Full Day 1

The official day 1. We set off with smiles on our faces and not enough sleep. Yay. We took the Yamanote line (getting a handle on the trains yet?) to Yoyogi and transfered to the Oedo line to go to the Tsukijishijo Station, where the world renown Tsukiji Fish Market is located. Seriously, youtube "sushi" and you'll immediately see Tsukiji Fish Market all over the place. So in addition to being the harbor where all the fish is brought in, they have the world's best sushi. Now, David and I are not raw fish fans, but c'mon, it's apparently the best in the world. We had to try.


The above picture is one of the many many lines of Sushi shops and little souvenir shops. We choose one at random.

Our food came. Our sushi chef was pretty funny and knew a few phrases in English. When we motioned to take his picture, he looked away and said "no good looking, no good looking." By the way, what you're seeing above is all raw (perhaps lightly steamed, but raw nonetheless). There is flounder, tuna, cod, salmon roe, shrimp, squid, eel, and I'm missing one, but I'm really okay with not reliving the experience. It was some pretty pricey sushi too. But I tried it all, (except the squid obviously). I wasn't too hungry for a while after that. It wasn't bad, but still, it's raw slimy fish. Yum.



We then made trip over to the Tsukiji Honganji, one of the only Japanese temples made from concrete and stone rather than the traditional wood. I said the prayers and did the incense and went inside. This temple was complete with traditional fold down chairs and flat screen TVs... wait what?


We then walked about half a km to the famous Hama Rikyu Gardens (maybe not that famous but hey it was in the guide book). It was very cool. You had this green scenic area with huge sky scrapers in the background. The picture above is just an example :).


We climbed up to the top of some small rock formation and there was this little girl and her dad. The girl (picture above) wanted to climb back down by herself. She got about halfway and said something along the lines of "Daddy I can't do it." The dad (who knew a little English) was with us watching us take pictures of her and then said "She needs my help" and scampered down to get her. It was all very kawaiiiii (Japanese for cute).

From inside the gardens there was a small pier from which we took a boat that circled around Tokyo up to Asakusa, one of the older districts of Tokyo. The boat ride in itself was pretty amazing, though one lady kept checking David and Maciej's tickets. Only theirs. Racial Profiling much?

David's always ready for a photo. Maciej's... staring off.

Japan wins the award for cute kids. She kept trying to discretely take pictures of us. So we took some back.

Oh and we passed under about 10 bridges. The architecture of each one was pretty awesome. I think this one was my favorite.

We also passed this building. Any idea what it's supposed to be?

After the forty minute very relaxing boat ride, we went to Asakusa, one of Tokyo's oldest neighborhoods. In Asakusa is Nakamise Dori, a narrow pedestrian lane with a bunch of Japanese souvenir shops. I'm totally going back.

It's a looong street.



A red bean treat making machine. I want one!

At the end of the street was Sensokji Temple, Tokyo's oldest and most popular temple (this one didn't have Flat Screen TV's). It was founded in 628, but had to be rebuilt after WWII. There was also a little fortune place where you get a chopstick looking thing with a number on it, then find the drawer with the corresponding number. Poor David and Maciej got Bad and some other fortunes. I liked mine though.

So it was at this point that Maciej left us to go meet someone and David and I pressed forth. (We were tired...) We headed to Tokyo National Museum (was a bit of a walk, but we got there).

The museum is in the back, this is the front lawn. Nice eh?

On the scenic walk through a park to the museum, there were random cats everywhere for people to pet? I dunno. But they were cute.



Our Emory ID's came in handy. Saved us 40%. Way to be University students... The museum was much like ones I had seen in Taiwan. Doesn't really teach you much, just a bunch of artifacts that we can't really relate to because there are so few, and well, not that exciting really. And that's saying a lot b/c David and I spent a good 2 hours there trying to get something out of it. (We liked the museum we'd see the next day a LOT better. You'll see).



We then went to Ginza, the upper end of the shopping district. Gucci, Prada, Louis Vutton. You name it, it was there. We walked around for about 30 minutes, realized we were guys and didn't want to guy clothes, and headed back to Shibuya.

A picture taken at Shibuya. This is Hachiko, the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. Nuts eh?

We wandered around for a while but HAD to get food. We hadn't eaten since the "yummy" sushi from earlier that day. We were getting a bit pale so we found a restaurant and went it. It was like a tapas place or a dim sum place. You order a few little things and share. The only one who spoke English was our Burmese waitress. Not sure how she pulled that off w/o being able to speak Japanese.


Oh and we found the hard way that Japanese people charge a lot just for sitting down. We had a nice view of Shibuya and about 1800 worth of food. The bill came and it was 4700 Yen (47 dollars). Drinks were half off that night, so half of 400 yen per drink. (They asked us if we wanted more and so we said "sure" not knowing they were charging us for each time). But what really increased the bill was the "table charge" a whopping 10 bucks a person. Just for sitting down. Doesn't seem right eh?

But no matter. You live you learn. We spent the rest of the night exploring Shibuya, a very fun shopping district. (David bought a "classic" Japanese translated into English book from Tokyo Records). There were some intriguing photo albums... and intriguing shops. To say the least.

Eventually we tired out and went home... End of Saturday. :)