On arrival in Tokyo, I got the train then subway to my hotel in the Shibuya part. Shibuya seems like a good district, with lots of shops and bars, it is one of Tokyo's major "centres".
My hotel was a 5-star one, and my room was on the 27th floor, with a fantastic view over Tokyo, with city as far as the eye could see. A fantastic hotel room.
On my second night there, at about 5am, there was an earthquake, measuring over 5 on the Richter scale. I noticed this when I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, the bed seemed to be shaking and the room's walls were making a strange noise. In my sleepy state, it took me a while to work out what was going on, but it eventually dawned on me that it was an earthquake. Very scary, especially in the period when you didn't know if it was going to get worse or better, or whether it would stop soon or continue to real big earthquake territory. Luckily, it stopped within 10 seconds, but they were a pretty scary 10 seconds!
At work the next day, my colleagues asked if I had felt the earthquake. After some more questioning, they were most amused to discover that it was my first earthquake - apparently, quakes like that happen about once every 3-4 months in Japan. The day afterwards, it was like nothing had happened in Tokyo, they are that common an occurrence.
During my stay, I took these pictures of Shibuya, firstly of the area near Shibuya station.
Secondly, one of those mad Lost In Translation style crossroads, with billboards everywhere!
And lastly, when the lights go red, and everybody walks in every possible direction.
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