Imperial Palace, Asakusa, Ueno, Odaiba & Tokyo Tower

Today was a big day. A huge day.

We started in the morning by travelling to main Tokyo railway station (which I suppose is in the centre of Tokyo) and travelling by foot to the Imperial Palace – unlike the other Castle-type places we have been, people actually still live inside this palace so we weren’t allowed inside, but we were lucky enough to be able to stroll through the gardens. These gardens were huge, but only half of them seem to be beautifully maintained, with the other portions overgrown and strewn with fallen maple leaves.. we did find it interesting that they only looked after some parts. Anyway, a photo album of the Imperial Palace Gardens

Imperial Palace Gardens VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Whilst we were here, a bird did shit on a security guard. We both found this amusing. Jesse was brave enough to zoom in and take a snap.

We left and moved to Asakusa. This was explained to be the ‘old style’ Tokyo. I dunno, I guess it was okay, another street lined with shops on either side.. seen that before.. another tall temple, nearby a shorter temple, nearby a hall, with people praying and giving money.. seen that before.. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Before we left though some university students approached us and asked if they could film us, whilst we chose fashion items that we thought looked nice from a card they showed us. We were happy to participate.

Asakusa VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Jesse and I saw this family and decided that not all Japanese people are aware of the side-effects of eating from the western restaurant chain ‘McDonald’s’ for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.

As we were leaving this area, we were approached by a Chinese lady offering 15 minute massages for only 1,000 Yen – we decided this was a good price and decided to go in. The Chinese lady took us a block away from the crowd and up two floors to her ‘clinic’. Jesse got a guy, and I got the Chinese lady. They informed us they were both ‘doctors’.

The lady actually got up on the massage table and started walking on me, and my back, and my butt, and my legs, and my feet.. (sorta like in the Simpsons episode where the little asian lady starts sinking into Homer’s back!).. it was interesting, enjoyable, but Jesse and I both admitted afterwards that we had problems truly relaxing for fear of being robbed or ripped off in some way.

We weren’t robbed, nor ripped off, only pressured to stay for a 30 minute massage each.

Ueno Park was next – a huge park next to a major train station, famous for its Museums and its Zoo. As we don’t have much of an interest in Museums, we headed for the zoo. However, Jesse didn’t quite fit..

On the way to the Zoo we found a ‘swan-cycle’ lake.. what were we to do, merely walk past and not ride around like idiots? I think not!

And of course, a video to complement..

Swan Ride

We found the Zoo! And I saw my first real-life Giraffe, Zebra, Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros, Elephant and Lion!

 

Ueno Zoo VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

It was getting late and we still had too much to do, we cancelled one of our planned activities (another street mall thing, known to once have been the place of the black market during World War 2), and transported ourselves toward Odaiba.

Odaiba is like.. an island in the bay, with a small amusement park for adults kinda, and some incredibly huge and sparkling shopping centres. It was truly awesome, we got there by going on the ‘Yukikamone’ which is a conductor-less, driver-less train that goes over the Rainbow Bridge. Yep, there was no driver.. I couldn’t get my head around it. How did it know when to break, when to speed up, etc. Insane.

Here I am at the front of the train (no driver) – we walked to the back by mistake thinking it was the front, and there was no driver there either!

In Palette Town, an ‘entertainment area’ in Odaiba, there was a Toyota showroom type thing, and an old car Museum.. anyway we looked at some of the cars and then decided to ride the E-Com (I think that’s what it’s called) which is an electric car that drives itself – no way Jose! Well we hopped in and pushed the start button, and the bloody thing fully started driving itself, steering wheel and all.. we saw the little sensor thingys in the middle of the road about a foot apart the whole way along, but it knew when to speed up and brake and yeah.

And now, some photos from sights and places in and around Odaiba!

Odaiba VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

By this time of course we were both completely tired and exhausted.. we aren’t used to walking so much, all day, constantly, but this was our last chance to visit Tokyo Tower – so we did. Tokyo Tower is Japan’s Eiffel Tower, and they tried to make it look a lot like it too. I think its even a bit taller! There is an intermediate observatory, as well as a ‘first class’ observatory which goes all the way to the top. We went to the top!

Tokyo Tower VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We are now home and very tired, need a good rest for Tokyo Disneyland tomorrow!

Ginza & Akihabara

We started today by getting on the subway to the Tokyo Fish Market.. we hadn’t planned on buying any seafood, just sight-seeing. Apparently we slept in too far because by the time we arrived, almost all the shops seemed to have been shut, and there were very few people strolling around (which is a rarity here). We didn’t grab any photos .. no great loss though, just lots of closed shops.

We decided to then, move on foot, towards Tokyo.. aren’t we adventurous, considering we had no idea where we were really. Greater Tokyo does however have a lot of “Your immediate surroundings” type maps, so we headed toward Ginza. (on the way to Tokyo!)

I didn’t really know what Ginza was but.. basically, it is absolutely beautifully lit up at night, and has a lot of shops of the well-known prestige brands. Jesse was in heaven.

Ginza VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After we arrived at Tokyo we realised we didn’t really know where to find anything worth sight-seeing, unable to access the internet with our phones and ‘mapless’, we decided to move two train stations to the north to Akihabara, which is known to be the ‘Electronic’ district of Tokyo. Again, I was hoping for some bargains, Jesse was happy to tag along for the ride. We also managed to find a few cute souvenirey shops here.

Akihabara was also quite sparkley.

We found a wonderful curry and rice place for dinner, these ended up being my favourite because I know the meal isn’t full of saturated fat, I know that rice does a fantastic job of filling me up, and the curries taste fantastic.

Here is my meal and then Jesse’s meal respectively.. Jesse went for the interesting concoction of like.. rice, cheese, and chopped up sausage served in a hot bowl (it continued to sizzle!) I got pork, chicken, rice and curry. Mmm, I do love this type of meal.

Harajuku, Yoyogi Park and Shibuya

Today we ventured slightly south of Shinjuku. Tokyo is a huge city and there are many localities around Tokyo – there is an hour long train ride which takes you around ‘greater Tokyo’ and all of these places are still incredibly crowded, busy, full of retail, restaurants, etc, as if we were in a main city.

Anyway, so 6 minutes south on the train took us to Harajuku. This is a cute, incredibly busy town, known for the largest 100 Yen store ($1 shop?) in the district, and an incredibly packed mall.

Here is the entrance to the mall

Here is the entrance to the mall.. this video doesn’t really do it justice.. in person, you can see the heads of people much further into the distance.

But really, Tokyo is so incredibly busy, especially around the main train stations.. think of when you exit a concert or a football game.. this is the kind of crowds we find ourselves squishing through in some areas. So many people!

Here is an interesting KFC shirt..

We found a very exciting shop that sold all sorts of fashionable accessory knick-knacks; suspenders, crazy socks, crazy glasses, crazy badges.. all the weird funky stuff was all together in one shop. Here is Jesse trying on his dork-lookin glasses he wants to buy, and me trying on some purple protective sunnies?

As we left the mall and moved toward Yoyogi Park we found a line up of people holding FREE HUGS signs – so I did!

I’m such a gumby.

Here is the entrance to the park.. it really was pretty.

Here are some of the beautiful scenes we found within the park, and some historic wine keg thing.

We eventually found ourselves at the centre of the park where there was some sorta shrine. There was a Japanese wedding happening! Some photos..

As we were leaving, we found an incredibly odd friendship. A guy taller than Jesse travelling with a super short guy.

After leaving the park we decided to walk to the nearby locality of Shibuya, known for its outrageous lights apparently. Yep, a very lit up city. Here was a cute bus we saw on the walk.

Jesse found this sign interesting..

… and I found this superman-style telephone box interesting..

And here is the beautiful lit up Shibuya.

Hmm.. so amongst all the lights, what actually was in Shibuya.. I’m not overly sure.. we were tired and didn’t walk inside many places. There was a lot of retail, and lot of places to eat.. a lot of lights. Up the hill and we found numerous “Love Hotels” – where you can pay roughly $45 for a “3 hour rest” (or, a quick fuck.. however you want to word it). Jesse and I were giggling to ourselves watching couples leave these establishments.. they really were interesting though, they make the rooms look incredibly nice and incredibly comfortable, very appealing to the eye. They appear to be ‘professional’ and not very sleezy.. yet they are so.. sleezy in nature. Anyway, so the ‘quick fuck’ hotels was quite interesting to see. We then mosey’d on back down and found the train station and came home

We did find out today that we are outside of the Mt Fuji climbing season, and as a result we cannot climb the mountain. In fact, we can’t even really get to the foot of the mountain without an incredibly long walk – it’s “shut”. Sucks. Majorly. We were really looking forward to it.

Also, not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but fuck me there are no fucking bins here.. we carry our rubbish around for ages until we can actually find a bin. It’s crap.

Hungover, McDonalds & movies..

Today we spent the vast majority of the day in bed.

We watched.. Iron Man 2, Sammy’s Adventure, erm, and some other movies.. Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

We had the rest of last nights McDonalds for breakfast, we got McDonalds for lunch.. and for dinner.. ugh.

We paid about $15 each for “Boneless BBQ Ribs” – we were given a plate with about 12 pieces of credit-card sized meat (not each! One plate for the two of us!), less than half a centrimetre thick.. which we were made to cook ourselves. Look… they tasted fantastic… but I’ve never paid so much money per squared centimetre of food before, NEVER. Unfortunately we also ordered a salad and vegetables – even more overpriced food.. THEN we were charged a “table charge” of around $7.. the meal came to about $70 and I gotta say I just wasn’t impressed. The quality of the meat was good.. but um. I’m a man who prefers quantity.