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Published: September 19th 2010
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It's amazing what a night of some decent sleep can do for someone. Last night, Katie and I were borderline delirious from how tired we were. The ground felt like it was rocking back and forth. However, after getting a good night's rest, we felt refreshed and ready to take on Tokyo. We got ready, checked out, and headed to our next hostel. (The main hostel we're staying at the rest of the nights in Tokyo was booked up for our first night).
A funny thing happened that complicated things. Well, at least I can laugh about it now. I told the girl at the front desk that we were looking for Quality K's Oasis Hostel. After being assured she knew where it was, she gave me some directions. Normally, I have directions and maps printed out, but google maps had the directions in Japanese, which I do not speak/read.......yet. Katie and I, with our bags in tow, walked about a mile and a half or so to the new hostel. Well, that's if we would have walked directly haha. The map I was given, did not have street names or small streets on it, so it was a little
more difficult finding it. Needless to say, we took a little bit of a detour. Finally, a nice local man stopped to helped us out. And I know it was difficult to find because even HE had a tough time finding it even though we were half a block away. On a side note, I must say, Japanese people have been EXTREMELY nice to us. This man walked a block or so and asked a couple store owners to help us find the hostel. Anyways, it was all for naught because, it turned out that we were given directions to the wrong K's House hostel =/ The nice man at the hostels front counter gave us directions to the correct one, so we took a cab.
I must say, our new hostel is AWESOME. All the research definitely paid off. The room is much bigger, the location is perfect, and we have our own bathroom/shower in this one. We dropped our bags and set off looking for an adventure. Needless to say, since we hadn't eaten, we were a bit famished. We set off to look for a yakitori spot since Katie loves chicken and doesn't really enjoy the
rest of the cuisine choices. It's kind of funny how we'll pass 48439857394875 places but 2 will have something that she can/will eat haha. We found a spot not too far from the hostel. This place was about as authentic as we're gonna find. They had no menus in English and barely had any pictures. There were a few Japanese men watching horse racing while reading their Racing Forms and ordering Beer and food. All I could think of was how much my dad would love this place since it had horse racing, haha. Katie and I opted for the chicken skewers and beers. They were SOOOOOOOOOO good.
After getting some food, we meandered over to the Kaminarimon Gate again. It's the entrance gate leading up to the Sensoji Temple. In the pics, Kaminarimon Gate is the one with the HUGE paper lantern looking thing. After a few quick photos, we continued onto Nakamise-Dori. It's basically a long street lined with shops that sold everything from Kimonos, samurai swords, and trinkets, to octupus skewers, beer, and chocolate covered bananas (which I might add were quite tasty).
We then checked out the Sensoji Temple, the 5 story pagoda, and
Shibuya Crossing
Busiest crosswalk on Earth the shinto shrine adjacent to the Sensoji Temple. In case you're wondering what I'm doing in the picture with the smoke, the local custom is to put the smoke from the incense burner. I believe I read that it's supposed to purify you. Also, in the other picture, you'll see people use the ladles to get water to wash their hands. Another form of purification I suppose.
After the Temple, we headed over to Shibuya. This is where I took the picture of the busiest intersection in the world. It's pretty crazy because although there's a multitude of people, there's total control. Well, let me rephrase that, it's a controlled chaos. There's so many people so it's hectic, but everyone follows a system. Another thing I've noticed is that Japanese people don't really jaywalk or cross the street if the signal tells them not to. Found that quite interesting. That wouldn't really fly in the States. Oh, if you're wondering why i took a picture of the dog statue, it's because I like the story behind it. It's called the Hachiko statue. Apparently, some years ago, there was a dog that would walk to the train station everyday to
wait for his master. Unfortunately, his master died while away at work. The dog, however, came to the station everyday for 10 years or so until it died. Just goes to show the bond between man and dog. Anyone that knows me, knows I LOVE dogs, so thought that was a cool back story.
After checking out Shibuya, we decided to head towards Harajuku. We stopped off at some stores as Katie was dying to check some of them out. Once at Harajuku, we walked around Yoyogi Park. Here we saw hoards of Tokyo-ites relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. We also saw some Japanese guys dressed like rockabilly Americans with their slick hair do's doing a dance similar to the twist. It was pretty funny and quite entertaining. If you're into people watching, Yoyogi Park is definitely the place to go. We then headed towards the Meiji Jingu shrine, but saw the Harajuku girls at Jingu-Bashi. For those of you that don't know, Jingu-Bashi is where the "alternative"teens hang out. They dress like something out of a goth movie or something.
The Meiji Jingu shrine is located in the middle of this BEAUTIFUL park. There's plenty of greenery
around. As we walked up to the shrine, we saw a wedding ceremony was taking place. Some of the attire was quite elaborate and cool to look at. Also, if you're wondering why I took pictures of wood blocks, it's because people write their wishes, thanks, etc. on these wood blocks and give them to the church. Katie and I opted for the alternative of just writing it down on a piece of paper they provided and put it in an envelope.
By this time, Katie and I were pretty hungry so I took a quick peak at my guidebook to check out food spots. I read about this one spot in the Takashima Times Square building above the Tokyo Hands department store. It was rated pretty high, while also being quite affordable. However, their prices must have been raised significantly since the guidebook was written, so we looked for and found another place to our liking. I believe it was called Katsuka. For about $13 you get rice, a chicken cutlet, miso soup, tofu, salad, and some other stuff we couldn't figure out what the hell it was. It really was awesome bang for your buck. I kept
hearing how Tokyo was extremely expensive when it came to food, but I guess it can be unless you don't do your research.
With stomachs full and feet pounding, we decided to head back to the hostel for a rest. We walked SOOOO much today. Here I am, it's only 10pm and the time change is still a little bit of an issue. I'm thinking of going to sleep in a couple hours and waking up early (4am) to check out the Tsukiji Fish market tomorrow morning to check out the auctions and sample some of the freshest sushi on Earth. I think we also might check out the Imperial Palace. I haven't exactly decided what to do yet, but we'll see what tomorrow has in store. I can't wait!!!! Talk to you guys soon 😊
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Giovanni Ruiz
Giovanni Ruiz
Correction
*peek