Onsen and Shinjuku

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Note - in a rush to enter these before their plane lands so the pics might be outa order...

Writing this from the Hikari Super Express 517. Left Tokyo for the night, heading into Nagoya before returning to Tokyo to meet up with Aaron and his friends. Rod departed for Edmonton, thankfully all of our return flights go through Seattle, cuts 3 hours off the flight time roughly.

Leaving off from where I last wrote, the following day we started off in Shinjuku. Needed to get the lay of the land for meeting up with Aaron there, as well we checked out the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices. These two (at least) towers house the people that keep Tokyo running. The one we went into had at around 50 floors. The observatory was on the 45th and provided a great view of Tokyo (and free is always nice). From there we got a birds eye view of the Meiji-Jingu shrine, some impressive architecture, and a view of where Mt Fuji would be visible, had it not been cloudy / smoggy (Which it usually is).

After leaving there and taking a few pics of Shinjuku we headed to the Oedo Onsen in the Odaiba District in Tokyo. Finding it was a bit of a challenge, the trains leading there could be a bit more tourist friendly, but find it we did and after a bit of a hike arrived at the Onsen. I've been at a few, but this was quite a bit different. More modern, and more tourist friendly. But still extremely nice. Beautiful areas to soak your feet (in straight water or some sort of fishes swimming in there), and even a market for buying food and games for kids and such. Really liked it, and the Onsen itself was pretty nice. Afterwards we got some sort of modern dance performance which was pretty cool. Sort of a Romeo and Juliet, except Romeo kills Juliet's family instead. I think. After sitting in one of the bars inside the market and watching a very cool Chinese film for a bit we headed home. This time we took the Monorail back, much easier, nicer ride, and got a view of some of the impressive bridge work and building architecture in the area. Not to mention a "full sized" Gundam Robot statue that apparently lights up and such. Only in Japan.


Finished the night at a small restaurant in Kamata, the train station that connects to where our Ryokan was. I've been to Kamata station like half a dozen times but never actually left it, turns out there's some pretty good life going on in the area. Always something new in Tokyo to discover.

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