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~!

Back to Reality

Okay, looks like you guys weren't all that impressed by my attempt at making our trip seem more exciting, so it's back to our much less interesting adventures.

Sunday, we met up with the girls (Courtney, Sara and Katie) again at 7:30 way out in the middle of nowhere (or rather, Hachioji - about 45 minutes outside of Tokyo) for yakiniku! And getting there was an experience in itself. Almost as soon as we had left the station and Courtney declared "At least it's not raining," - you guessed it - it started raining. And it turns out we had gone in the wrong direction from the station, so what should've been a 2 minute walk turned into a 45 minute walk.

But we finally got there! It was a much bigger restaurant than I had been expecting, and even had its own parking lot! (Yes, in Tokyo, this is uncommon. Usually if places have parking, it's in a parking garage). So here we are at Den Yakiniku.

As you may have guessed, it is the kind of establishment where you have to take your shoes off upon entering. It definitely feels weird to be eating out at a restaurant with no shoes on. We had to wait a while to get a table (what with Meat Day being so popular and all), but finally it was time for food! Good thing too, since it was already nearly 9pm.

Here's Courtney showing us how it's done. Basically, your table has this little grill in the middle, already fired up and ready to go. All you have to do is push some buttons on a little electronic screen and a waiter will come and bring you whatever kind of meat (or side dishes) you request! You only have to get up to get your drink. And there are tons of different types of meat you can choose from - pork, roast beef, chicken thigh, sausage, sirloin, even chicken hearts and cow tongue! We stayed away from those.

The little tray on the right has dipping sauces in it: original, sweet, and ponzu. I liked the original and sweet best, as the ponzu was a little sour/tart.

Cinnamon and Courtney are both helping out with the grill, and you can see the little electronic screen there between them.

By about 10:30, we decided we had had enough meat (and there's a 90 minute time limit), so we figured we had better head back to the station so we could be sure to catch the last train. Of course, it was still raining, and someone had taken Courtney's umbrella, so she was forced to make due with a smaller one. But we took the proper way back to the station this time, so it only took a few minutes.

The next night, Monday, we had a party! We went shopping in Ikebukuro in the afternoon (the two of us, plus the other 3 girls), and then all convened at Coco Ichiban-ya in Shibuya at about 6:30.

It's a curry restaurant! And they serve up some super, super delicious curry. I got a half portion of hirekatsu curry, which is breaded, fried pork tenderloin, in case you were wondering.

Susa joined us for this occasion, and we all 6 crammed into one booth in this tiny little restaurant. But it was worth it - and very cheap, too! You get a lot of food for about $7.

Afterward, we headed upstairs for 3 hours of karaoke!

In Japan, you get your own little box in which to sing, so there's less embarrassment than the American type where you're forced to sing in front of a bunch of strangers.

Yes, they even supply you with tambourines! And there are a ton of songs to choose from (as you can see by the phone book-sized catalog of songs there under the little electronic song-choosing device. ...It's under Susa's arm.) They had both Japanese and English songs, but the majority were in Japanese.

And this is precisely why Cinnamon has no idea what's going on. And here I told her to learn at least one song in Japanese in preparation for this, too. But doesn't she look stylish in her new fedora? Also, I don't know what I'm looking at. Probably Courtney, who was holding the other mic.

But after three hours of this, it was getting late, so we all headed back home for the night.

Only to meet up again Tuesday evening for HapiPani 7! If you're wondering what that is, it's the abbreviation for "Happy *pnish* Birthday 7th." It's a one-time-only event *pnish* has every year on July 1st in commemoration of the day the group was formed. I'll spare you all the details, but it was absolutely spectacular and I wish I could see it again right now.

You can see how excited Cinnamon (aka Gigantor) is about her very cool new *pnish* tote bag. It is filled with awesome things, and I also have one... filled with even more awesome things. After the show and demachi, we all parted ways at about 11pm, though Cinnamon and I didn't turn in until much, much later since we were so wired after such an awesome performance. (Yes, you heard that correctly. Cinnamon willingly stayed up until 3am!)

Courtney headed back to Hikone in the morning, since she had to go to work, but we decided to meet up with Katie to help her shop for souvenirs, as it was her last day in Japan. So we took her to one of the big 100 yen shops we had been to, and she went to town~ Then we took the train back to Akihabara, Tokyo's "Electric Town", to look for a few other things.

Then we got hungry, so it was down to Gotanda to Coco Ichi's again for more delicious curry. And to top it off, we hit up Harajuku and had crepes!

Katie and I had "ice cream, chocolate and whipped cream" and Cinnamon had "banana, caramel and whipped cream." They were super good, super filling and also pretty cheap. I will definitely be eating those again.

The picture's pretty self-explanatory, I think. Mmm... crepes. Also in Harajuku, I bought a cute new pair of sandals for about $30, and they're working out so far! I was sick of wearing tennis shoes. They don't go well with skirts and dresses.

Around the corner from Harajuku, near Aoyama, we walked down by Omotesando Hills. I'm pretty sure I mentioned it before, but it's basically a very upscale shopping mall. Looked pretty neat all lit up, though.

Sadly, it was getting late, so we said our goodbyes to Katie and headed home. Today we took it easy, only going to the grocery store and to Shinjuku to pay rent. Also, we got a leg up on the pile in our room, since it was getting pretty messy. Looks much nicer now. Tomorrow, we're off to visit Roppongi Hills!

Tokyo is full of hills

So here we are at 3pm on Monday, sitting around our house not doing much. Why? Well we just got back home after being out and about for 6 hours - most of that walking. But the good news is we have pictures this time!
Friday, we went out and decided to explore some of the city, starting with figuring out how long it takes to walk to Meguro Station (around 25 minutes). Meguro Station is on the JR Yamanote Line, which is the main JR line that goes in a loop around Tokyo, hitting all the major metropolitan areas. So basically it's the easiest way to get to most anywhere.
Well, we decided to explore the Meguro area and kept on walking... and walking... and walking until we got to Shibuya (about 2 miles away). Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn and completely bypassed the entire main shopping section and wandered around in what I guess is just the business district for what seemed like forever. Eventually, about a mile and a half later, we came upon Yoyogi Park, so we wandered through there.

We ended up in Harajuku where we proceeded to trek through Omotesando and Omotesando Hills (a very upscale shopping center), then through Minami-Aoyama (minami means south) before we finally got on a train to head back home.

These pictures were taken from a pedestrian crossover on... some street I don't know the name of. (Seriously, I'd say 75% of the streets in Tokyo do not have names. Makes it really hard to figure out where you are.)

This one is looking to our right.

And this is to our left. Also on the left and just off the very right side of this picture is a Japanese Subway sandwich shop. Only because it's Japanese, it's more than just sandwiches! It's a Subway Sandwich & Cafe. We didn't go in, but it looked like it had a juice bar and everything!

Needless to say, by the end of the day we were very hot and sweaty and tired from our 6 hour trek in the Tokyo sun. My poor feet did not take kindly to the hills - or my shoes- so they had blisters and were generally very unhappy. So we just took it easy on Saturday, only going out for dinner... where we had McDonald's. I had a bacon lettuce burger and Cinnamon had a chicken sandwich. Both came with lots of mayo, because the Japanese seem to really love the condiment for some reason. Also, compared to the US, the portions are quite a bit smaller. What the Japanese consider medium is what we would consider small. The price was about the same, though.
That sums up our first two full days here. I'll add the next two in another post so this one doesn't get too long. ^_^