Saint Paul’s Festival in Ikebukuro

Saint Paul’s University (Rikkyo University), in Ikebukuro celebrates the school festival in November, where food, music and entertainment are provided for other students and visitors.

The University founded in 1874, with the Ikebukuro building being built in 1918. The school buildings are gorgeous and well maintained, as only a private school can afford to do.

The School library is relatively new, completed in 1960, but its design manages to keep the harmony with the older buildings.

The festival is not so different from other countries school festivals, apart from the menu on the stands, and some of the bands music.

The festival is open to everybody and looking at the attendance, seems like some of the students invited the whole family.

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Sunshine city rooftop aquarium

Sunshine Aquarium in sunshine city, Ikebukuro, the first rooftop aquarium in Japan, has just reopened in August 4^th after closing for one year for renovations.

The aquarium is small compared to normal aquariums but the premium location gives a great advantage over other aquariums. As with most of the popular places in Tokyo, there are large crowds on weekends, but late in the afternoon and weekdays is no so bad.

The renovated marine garden area, has a large elevated see-through pool, where the seals swim under the open sky. The Sea lions perform at the same area several times per day.

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Ikebukuru West exit

Ikebukuro is the second busiest stations in Tokyo, after Shinjuku, with the West and East exit separated by a huge gap created by the large number of train line tracks. The west exit, perhaps not as popular as the east one, it is populated with building of interesting architecture, that gives a very distinctive look to the area.



The Tobu store building is a concrete building with honeycomb like front that is the main entrance for the station west exit. A small plaza in front of the station is currently decorated with owls, the station symbol.




One of the most outstanding buildings of the area is the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, a glass and concrete building designed by Yoshinobu Ashihara. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government created the space for the development and promotion of art and culture, and its main hall is equipped with one of Japan largest pipe organs. The building is closed for renovations until 2012.


The Tokyo Toshima godou or Toshima ward tax office, designed by Tadasue Ohe, is a beautiful building located in front of the Tokyo metropolitan art space.





The Lumine, Tobu Plaza building is an elegant glass and steel structure that stands prominently on the south-west of the station.

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Ikebukuru on a long weekend

Ikebukuro and most of Tokyo commercial centers are operating as usual for a weekend; stores are full of people, long queues on popular places, students getting together on the street, even the usual crew of young people distributing free pocket tissue paper (contains sponsor’s ad).


Although the crowds are small, people seems to be getting back to their normal weekend activities.


Due to the ongoing energy savings, stores are half illuminated. Displays, neon lights, and showcases are off, an uncommon view in Tokyo.


With the strong aftershocks, many people (me included), are feeling dizziness and quake-like effects through the day. I am not sure if the aftershocks are too small for everybody to feel them or the body is getting disorientated after all the continuous shocks and start feeling “phantom” shocks.

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Ikebukuro

Ikebukuro, in the Toshima ward, in the northwest of Tokyo, is the second of the three Tokyo sub cities and like the other two, Shinjuku and Shibuya, has a great concentration of large department and specialty stores around the station.



The Ikebukuro station is one of the main commuter’s hubs, the station’s daily average of passengers is 2.8 million people,


The North area has a large entertainment district that attracts a daily average of 1 million customers. Above, sunshine road, leading to sunshine city building complex.

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