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Published: December 14th 2006
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Tokyo Building
Very impressive, much more so than either NYC or LA. Started out today on very little sleep, as per usual, dad kept me up all night snoring. Thank God for green tea with breakfast... We ate at the Imperial Viking Sal buffet at the hotel. Which was fine, but a little overpriced. We had Rudy and Ted (dad's coworkers) with us, and together we set off for their only day of sightseeing in the city.
We hopped on the metro at Ginza station, about a 10 minute walk from the hotel and took the Ginza line to Asakusa. Asakusa is an old neighborhood - narrow streets, colorful booths and old temples:
We spent a good bit of time at Sensoji Temple, passing through the shopping area of Nakamise on the way. Sensoji is the oldest temple in Tokyo, supposedly built in 628. It's very colorful with huge paper lanterns and several bright red temples surrounding it. Like most of Tokyo, there is a crazy juxtoposition of old and new - just outside the temple grounds is an amusement park - Hana-yashiki. We contemplated riding the Japanese version of the Maliboomer, but decided that we'd just wait till our next trip to California Adventure.
From Asakusa we
Asakusa
The temple there was unbelievable. Such bright colors! walked southwest to the district of Ueno. Getting there was the best part - about an hour of wandering through the side streets of Asakusa and Ueno. Along the way we stopped in a traditionl Japanese grocery. When I was a kid, dad had talked about buying $5 apples in Japan that were the hugest apples he'd ever seen. Well, now I have proof that he wasn't lying - there they were, individually wrapped and 500 Yen each! The grocery store was amazing - much better than the ones on Sawtelle in LA (not shocking) with the freshest assortment of fish and beef that I've ever seen. I think I could be very happy eating in every night if this store was my corner grocery! Dad even found vanilla mochi ice cream - something he had been searching for since he got to Tokyo.
Outside the store, a friendly local stopped to direct us the final few blocks to Ueno Park:
As we walked over the bridge and the JR train tracks into Ueno, we passed huge pachinko parlours and then arrived at Yanaka Cemetery. We didn't go in, but what we could see over the
Lanterns
Decorative lanterns in Asakusa. wall looked much more beautiful than the traditional American cemetery.
In Ueno, we went to the Tokyo National Museum. The collection was impressive - boasting many kimonos, samurai swords (so sharp still it was unbelievable), armor, calligraphy and scrolls, statues, woodwork and so on. After leaving the museum we strolled through the park and watched some live music while the locals sat on the steps and enjoyed bento lunches. By this time we were all feeling the strain of the morning walk and hopped on the Hibiya metro to Akihabara. Once there, we headed to Electric City on dad's quest to find a new headset for cheap. Electric City is impressive - the streets are blocked off on Sundays and it's a mass of people looking for good deals on electronics and scantily clad women advertising projects. Some of the costumes were quite colorful. We even witnessed this guy dressed as a king with a drawn on mustache singing "Let it Be" and "Roll Over Beethoven" for the crowd. He was a huge hit.
After asking 8 different people for lunch suggestions we ended up at a little hole in the wall sushi joint. We had to take
Mmmmm...mochi!!!!
After dragging us countless miles across Tokyo dad finally found what he was looking for at a small grocery store...vanilla mochi ice cream! the elevator 2 at a time to get there, and once we arrived we found ourselves in a tiny 12 person sushi bar with one chef and one waitress - neither of whom spoke any English at all. Here we had a feast - I got a mixed plate with 8 amazing pieces of sushi plus a roll for Y850 - under $10! It was
exactly what we were looking for.
From there we went electronics shopping. Dad never did find his headset, but we had a great time looking at all the new cameras, video cameras and tvs. Some of the newest products on the market are absolutely stunning - particularly the new Sony HD cameras. And they were a good $400 cheaper than in the US.
After Akihabara we could barely move, so we hopped the Hibiya line back to Hibiya station. We lost Rudy in a bit of an elevator mixup, but eventually all four of us reunited in front of the Imperial.
The day called for a 4 hour nap to recover, then off to dinner at our now "usual" sushi restaurant across the street with another of Dad's coworkers who had just
Intel
Something about hanging out with all those Intel employees led us straight to Intel advertisement clad women. Dad stopped her to ask for a good sushi recommendation, oblivious to what was on the back of the coat. Ted, however, knew exactly what it said. gotten in. By the time we returned it was 11 pm, and even with the nap my cold (and let's face it, the beer) got the better of me and I turned in.
Per usual, the full range of pictures can be found at
my online gallery.
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