Tourists, Tourists Everywhere

I suppose I've been slacking off here, huh? And I'm sure you've all been wondering what exciting things we've been up to. Well wonder no longer!
 
Friday, we headed to Roppongi, which is known for being a district with a lot of clubs and is somewhat of a red light area. But we went during the day to the fancy, upscale Roppongi Hills complex, so we stayed out of trouble.

This is the inside of the building - which is laid out in a very strange, confusing manner. Still pretty, though.

Outside the building, there was this really neat walkway that had a mist it sprayed down, which was nice because it was super hot that day (like in the low 90s when it had just been in the low 80s the day before). Also, on the right side of the walkway is a wall of cascading water. It looked really cool.

...So we took our picture in front of it. (We thought you were probably all sick of us making the same cheesy smiling faces in every picture, so we changed it up). Looking good, right?

This is Maman - a gigantic spider sculpture just on the other side of that walkway. Its purpose... I don't really know. Looks kind of creepy.

To the right of Maman is the 54-story Mori Tower. That's the building the shopping center is in, and it also houses the Mori Museum, a bunch of offices, and an observatory up top. ...But we went to none of those things, because they are expensive.

Roppongi is very close to Tokyo Tower, so we got some good shots of it from where we were. As you can see from the size of the skyscrapers around it, it's really tall (even taller than the Eiffel Tower).

Between the Hollywood Plaza/Metro Hat building and TV Asahi's headquarters lies the Mohri Garden. I assure you hat patch of grass on the right is not actually a golf course.

And here is Cinnamon on the path in the Mohri Garden. It was very pretty there, but also pretty small. And it was getting later in the evening, so it was starting to get too dark to go without using my camera's flash.

Saturday, we went to Shinjuku because Cinnamon wanted to buy some books, so we picked those up from the 8 floor Kinokuniya bookstore and... started walking. We walked and walked and walked, through Sendagaya and Yotsuya, through the Meiji Jingu-mae Park where we saw a race going on (though Cinnamon wasn't wearing her running shoes), and a ton of high school baseball players. Also, we saw this:

How can "casual frozen foods" be part of the "hot menu"? You can get all sorts of things from this vending machine though - french fries, yaki-onigiri, yakisoba - even hot dogs! ...Needless to say, we didn't try it out. Instead, we went to a nearby vending machine and got ice cream~

Then we continued our walk through Aoyama, past Omotesando Hills and eventually to Shibuya. (And if it's any indication of how much we walked that day, from Aoyama to Shibuya alone is 3km).

Sunday, we didn't do a whole lot. We walked to Shibuya from where we're staying (saving a total of 150 yen in train fare!) and it turns out it only takes us about an hour and a half. ...But somehow, I don't see us walking that far very often. Also, we had some more crepes from a different vendor this time! We're both sorely going to miss crepes when we get back home.

Monday, we wandered more around Ikebukuro, since we had always just gone to the Sunshine City area. Turns out there's not a whole lot else that interests us there, but we did find another Sanrio store to go into!

Tuesday, we went to Asakusa and the Sensoji Temple there. I've never seen so many foreign tourists in one place in Japan than there were on Nakamise Dori (the street full of shops leading up to the temple)! They nearly outnumbered the Japanese people! But I know you guys are most interested in the pictures, so here they are~

Kaminarimon Gate (that's the Thunder God) marks the beginning of Nakamise Dori. As you can see, it's huge (even bigger than Gigantor!)

Here's a closeup of the statue to the left of the gate. His eyes look like they're glowing, don't they?

And here's Mr. Thunder God on the right. I think they're both kinda scary, actually.

At the end of the street, on the left is this huge, 5-story pagoda. But you're not allowed into it. As you can see, it's also huge, and was very difficult for me to get a good picture of the whole building.

But the main attraction, right in front of you, is the Sensoji Temple.

Before you get to that, you pass through another big torii gate, and on the backside of it are these giant waraji sandals. (If you're wondering what they're for, there's an interesting article on it here.) William, we think this one's about your size. What do you think?

We went into the temple and paid 100 yen to get our fortunes from this little can of sticks. You shake it up and out pours a stick with a number on it. You match the number on the stick to the corresponding one on a row of little drawers, and inside is a paper with your fortune on it. Cinnamon got "bad fortune" and I got "regular fortune." Guess there's no good luck for us in the near future!

Outside of the temple there were some pretty gardens, like this one with the little waterfall.

On the other side, there were koi! Fascinating, right? After wandering around the temple grounds for a while, we headed back up the other side of Nakamise Dori, poking around at all the traditional gifts and goods before leaving the area.

Aside from the temple, there's not much around Asakusa, so we ended up back in Ikebukuro, where we had dinner. Cinnamon wanted to kidnap her waiter because he spoke very good English. Alas, she did not, because that would've made for an interesting story!  And then we got more crepes from a place called "Crazy Crepes." We like the places in Harajuku best, because the crepes are bigger, so you get more for your money. The one in Shibuya was good, but you didn't get a whole lot of fillings.

Yesterday, we spend the day bumming around in the Aoyama/Omotesando/Harajuku area, checking out places we hadn't gone to yet. A lot of the time, when we get there, it's late and most of the stores are closed, since just about every store in Tokyo seems to close at 8pm. And when they want you to get out, all the stores play what I call "the get out music" - Auld Lang Syne. At first, we just thought they didn't realize that's a seasonal song, but eventually we figured it out.

No idea what we're doing today. I guess we'll cross that bridge when Cinnamon wakes up from her nap. ...Which is apparently right now (I have good timing~) Until then~!