Sushi-licious Streets and Neon Beats

Day 8- Exploring Tokyo

The entire time I have been in Asia (5 months at this point) I have not had a chai tea latte. This was my go to drink order at any coffee shop, and I have noticed that Korea does not sell chai anywhere. It was just my luck that I passed a coffee shop that did have a chai tea latte, so I made an immediate bee line. Iced latte in hand (and a yummy looking cinnamon bread), I sat down and tried my first sip. I will not say I was disappointed since this was the first latte I had in months, but there was just not a lot of flavor. I still drank the entire cup with a smile on my face.

We had dropped our belongings off in a coin locker at the train station (we were going to our final hotel later that night), so we set off for Senso-ji Temple. There was a huge market right by the temple that we had to walk through. I thoroughly enjoyed "window-shopping" at each stall and even stopped to buy a few goodies for my brother and parents. There were beautiful wood block paintings, decadent candy, silly keychains, and bright ceramics. Some stores were dedicated solely to chopsticks while others housed only kimonos. The aisles were packed with people, so we made sure to keep an eye on one another lest one of us wander off.

Senso-ji Temple

By the time we had reached the temple, it was just starting to rain. Commence the sea of umbrellas. The temple itself was gorgeous due in part to the Japanese Buddhist architecture. There were pops of color in the ornamental decoration, a vibrant red and a soft green. There were 3 beautiful and large lanterns hanging in the middle of one of the buildings. According to my sources (i.e. Google) the red lantern stands at a whopping 3.9 meters tall and weighs 700 kg. Walking next to them was a surreal experience seeing as how they are more than twice my size. The ornate detailing was stunning up close; oh, if only I could read ancient kanji! The main pagoda was an impressive structure topped with a grand gold spire. Really, is there anything better than seeing a centuries old temple?

The rain started to fall a little harder, so we decided to grab a bite to eat. Us 2 Americans on the trip spotted a Denny's and decided to heck with it; we wanted to eat there. Stepping foot inside, we quickly realized this Denny's was far fancier than anything back home. I ended up splitting a sandwich plate and a caesar salad with one of my companions. The sandwich was surprisingly tasty, although I would not call the salad a caesar salad. It was tasty, don't get me wrong, but there were raw onions and oranges and the dressing was more a tangy vinaigrette. As I said, I enjoyed the food even if it was not quite what I was expecting (a somewhat common occurrence in Asia).

Next up on the itinerary was a visit to the Tokyo Skytree. This massive tower is 634 meters tall and is the third tallest structure in the world. We decided to head up to the observation deck on the 350th floor instead of the one on the 450th floor (it was cheaper and the view would pretty much be the same). I was awe-struck looking out the panoramic windows. The rainy clouds were creating a mist that was softly kissing the tops of buildings in the far off distance. Everything looked so small that high up in the sky, and I could not help but wonder what the view would look like in the nighttime. We started to make our way back down to the first floor, but stopped off on the 340th floor to stand on the glass flooring. The glass floor was maybe 10 feet in length, yet it was still fun to stand and look all the way down at the street below.

View from the Tokyo Skytree

After we were safely back on the ground, we stopped at the nearby shopping mall. There was a Studio Ghibli store that a couple of the companions wanted to stop by and see. I have never seen any of the films, but it was still a cool store to visit. Each movie had its own small section in the store designed to look like the film. There were soft plushies from My Neighbor Totoro, pins from Kiki's Delivery Service, and socks from Howl's Moving Castle. I am more inclined now to watch the films after seeing the whimsical displays in the store. We then headed up to the Harry Potter store we had seen from the window. This was not as impressive, but there were still some cool bits and bobs.

We soon headed back to the train station to grab our belongings and catch a train for our final hotel of our stay. Once at the hotel, we put down our backpacks and went to the local convenience store to grab some dinner. I grabbed another pack of sushi (it's honestly really good) and went back to the hotel to warm up. The most entertaining part of the night was rolling out the thin futon mattresses we would sleeping on while on the floor. No actual bed frame or mattress for us.

Day 9- Ueno Park

Just like most days, I started the day with a hearty breakfast consisting of a steamed pork bun. It was cold and rainy, but my pork bun acted as a ray of sunshine warming from the inside out.

I was quite excited for the first stop of the day. We were visiting the Tokyo National Museum where I could consume as much knowledge about Tokyo's history as possible. There were fascinating exhibits on the history of katana swords, buddhist statues, priceless pottery, and ancient samurai attire. I thoroughly enjoyed observing all the relics from the past, especially in comparison to those I have seen in Greece and Italy and the United States. The colors used for pottery and jewelry boxes were vibrant even after centuries have passed since they were first constructed. The katanas had been shined until they sparkled under the light. The Buddha artifacts gleamed through the glass. The history was rich throughout the museum, and I learned so much about Japan and Tokyo. I wish I had been able to spend more time there observing everything on display.

My favorite pieces from the museum

Lunch rolled around soon enough, and we wandered around the area looking for a suitable location. We ended up stopping at a sushi restaurant, and I was so excited to have sushi at an actual sushi restaurant instead of the convenience store (still really good sushi though!). I ended up ordering a variety of nigiri style sushi which came with the sushi, a broth, an egg flan, and a dessert of rice balls. The sushi ended up being just okay. There was wasabi right underneath the fish, so when I put the whole pice in my mouth I got a wonderful taste of nail polish remover. No matter, I simply scraped off the rice with wasabi on it. My favorite pieces ended up being the cooked heron and grilled oyster. The tuna and salmon were nice as well, but it was a little hard to taste them over the residual flavor of wasabi. I am still incredibly grateful for the overall experience of trying authentic sushi.

The next stop was one of my biggest dreams come true. We went to the Ueno Zoo, and I was able to see the twin baby pandas that were born 2 years ago, Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei! I did have to wait in line for about 35 minutes and only had about 3 minutes to view them in total, but it was so worth it. Once I got the front of the line, we were told to wait behind a door. I was ushered into the viewing area where they then set a timer to ensure we were only there for about 1 minute. When the timer went off, we were moved to the next section and, again, had about 1 minute of viewing time. The pandas were rolling around and pacing the length of their incredibly tiny enclosure. I felt like a kid in a candy store the entire time I was looking at them. The final timer went off, and we had to say goodbye to the adorable pandas. Because I had not had my fill of panda viewing, I went to see the two adults, Ri Ri and Shin Shin. Shin Shin was a little hard to see behind the mountain of bamboo in the enclosure, but I had a perfect view of Ri Ri eating his late lunch. Realistically, I could have stood there for hours, but we did want to see some other enclosures so we headed onward. I did end up buying the cutest little panda keychain and a t-shirt with Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei on it before I left.

The best animal in the entire world

The rest of the zoo was quite underwhelming. The enclosures were small and dirty, and the majority of the animals had already gone inside for the night. Of the animals we did see, most looked sad and malnourished. It was disappointing to see the conditions the animals were kept in, so we did not linger long at the zoo.

In order to perk ourselves up, we headed over to Akihabara Electric Town. This was essentially an entire region of Tokyo dedicated to anime. The buildings were covered with bulletin boards and TV screens dedicated to anime shows and characters. The majority of the stores held comics, books, or mini collectible figurines. Tom wanted to find a certain anime book, so I had my first experience going into an anime bookstore. There were thousands of books from dozens of different anime series. There were books catering towards boys and books catering towards girls. Some series had been popular for decades while others were up and coming. I know nothing about anime, but it was still cool to observe.

Some of the anime advertisements in Akihabara

We spent a little while walking through the streets just looking into the stores. One store we went into was filled with figurines (both appropriate and inappropriate) and it was a little overwhelming. The amount of 30-something year old men in there was quite astounding as well. Everywhere I looked there were people, anime characters, or maid cafe girls (girls dressed up in maid costumes advertising their cafes).

We worked up quite the appetite, so we stopped for dinner at a place called Johnathon's. I had a nice Margherita pizza (could have used 3 times more basil), a delicious side salad, and some crispy fried oysters. The atmosphere was nice, and it was a good end to a long day. We soon headed back to the hotel for a much needed night of rest.