Day 9 (Tuesday): Blah!!!

If there was any day I wish I could have back, it was this day. Instead of spending the day visiting a couple of places remaining, I wish I had taken a day excursion to somewhere outside of Tokyo because what I saw on this day sucked and the only saving grace was dinner.
I love aquariums and planetariums and Sunshine City had both of them but I was truly underwhelmed. There's really not much to write about other than to say that if you are expecting to see huge tanks or cool underwater glass tunnels or anything like that, you won't find them here.
After Sunshine City, I headed for Roppongi Hills which was a bit of a letdown also. While Roppongi might be a happening place for "gaijins" at night, there's nothing too exciting going on during the day. They did have this spider which had nasty little eggs in it. Ewwww!

Inside the Mori Building, I visited the Mori Art Museum which I did not like at all. Like I had mentioned previously, modern art is quite subjective but as long as I can see that effort was put into making a piece I can appreciate it. I was not inspired by anything I saw at the Mori and I found the MOMA which I visited last week to be a much more rewarding experience. It wasn't a total loss though because the Mori Building has a fantastic observatory called the Tokyo City View.

This observatory was much better than the one in the Government Building in Shinjuku. The observatory at the Government Building seemed more like an afterthought where as you can tell that they had an observatory in mind when they setup the Tokyo City View. I kind of wish I had returned here at night to see the city come alive under its lights.

Before I arrived in Tokyo, I made it one of my goals to visit a themed restaurant during my stay. I had researched a couple of restaurants and narrowed it down to two before I left. My first choice was Alcatraz ER. This is a prison themed restaurant where they handcuff you when you first come in and then lead you to your seat where the booths are designed as prison cells complete with bars. Cool! The waiters and waitresses are dressed in surgeon or nurse outfits and then sometime during the night the lights will go out and a crazy mad man will start running around the restaurant "slashing" people. Sometimes they will pick a volunteer to be operated on also. I've seen it on TV and it just looks so crazy but like a lot of fun. Ultimately though, it's more of an experience to be had with other people so I thought it would be weird if I went alone. If I ever go back with someone though, I will make it my mission to eat here.

My second choice was The Vampire Café. This restaurant seemed more to my liking as I've always thought Vampires to be cool. Interview with the Vampire is one of my favourite movies and I've read all of the Vampire Chronicles books. It was also conveniently located in Ginza which was a bonus for me. It took me a while to find the place. I kept circling this one area because I knew I was close and it had to be somewhere around here. Again, there aren't a lot of signs at street level to help you out when the place you are looking for is located many stories up. Just when I was about to give up, I finally found it. I entered the elevator to make my way up. When the doors opened, it opened into the restaurant. The restaurant is really, really, really dark.

I was greeted by a waitress dressed in a maid outfit. I asked if she spoke any English and she said no and went to get someone else. He didn't speak any English either and none of the menus were in English. That didn't really matter to me though since I was here more for the experience than about the food. The floor leading to the seating area is patterned with large red blood cells and is vibrantly lit up in red. In the middle of the seating area are tables and along the walls are booths with heavy red velvet curtains for privacy. Each table had a little bell if you needed to ring for service. Along the way, I had to pass a coffin with a severed leg on it.

It seemed like the whole place was only lit by candles and additional ambient lighting. I looked at the menu and the only thing they had in English were the headings for the entrees and the drinks. I ordered a drink and pointed out the last item under the Pizza heading (I had no clue what type of pizza I was ordering). To give you an idea of how dark it was, here is my table with flash and without.

My drink came back looking like blood of course (wouldn't have it any other way) and judging from the way my pizza came, I concluded I must have ordered a triple cheese pizza with potato slices. This thing had soooooooo much cheese on it that I think I scraped half of it off. I ordered another drink and while there, a couple of Japanese ladies came into the restaurant and were just as curious about their surroundings (by the way they looking every which way) as I was when I first walked in. Once I was done my meal, I paid and went back to the front and into the elevator. There I was the recipient of the longest bow in history. The waiter bowed and kept his head down until the elevator closed which seemed to take forever. Though the food was so-so, I was happy that I got to check this place out but probably wouldn't go again. It was a very dark, subdued and quiet restaurant experience.