Sunday, the 1st, started out ordinary enough, and like Friday we devoted the morning to much-needed recuperating. It wasn't until noon that we had regained enough energy to leave the hotel, and we hit up Asakusa - a tourist-packed area with a huge gate (kaminari-mon) and shrine (sensou-ji). When I say tourist-packed, I'm not kidding; you'll be fighting for elbow room all the way down that line of shops. That's when it happened - before we knew it, the two kids were gone with the baby. Did they go into one of the shops? Didn't seem like it... Did they continue on? Only one way to find out. We split up and I went with my fiance to the big shrine. When we got to the top of the stairs, we were in for a surprise - there they were, in the sacred area, touching (in baby E-chan's sake, drooling on) the golden statue of Buddha! It was both an appalling and beautiful sight.
APRIL FOOLS!!1!!ONE!1 lmao Did you believe me? XD Actually, my regret for the day was completely forgetting that it was April Fools Day at all. There, I've got my fill. The kids were safe and accounted for, and my fiance and I even got a good fortune at the shrine. Cool beans. Our next stop couldn't have been better picked - Ueno Park is the biggest park in Tokyo, and the sakura (cherry blossoms) had just begun to bloom. Along with the sakura came many people doing hanami, a type of flower viewing that involves friends, family, and coworkers coming together under the trees, getting really drunk, and making fools of themselves. It's fun to watch, actually, and I took a couple videos of people partying and dancing. Unfortunately, the Ueno Zoo was closed for the day, and even though we found some rides and festival food, baby E-chan could smell the animals in the air and started getting excited. "Zoo, zoo!!" We turned back defeated for the day.
On Monday we were determined to get back to that zoo, and not even waking up late would stop us this time. And it was a great zoo. Complete with monkeys, penguins, soft little bunny rabbits, 2 big pandas surrounded by crowds of humans, and magical ponies all for our entertainment. Thus we defeated the zoo masters and claimed the zoo for our own. We may still be there today if it weren't for the odd smells that got to us after a while. For dinner I brought everyone to Shinjuku thinking we could see the huge walking intersection (turned out it was Shibuya, how could I make such a mistake?!), and while we were there we emptied our wallets a bit more into arcade crane games.
Tuesday was rainy. My fiance had done some research on a man-made island called Odaiba, so we headed out there. On our way we looked for the famed Pokemon center to no avail, thanks in part to conflicting directions from confused station attendants who must have thought we were crazy foreigners trying to "catch them all." The rain got worse and turned into a typhoon with reports that trains might close down, but we got to Odaiba just fine. We saw a life-sized Gundam model from the train, and I really wanted to check it out but considering the rain, wind, and distance, well... I never was that big of a Gundam fan, after all. ;) Odaiba turned out to have a nice mall, with its highlight being the arcade (oh God, the wallets). Let me tell you, I've been to a lot of arcades in my day and all across Japan, but the sheer size and variety in this arcade trumped all others. Not only did it have basically any kind of game you could want, but tons of crane machines, batting cages, soccer cages, a kids play area, electronic animals you could ride around the arcade, a haunted house, massage chairs, a life-size sumo game... the list goes on and on. After dinner we were heading back with the trains stopped. haha Figures, right? Luckily, there was another station on a different line about a 5 minute walk away, so we made our way back somehow.
Our last day was Wednesday, so we got up early and were all packed and checked out by the time we left for breakfast at Tokyo Station. There was a tiny bit of money left in the wallets at this point, so we went to Akihabara, the anime/manga/game/cosplay capital of Tokyo/Japan/Earth and, naturally, found some more arcades and crane games. We used up the last of our time as well, and found ourselves rushing to the airport and making a photo finish a mere 30 minutes before international take-off. If we hadn't checked in with our phones on the train we might have been in big trouble. :p After we said our goodbyes, my fiance and I then rushed to the national airport for our flight home to Shimane.
It had been a long week and a half, and it was time for some well-deserved sushi and sleep.
Pictures on Picasa (locked to G+ friends)
Comment on pics on fb and G+!!
No comments:
Post a Comment