Advertisement
Published: June 24th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Our first day in Tokyo started interestingly enough.. ran into a very friendly school teacher at the Ryokan, Yoshiko. We also met Pablo, a guy from Spain (Basque Country might be more accurate, seems a slightly contentious issue...). Although he speaks very little English or Japanese Yoshiko decided to help us all out and show us around Tokyo. She is quite a talker, stopping to ask for directions for this or asking us about that... ended up meeting another women on the train ride over who was helpful enough to show us which train to catch (although i didn't have the heart to tell her I already knew the way... kinda bad form for the white "gaijin" to know more about the capital then her I figured)
Started off by going back to Senso-Ji.. I've been there before but it's a very impressive temple and we had a pretty good time there catching in the sights. Probably the most famous temple in all of Tokyo. We stopped in at a sushi place for lunch, one of those with a conveyer belt that you just grab whatever looks good as it goes by. They charge you by scanning the plates -
Cleansing Smoke thing
Supposed to wave the smoke onto the parts of your body you want healed. each color of plate designates a different price. Pretty fancy I figured!
While eating lunch she struck up a conversation with two businessmen who were seated beside us. She mentioned to them that this was my third trip here, and so one of them gave me a VERY nice Japanese fan! The other guy gave his fan to Rod as well! However they then felt bad for Pablo, the third "gaijin, and so they dug around and gave him a very nice pen they had. Amazingly nice gesture I thought.
After leaving there, because the rain was picking up, we decided to head to the National Museum in Ueno Park. After arriving in Ueno we ran by a Spanish Bar, so Pablo had to check it out. When the owner found out Pablo was from there, he not only agreed to take our picture in there but he also grabbed a flag he had hanging up for us to hold up in the photo. Again quite the amazing Japanese hospitality. Unfortunately after we got to the Museum we found out they were closed on Mondays. 😞 So we decided that since Pablo wanted a new camera we'd head
Entering the Gate
A huge Lantern hanging in the entryway. to Electric Town, aka Akihabara.
Akihabara is all lights and sounds and sensory overload. She asked around and found out where one of the major electronic shops are.. a bit unfortunate I thought since part of the fun I think of that place is the smaller shops. However we ended up getting a great deal, Yoshiko managed to swing a deal and get the price lowered on the camera he wanted, a big fancy SLR type. So all in all a very successful trip. After a short break at a coffee shop that played childrens music in the background, we headed back to the Ryokan. She showed us where a nearby super market was and we bought some food to have for supper on the cheap (not to mention my first experience in a 2 story supermarket). She also bought some vodka-style drink made in Japan. We ended up having a couple of drinks back at the hotel.. not a big Vodka fan but wasn't bad, and a good end to a long but enjoyable day. Better head to bed, this internet is PAINFULLY slow. will write more later!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0523s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb