Tochōmae, A Night View of Tokyo

Tochōmae, as far as I know, translates to "city hall." There is a Tochōmae train station and a huge Tochōmae "city hall" building with a free high-rise view of Tokyo. I went there at night to take some photos, and I'm posting some below for you. You don't realize how absolutely HUGE Tokyo is until you see it from up high. Lights stretch on for as far as you can see in any direction that you look.
In the photo on the left, above, you'll see a tall building with a very reflective surface. At night, when you look at it, it looks like cars are driving up and down it because it reflects the road below. Very cool!

There was a big building with some brightly lit windows just across the street, so I also decided to break out my new zoom lens and let the inner voyeur out. Among other things, I saw two men being served dinner by a woman in a bunny outfit! She was probably some sort of hostess.
Left: The building I was photographing. Right: Zooming in, you see the bunny-clad woman in the top right window. I didn't realize what I had photographed until I got home and looked at the pictures!


I know what you're having for dinner!

And finally, this is potentially the coolest photo I've ever taken, ever. Enjoy!

Baseball at the Tokyo Dome

Baseball is a fairly popular sport in Japan, so one of my goals was to see a game at the famous Tokyo Dome this summer. The Tokyo Dome is huge, and it sits next to a theme park (as you can see from the photos below). Once inside, I found out that the ceiling of the Tokyo Dome is not supported by traditional means, but rather is held up by an increased air pressure that is maintained inside the dome by air pumps. When I first heard this I didn't believe it; the ceiling is huge, and it looks very heavy. But when you leave the dome, you are literally blown out the door by the escaping air pressure. It's almost like a quick theme park ride in itself!

A few interesting things about Japanese baseball:
1. The Tokyo Dome is home to the Tokyo Giants. They have the same colors as the San Francisco Giants, although their mascot is quite different (photo below... some kind of rabbit I think.)
2. Just about everything in Japanese baseball is a little bit smaller than standard US regulation baseball.
3. Professional Japanese teams are not allowed to have more than 3 foreign players. This is supposedly to cut down on wealthier teams buying out-of-country players.
4. At a Japanese baseball game, there is a cheering section. If you don't know the chants and cheers, you don't want to be there. Even if you do know them, it's quite a workout.
5. Beer girls: they are everywhere. Pretty young girls strap kegs to their backs and run through the stands selling draft beer to the fans. Photos below.
6. The food you can get at the baseball game is actually fairly decent. They have the normal Japanese spins on typical American sports food (hot dogs, etc), but everything I ate there tasted fresh and... not overly processed. Compared to the canned nacho cheese you find at any US sports venue, the Tokyo Dome had very nice food.