Tokyo, Japan, Days 6-7

Day 6 Day 6 was our last full day in Tokyo. We went back to Shinjuku, for breakfast and a visit to Gyoen National Garden. The garden closed at 4:30, so we decided to go to Tokyo DisneySea and buy After 6 discount tickets.

We ate breakfast at a place called Slappy Cakes. The first restaurant was opened in Portland, Oregon. For some reason, they chose Shinjuku, Tokyo as the second location. It's an interesting idea, though. You can order breakfast off the menu (the usual American foods, like pancakes, sausages, eggs benedict), or make pancakes on a griddle at your table. We opted to order off the menu, and I got the banana and chocolate chip with raspberry jam pancake.



The entrance, part of the menu, my breakfast, other people cooking pancakes at their table.

The elevator up to the restaurant (located on the 7th floor of the Lumine Est store... not to be confused with Lumine 2 that's closer to the subway) was covered in interesting drawings.


Inside of the Lumine Est elevator.

There are lots of stationery stores in Japan (and Korea, and maybe in the US... though I never noticed). A Korean classmate from Taiwan gave me some erasable pens for my birthday and I bought more in Japan. The green one already started to run out, so luckily I was able to find them in Korea, too. (Though, even those ones have Japanese on their casings.)


They're like colored pencils, but erase just with friction. No eraser clumps left behind!

We then went to Gyeon National Garden. There was a small admission fee for this one ($1 or 2), and unfortunately, it closed less than two hours after we got there, so we didn't get to see most of the gardens. Still, it was very pretty.



The (south?) gate, a teahouse in the forest, a lake with lots of koi fish (carp).



Me on a bridge on the lake, a koi fish causing ripples in the water, me in front of a pavilion.

After the garden closed, we headed towards Tokyo Disney Resort (technically located just outside the city in Chiba). Tokyo Disney Resort encompasses both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea parks. Tokyo Disneyland is supposedly a lot like Disney World and Disneyland in the US (though, despite my many trips to Orlando and Anaheim, I've still never been to either), so we decided to go to Tokyo DisneySea, which is unique to Tokyo. There are seven nautically themed areas, like Arabian Coast (Aladdin), Mermaid Lagoon (The Little Mermaid), Lost River Delta (Indiana Jones), etc. Regular admission is ~$62, but after 6, it's only $33. Of course, soon after arrival, it became too dark for pictures, but I still took a few, mostly of the entrance and the first area (Mediterranean Harbor).



Tokyo Disney Resort's 30th anniversary (DisneySea opened in 2001),
my ticket, the "aquasphere" at the entrance.



Mount Prometheus, Mediterranean Harbor x2.


Mermaid Lagoon, and me on a camel statue in Arabian Coast.

My favorite area, I think, was the Arabian Coast, though that may just be because I'm partial to Aladdin. The best ride in the park (according to the internetz), Journey to the Center of the Earth in Mysterious Island, was unfortunately closed for maintenance. Still, we rode many rides, all with zero wait time (thanks for going home before 6, everyone!). I don't think it would've been as fun if we had to wait for 2 hours, as some people (again, on the internetz) mentioned having to do.

Day 7 Day 7 was mostly spent traveling. Our flights were later in the afternoon, but hotel check out was 11, so we spent some time at the airport after checking our bags. I just want to say that the route to the airport via subway is probably the worst public transportation experience I've had. There's barely any English, and nothing is labeled or explained. You buy tickets from a machine, and it dumps you on a platform that says multiple trains (local, limited, airport regular, airport express) can be coming on either side of the tracks (usually one side only services one direction)... I dunno. I suppose it's largely our fault for not knowing Japanese, but you'd think if the main city metro had English, the route to the international airport would, too. (And on the way into the city, a nice lady at the ticket booth at the airport explained things well. We figured it'd just be doing the reverse to go back to the airport, but... it wasn't quite that easy.)


My ice cream cappuccino, and an angry Pikachu guarding the fake food displays.

While we were in the food court, I started feeling a little dizzy. I thought it was weird, but thought it was just me until a sign that said "Japanese Food" started swinging like a pendulum. It was nice of Japan to let us experience an earthquake while we were there. This one was a 6.1, off the coast of Fukushima (the same area as the 2011 7.1 quake). Thankfully, it only felt like a 2.-something by the time it reached Narita Airport.^^


Earthquake reports.

It was a fun week, but I'm not sure I'm in a hurry to go back to Japan, especially with so many other places in Asia to visit. (Not to mention, one of these days, I need to get out of Seoul and Gyeonggi-do!) Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore are all higher on my list (also, Australia and New Zealand) before a return trip to Japan. Though, my friend mentioned she wanted to visit Osaka in November.... The main appeal of Tokyo was that the flight was so cheap (though it kind of evened out, with the expensive meals and city transportation), but, still.. going to Osaka with a friend still might be more interesting than going to the other places alone. And the heat made things difficult. That should be less of a problem in November. I'll have to think about it. :)

Tokyo, Japan, Day 5

Day 5 On Day 5, we woke up early(ish) to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market in Chuo. Then we walked around Sumida, and visited a love shrine in Chiyoda, and finally had dinner with my friend's family friend. It was cool and rainy, thankfully, or I think we would have been even more exhausted.

The Tsukiji fish market is the largest wholesale fish market in the world. There was definitely a lot to see. The tuna auctions run from 5-7am, but you now have to get tickets through a lottery beforehand to attend, and you can't buy unless you're a licensed wholesaler. The "inner market" (where they process and prep food for delivery) opens to visitors at 9. We arrived about 8:15 and had a nice sushi breakfast in the "outer market" (which is a mix of wholesale and retail shops), then walked around the inner market.


There was a huge row of signs line this at the entrance. Cute, and hopefully effective.




Breakfast at a busy little shop in the outer market.
It cost about $15, but was the best sushi I've had, by far.


Seafood. Sea urchins, snails, squid?


Fish prep.

After the fish market, we went to Sumida, home of Sumo (wrestling). We were just planning to go to the Sumo museum by the Kokugikan Sumo Stadium, but when we arrived there, we found out a tournament was actually going on. Apparently, tournaments are only held during 6 months of the year, 15 days each time. And only 3 of those tournaments (Jan, May, Sept) are held in Tokyo. Anyway, we decided it was fate, and bought general admission tickets for $21. We actually sat in empty $82 seats the whole time, though we left before more people came for the grand masters' matches.


There were several blocks like this along the walk from the subway to the stadium.


The stadium, and some English booklets they passed out explaining sumo.



Inside the stadium, during lower-ranking wrestlers' bouts. Once the professional-level ones
started, the seats filled up quickly. We left shortly after the pro-level ring-entering ceremony.

We left the sumo match early to visit a love shrine before going to dinner. There are (at least) three famous ones in Tokyo. We went to the one called Tokyo Daijingu. Before entering the main gate, you bow, then wash your hands and rinse your mouth. You approach the shrine from the sides (the middle is the path for the gods), toss a 5-cent coin in the box, bow twice, clap twice, make a wish, then bow again. Then you can buy an omikuji fortune for $1 or $2. We did all of the above. My fortune here was (paraphrasing) "super amazing awesome," which is better than the "could be worse" I drew from the Sensoji Shrine earlier in the week.^^


The shrine, and a rest area next to it.

Finally, we went to a local (read: less touristy) restaurant with a friend of my friend's family and her husband. They treated us to a huge barbeque dinner. Since coming to Korea, I haven't had meat very often (especially quality cuts), so this was actually a little difficult for me to stomach, heh. Everything was really tasty, but I was full after the first or secound round, and we had about ten.^^


Mmmmmeat.

Onward to Day 6!

Tokyo, Japan, Day 4

Day 4 On Day 4, we planned to walk across the Rainbow Bridge from Shiodome to Odaiba then hang out in Odaiba and take a ferry up the Sumida River. Nothing turned out as planned, though, but that's okay. :)

We were initially intending to walk across, but when we got up to the walkway and everything was shaking and cars were speeding by within arm's reach, we turned around, walked to the river, then took the subway across it.^^



Views from the elevator to the traffic level and from underneath.

On the other side, in Odaiba, is a place called DECKS Tokyo Beach. It has an outdoor mall with shops and restaurants, as well as indoor shopping, and some attractions like Legoland, Madame Tussaud's (wax museum) and a Trick Eye museum. We ate frozen yogurt from an area overlooking the bridge, then walked around the shops, and finally went into the Trick Eye museum.





There's a Trick Eye museum in Hongdae in Seoul as well. I'd gone there a couple years ago when I first came to Seoul on vacation, but the one in Tokyo had more interesting paintings, I think. Basically, the "museum" has 2D paintings (including some famous ones, like The Scream by Edvard Munch) that are painted to appear 3D, and altered in such a way that guests can somehow interact with them. The whole point is to pose and take pictures with the paintings. And that, we did.




I really like how the last one turned out. :)

After that, we went to Tokyo Tower (via subway, not ferry...). We were going to walk around there until dark, then go to the SkyTree for a night view of the city. However, we found out the SkyTree's admission fee was $30, while the Tower's was only $8 for the lower level observation deck (you can pay a bit more and go up a few more stories). Given that, plus the additional $5 in subway fare... we decided to just stay at the Tower. I'm not sure how the view from the SkyTree is, but I'm not sure it's 4x better than what we saw at the Tower.^^





There was a display on each side that pointed out various buildings. The displays
could also show a timelapse video of the view during a 24-hour period. They also
had live entertainment one story down. The actual deck showed it on video monitors.


My camera really did not want to focus on the nighttime view
of the tower, but I think the blurry one looks cooler anyway...

Onward to Day 5...!