conversation went towards the direction of:
‘do you know ‘drunken street’?’
‘Errr….no.’
So, we were taken back away from the main street and headed back towards the train lines. We turned down a little side street and then went through arches under the railway, the sides of which were lined with bicycles and motorbikes chained to the installed parking spaces. The path then turned sharply right into a well lit alley. The alley was lined with the railway bridge to the right and small two storey buildings on the left. The buildings were tiny, with blazing signs to advertise their presence, a lot of the places had the little Japanese curtains hanging over their door to advertise the fact they were in fact restaurants.

Our guide pointed to a narrow and tall glass door. But the bar upstairs was unfortunately shut. We continued to walk down the alley and peered into tiny box restaurants packed with people. These restaurants were amazing. They could barely fit the 5 customers squeezed around the counter. Let alone the cook and kitchen equipment which must have existed behind the counter. We vowed to return and so we did…

When we did make it back, the narrow glass door was open. It opened outwards on to the street and framed the white tiled staircase behind. The staircase can’t be more than half a meter wide, and the steps are quite steep. I pushed myself up the stairs to be met with the smallest bar that possibly ever exists. The stairs ended about half a meter away from the back wall of the room which contained the bar and I was met with a glass-clad wall. To I looked to the right and there were four people in front of the bar. There was *just* about enough space between the bar and the banister stopping people at the bar backing into the void of the stairs that I had just climbed up for a bar stool and a human to squeeze themselves on to the stool. Turning my back to the mirror I looked straight ahead to see the whole side of the room to be a window, which nicely framed the railway which ran a couple of meters away, almost level with the bar. I looked upwards to see a very cute little chandelier. The bar had two beer taps and a line of bottled spirits on the shelf near the ceiling. We seemed to have timed it just right, because, two guys were just about to leave. I had to go back out on to the street to let the people out. There was no way that you could pass someone comfortably. We managed to be seated by the window. There were two flat screens behind the bar playing a very strange DVD. It truly is an amazing bar, and it has a really cool owner and bartender who doesn’t speak much English, but seemed to understand some of my broken Japanese, we had a little chat, but we were mainly busy being in awe of the utter coolness of the place. We did wonder if the place can actually make enough money to keep itself going, it would be such a shame if it didn’t exist.

I’ll try and take my camera there sometime and try and take photos of it, but I have a feeling that it would be pretty hard to capture it well, something to do with the name. The best solution is to go there and experience it. TiGhT is definitely my favourite bar, and the owner/bartender is lovely and friendly. I going to go there to practice my Japanese with him as much as possible!

Apparently, most major areas in Tokyo have their own ‘drunken streets’, so maybe there are other cool bars around. But something tells me this particular one will be impossible to beat.

* I lie. I’m good at that.
^ It’s a very cool English pub in Ebisu. Great live music, lovely atmosphere and PINTS of Beer!!! Hurrah! You’ll have to look up a different post for this, because I still haven’t gotten around to writing about this either…