Akasaka Sacas

POSTED BY DANNY CHOO On Tue 2008/03/25 05:10 JST in Places to visit in Japan
So we've already taken a look at a few "City within a city" areas so far - Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown and Shin Marunouchi Building. Today we take a walk around another one that just opened - Akasaka Sacas.
Akasaka Sacas is situated right in the middle of Akasaka. Part of the Sacas grounds is the broadcasting station TBS which is why there were many characters walking about like these two Ultraman's. According to Ultraman expert One, I'm not allowed to call them "Ultramen."
Dont even think about coming here by car or you will spend half a day waiting for a space - we went by train.
The Sacas grounds.
Sacas just opened and they are having some sort of celebration fair.
Fair = loads of people lining up.
A few stalls with goodies on display here n there.
More people lazing around on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Dont bother eating before you visit as Sacas has a ton of food to choose from.
And during the celebration period which ends on the 6th of April, they have many stalls outside selling grub.
Shuttle bus that goes between Tokyo Midtown and Sacas.
I used to walk past this spot every day when I was working at the Akazaka Microsoft offices and was surprised at how much changed in just over a year.
This pratt says to me "no photos" even though theres not much to see. Pratt.
Is that a Kermit clone? Or is that Kermit-the-later-years ?
They were giving out Geass and Gundam 00 postcards. Hmmm. No Shirley...
Two words to sum up the Akasaka area - "offices" + "restaurants."
A building in the Sacas grounds houses a load of restaurants too.
Some pub type place.
More people relaxing doing not much.
Folks queuing up for 30 mins just to take a pee.
Was trying to figure out why this Thai restaurant was empty apart from a single couple. We guessed because it was they way the menu was un-descriptive while the other restaurants had loud menus with more pictures and large writing.
The bottom floor of the Sacas building has a load of food shops.
More queuing for the toilet.
Example of some of the restaurants available.
Singapore Hainan Chicken Rice - 1900 yen per meal.
A view from the Sacas grounds into the surrounding town.
More folks queuing up for bread.
A view of the Sacas grounds from the outside.
This old building was right in the middle of everything which looked very very out of place - I guess the owners want to hold on to it as the land in that area must be worth quite a bit.
The local transport.
Theres a shrine nearby called "Hie" which you may want to visit.
A view from the shrine.
A couple getting married at the shrine.
The shrine grounds.
Relaxing here after an afternoon of walking about is a nice way to end the day.