|
Allegedly "a bit sleazy and dangerous at night", at least according
to Time Out, but then you know how much I believe what I read in
guide books. The only danger I ever encountered in numerous
night-time forays into Roppongi was that of severe damage to my
wallet. Certainly in the daytime it
appears a sophisticated, if somewhat frenetic district with
embassies, towering hotels and offices, plus art and photography
galleries. It is home to the Tokyo National Art Centre,
probably one of my favourite pieces of modern architecture in the
whole world. It is amazingly sculptural from the outside with
facades curving in both dimensions, and from the interior it feels
almost like a cathedral with shafts of light flooding the atrium.
Roppongi was the first place I ever stayed
in Japan. Arriving in the middle of a typhoon, I slept
peacefully on the nineteenth floor of the ANA Hotel with rain
slashing against my floor to ceiling windows; I was awoken by the
rumblings of an earthquake as my bed dropped a couple of inches
beneath me. |
_small.JPG)
_small.JPG)