Let the Journey Begin

The day after our little excursion to the garden was my birthday! So Cinnamon and I headed to Ikebukuro and went to Namco Namjatown. It's like a little theme park inside Sunshine City, run by the video game developer Namco. There are some games you can play... which we declined, since we couldn't figure out what they were or how to play them. The place was not foreigner-friendly at all - almost no English anywhere.

But that's okay, because we didn't come for the games - we came for the food! In addition to the games, Namjatown has 3 special food "stadiums": Gyoza Stadium, Ice Cream City and Dessert Land - all dedicated to providing you with various incarnations of their namesakes. So of course we had to sample something from each place! We had delicious gyoza, gelato (cookies 'n cream for me, green tea for Cinnamon) and some cute little desserts that I forget the name of.

This was Cinnamon's banana thing. It was like a banana encased in mousse and wrapped in a crepe. It looks tiny, but was very filling.

And this was mine - chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. Very rich and very filling for something that was probably the size of a large muffin.

After playing around in the house of mirrors for a little while, we decided to call it a day and headed home.
The next day, neither of us were feeling 100%, so we didn't do much but go to Shinagawa to get our Rail Passes and made a mad dash to Shinjuku to try for a demachi. (It was a semi-success). On Tuesday, we intended to get up bright and early to head to Kyoto, but we both ended up sleeping in after our day of blah-ness. After packing our bags and saying "sayonara" to our happy little Tokyo room, we headed to Shinagawa and grabbed a shinkansen to Kyoto~

Three hours later, we were there. Our first night was uneventful. We checked into our (very, very nice) hostel, waited an hour for the sudden rain shower to end, then got a bite to eat before returning. Here are a couple random shots from our room.

This is Cinnamon and her Crunky. It's chocolate with... malt puffs or something. She said it could've been better. Over her shoulder, you can see the lovely flat panel TV we had in our room. It wasn't very big, but it looked brand new. The hostel had just been remodeled in April, so I suspect it was.

I uploaded this horrible shot of me (you can thank Cinnamon for that) so you could see the other side of our room. We had bunk beds and even a little couch! Not bad for something like $30 a night.

After some rest and a strange buffet breakfast, we made our way out to explore the city. Kyoto is a city that could benefit from some more trains. The main means of getting around is by bus and the train stations are generally not very close to any of the main tourist attractions. So we just sort of wandered.

I honestly thought this place was a church when I passed the entrance, but it turned out to be a Chinese restaurant. Very strange.

This is what's across the river from the restaurant - Cinnamon! And that, my friends, is the lovely Kamo River. I'm sure you're impressed by the sheer size of it, yes?

This picture was taken from one of the bridges crossing the river, looking north. As you can see, there are mountains there! Kind of hazy mountains, but still pretty.

We eventually wandered our way to the south end of Gion and walked down a lot of little shopping streets full of all kinds of things - from traditional items like fans and yukata to trendy clothing, shoes, and about 3 First Kitchen restaurants. When we finally emerged from the maze of covered streets, we came upon this:

It is a giant "hoko" float that's used in the Gion Matsuri. (Matsuri being a festival, and the Gion Matsuri being one of the 3 biggest festivals in Japan). We didn't quite know what was going on at the time, though we were vaguely aware that we had landed in Kyoto during the Matsuri period. There were a ton of people crowding the sidewalk, trying to get pictures of this thing. And there are actually close to 30 of them, if memory serves me right.

A little later on, some of the hoko had guys playing music on them (flutes and some sort of chimes, I think). I'm pretty sure they only ever played one song, so it got pretty repetitive.

For... no reason I could discern, there was some little procession of the Shinsengumi. It was really hard to get this picture, since the guys were always walking and the people on the sidewalk were just inching along, not allowing me to get ahead of them.

We ended up walking down a street where all these little food vendors were setting up,  so we got some shaved ice! Cinnamon got strawberry and I got ramune and they were delicious - and very refreshing, since it was so hot.

After finishing those off, we decided to head back to the hostel to rest for a bit, since we wanted to go out later and check out the real matsuri activities, since they seemed to just be getting set up. I'll post more about that next time, since there are quite a few pictures involved. Stay tuned!

The Garden

After a two week "vacation" from our vacation, we're back in Tokyo, which means our internet connection is good and we have more time to update. So let me fill you in on what we've been doing since I last posted some pictures.

A few weeks ago on Saturday, July 12th, we went to Koishikawa Korakuen Garden in the northern part of Tokyo. It's a surprisingly big place and usually doesn't feel like it's right in the middle of the biggest city in Japan. We took a ton of pictures, but I just uploaded a small portion of them so you can get a taste of what it was like.

Looking down toward the Full Moon bridge.

The Full Moon bridge - so called because when you view the bridge together with it's reflection, it looks like the full moon.

Here's the garden and the city (and me) together.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but what I'm pointing to is a bunch of kanji on this rock. No clue what it says.

These bugs were gross! You could hear them on the tree, all fighting to get into that little hole. Cinnamon snapped the picture while I scooted on ahead.

I wanted to call this picture 'Cinnamon "running"', since she's not actually running, but Windows wouldn't let me add quotation marks to the file name.

Just a random shot of an earthworm I found along the path.

We had a hard time getting both of us and the bridge in the picture.

I really like how this picture turned out~

It was a very, very hot day - with temperatures up near 100 degrees. Apparently a number of people suffered heat stroke that day.

It was so hot, even the skyscrapers were melting.

In case you're wondering why this picture's so much different from the last one, it's because there are ducks in it! Happy ducks, trying to stay cool.

After we left the park, we walked down the street to Tokyo Dome City, where there was a baseball game going on (or soon to be going on) at the stadium. We know the Yomiuri Giants were playing, since everyone was decked out in their Giants gear, but we have no idea who they were playing.

Since we have zero interest in baseball (and no tickets), we walked across the street to LaQua - a little complex with stores, restaurants and amusements.

True to its name, LaQua has a lot of water.

Major league baseball shop right by the Wonder Drop (sponsored by Pocari Sweat - an "ion supply drink". For those curious, it tastes similar to orange Gatorade). Japan sure does love baseball.

Another ferris wheel (and a roller coaster)! This one is called the Big O and is the world's first and largest centerless ferris wheel. ...Or so Wikipedia tells me. At only 60m, it's not nearly as tall as the Odaiba Sky Wheel.

Once we left the park, we went to find a place to grab dinner and ended up getting caught in a surprise downpour. Since we didn't bring our umbrellas, we had to seek shelter under the eaves of a building. When the rain let up, we headed back to the station and went to Shibuya for dinner and to pick up a few things from Gain, which was having a sale.

I'll post more about my birthday and everything else later. Expect more regular posts from now on, and don't by shy about leaving us a comment to let us know you're reading! Otherwise it feels like my hard work goes to waste.

You're Officially On Notice

This is just a quick update in between regular updates. Haven't had the time to go through all the garden pics and resize them and all, so those will have to wait. Right now, we're in Fukuoka, which is waaaaaaaaaay south on the island of Kyushu (some 552miles southwest of Tokyo). We've been traveling a lot.
I believe this On Notice board accurately depicts our feelings about certain aspects of Japan right now. (Of course, these are all subject to change).

On Notice

[Update: My apologies. Apparently this picture was lost in the transition from Vox to Blogspot, so I'm afraid I no longer recall what we were putting On Notice. I think old ladies was one of them, but that's all I remember.]

You can all go back to your regular lives now. But don't forget to check back every day, or how else are you going to know when we update again?

Partytown

Just an advance warning - there are going to be a lot of pictures in this post. So let's start with where we were. Thursday, we decided to hop across Tokyo Bay to Odaiba because it sounded like the thing to do at the time.

Everybody wants to go to a manmade island, right?

We got there around 3-ish, so obviously this picture is from much later in the day. However, it illustrates where we were, so that's why it's first.

Yep, we were at a place called Palette Town! We went to a big shopping area called Venusfort, which is designed to look like an Italian village or something. Very interesting.

You can't see from this picture, but the building's ceiling is designed to look like the sky and the lighting on it changes colors so that every hour, on the hour, it looks like the sun is setting. There were a lot of tourists here, mostly Chinese it seemed. Lots of families.

So after shopping for a while, we went across the way toward Mega Web so we could ride the world's 8th tallest ferris wheel, the Odaiba Great Sky Wheel. It cost about $9 to ride, but one rotation takes nearly 20 minutes, and the view is fantastic, so it was worth it. (And just so you can get a feel for how tall this thing was, you board it from the 3rd floor). Here's some pictures of it from the ground.

This is actually from outside of the Palette Town area - basically one of the first things you see when you exit the Tokyo Teleport station.

This picture (one of my favorites, actually) is from right by the ticket gates for the ferris wheel. Very tall (115 meters, to be exact)!

Now on to the pictures from inside~

This lovely picture accurately depicts our reactions to being on the ferris wheel, heading to the top. It was a little scary at first, since neither of us had been on a ferris wheel in at least 5 years.

Here's a view looking back across the bay toward Tokyo proper. Everything's starting to look teeny tiny.

Here you can see Tokyo Tower (again). It's unfortunate it looks so hazy, but that's what happens when it's hot out.

Random shot of me (looking awful) with the Fuji TV building just to my left.

Jugochi Wharf - very exciting, yes? But all the big boats look pretty small from this high.

Now a shot of Cinnamon with the wharf behind her. She looks pretty happy!

The building that looks like a cluster of upside down pyramids is Tokyo Big Site which is a big exhibition center. It is also where I'd be going to Comiket if it didn't start two days after we leave. Bummer.

And that concludes the view from the ferris wheel. We actually took a ton more pictures, but most of them are essentially the same things - various buildings in and around Tokyo.

On the way back, we wandered through the Toyota Mega Web to check out all the crazy cars they make over here.

Of course, they've got the Prius here, too, only their steering wheels are all on the right. It feels weird when you're sitting in it.

Here's the Toyota Crown. I think it's the biggest sedan Toyota makes here. Most all of the taxis around Tokyo are older models of this car. What do you think, mom? Big enough for you?

Here's a picture of the interior of the Crown. I think all Japanese cars come with a navigation system or else no one would ever figure out where they're supposed to be going. It is seriously extremely confusing. And this fancy little package will only set you back about $55,000. Luxury (and hybrids) don't come cheap!

Next to their little corral of hybrid cars, they had a bunch of displays on being "green" and eco-friendly, so we wandered through there for a while.

This guy wants you to reduce your CO2 emissions. I just thought the picture was funny.

So after that thrilling experience, we decided to go catch a bite to eat and ended up back in Venusfort at a quaint little establishment called Fish Dance. Naturally, it's an Italian restaurant. (You didn't see that one coming?) Cinnamon and I both had pizza and salad and dessert (otherwise known as the "Fish Dance set")

Cinnamon helping herself to our delicious Caesar salad.

My pizza, the "margherita", and Cinnamon's 4 cheese pizza. The thing she's holding (if you can't tell) is honey, which the waitress told us was the "best match" for cheese pizza. Cinnamon agreed it was very good.

Here's my (slightly blurry) dessert - the square choco cake (that's what the menu read). The presentation was very pretty and the cake was delicious.

Cinnamon's dessert, the Oreo cheesecake. She said it could've used more Oreo flavor, but she liked the treble clef of chocolate syrup.

Looks like we're sitting outside, doesn't it? We're not. That's the beauty of Venusfort. We even felt like we were outside, sometimes.

When we left, it was dark out, so you know what that means - lights! And they were very cool.

I highly recommend you look at this picture full size, because the colors look a lot better.

We walked across the highway and over to Aqua City, which seemed to be another smaller shopping complex (not of the Italian variety), but most of the places were closing up. So we walked through and came out to a spectacular view of the Tokyo skyline. And you better believe I took plenty of pictures (though most of them could've used the aid of a tripod).

Oh, did I forget to mention Tokyo has its very own (miniature) Statue of Liberty? Because it does. You an also see the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower. You can never have too many pictures of Tokyo Tower, apparently.

Here's a closer up picture without Lady Liberty. You can even see some of the boats on the bay all lit up. I'm pretty sure they were dinner cruises or some sort of tour boats. One of them sounded like a bunch of people having a good time, listening to music and cheering.

Tokyo as taken with the actual "night mode" of my camera. What a difference that makes! I had to set the camera down on the step, so you end up getting the underside of the walkway above us and part of the step it was sitting on, but I think it really frames the skyline nicely. Definitely one of my favorite pictures.

Since it was getting late and everything was closing up, we just walked down by Decks Tokyo Beach (which is actually a "beach" of sorts, but you can't swim there), passed the Fuji TV building, though all my pictures of it came out pretty blurry, and then headed back home. All in all, a very full day! We plan on going back one more time so we can ride the ferris wheel at night and get an even more spectacular view of Tokyo from the air.

Friday, we headed to Kameido to go to a little place called Sun Street. It turned out to be mostly geared toward kids, but had a few shops and quite a few little eateries - including a Sizzler!

We never did figure out just what a "rambling market" was. (For those curious, Tsutaya is a store that sells DVDs, CDs and books).

Here's the inside of Sun Street (and the Sizzler). As you can see, quite a few kids around. The place had a Toys R Us, two arcades and a variety of stores selling children's clothing. However, Cinnamon and I both walked away with some new shirts from a store called Honeys. Surprisingly affordable, too!

Next up, you'll get to see all the pictures (together, we took a total of 200) we snapped at Koishikawa Korakuen Garden. I'm sure you're all excited.