Tokyo Station had just finished a major restoration when I was in Tokyo, so on my second day here, I decided to pay it a visit. Since the station is on the JR line, it was easily accessible from where I was staying. After finishing lunch with a bunch of colleagues from the headquarters, I took the train to Tokyo station.
Built in 1914, it still maintained the flavour of that period. Located in the Maru-no-ichi area, the land that the station was sitting on including all the other offices located around it are purported to be extremely expensive. Also, it was within walking distance of the Imperial Palace. Maru-no-ichi is also a slang here used to refer to those bigwigs in charge, like the CEO and his small group of board, important people who make the decisions.
True to the Japanese fashion, new underground shopping malls were built near the Tokyo Station, promising tons of shops. The shops stretched a distance, and they were aligned according to their categories, restaurants in one direction, gift shops in another, and some were connected to neighbouring buildings with more malls of their own. It was very dizzying down there, and after an hour, I was overwhelmed, so decided to come back up and took the train back to my hotel for a short rest.
In the evening, woke up to head to Roppongi with the friend from the 5 hours karaoke marathon. Fellow’s still stuck with his master thesis, and it was his second Christmas here, and we decided to visit Roppongi which was famous for its Christmas illuminations.
I had problems getting to Roppongi and kept losing my way. Originally had intended to take the train on the Rinkai line, but suddenly it stopped at Osaki when I had intended to get off at Ebisu. Decided to change to the Yamanote line to get to Ebisu instead, and from there, walked to the Tokyo Metro line to change train. Yet, I took the train which went in the wrong direction and ended up at the terminal! Had no choice but to get off and crossed the platform to catch the rebound train back in the direction that I wanted and finally I was heading to Roppongi.
We had agreed to meet at Roppongi Hills, but couldn’t find my way out so asked the people at the information desk for help. The McDonald’s which we had agreed to meet at was only accessible by a hidden flight of stairs, tucked away behind a huge ZARA store. My friend was already waiting for me there, and we set off to look for food while enjoying the decorations.
However my friend had different ideas about it. He claimed that the Japanese only knew about putting lights on trees and calling them ‘Christmas Decoration’. True enough, they started out looking pretty, but after a while, we realised that there weren’t any decorations which were Christmas-y at all. No Christmas trees, none of the green and red coloured decorations which we were so accustomed to. It was just lights, and all. Even the Christmas bazaar one of the malls set up seemed like a sad half-baked effort for us, and we found ourselves missing the grand Christmas decorations Malaysian malls would set up.
The two of us being the stingy people we were, we searched Roppongi high and low for a Saizeriya. Saizeriya is a chain restaurant famed for its unexceptionally low priced menu, which appealed to us. Found one after we spent a long time searching for it, and had our cheap dinner there.
As for the illuminations, Roppongi Hills were boasting about their intelligent decorations, but it doesn’t feel very intelligent at all, when all it does is to change from blue to white, and back to blue again. We walked till the TV Asahi building to see their illuminations and that was about it. Just lights, and more lights.
この長い旅で 
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Mark