Tokyo Day 4: Yoyogi, Harajuku and Sega Joypolis

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July 1st, 2006:
Hi all,

I know I have fallen behind on my blog entries- I've been busy the past two weeks with a trip to Tokyo with Rusty who was visiting from Quebec for the first half of the week, and a visit from my Mom and Aunt Heather for the second half. And alot of my pictures are also on a disc which I won't have until Tuesday. So, I'll have to do this backwards and post days out of chronological order. So make sure you come back next week and check for new posts about my trips to Tokyo, Aizu-Wakamatsu, Mt. Fuji and Hakone, and Nikko.

For now I'll start with Day 4 in Tokyo:

The weather in Tokyo was unbearabley hot and humid, but luckily enough, it only rained once during the day- the day my umbrella from the dollar store completely fell apart. Rusty and I decided to have a more relaxed day than we had been having in our rush to cram all of Tokyo's sights in.

Wednesday we headed over to the Harajuku area of Tokyo and into Yoyogi Park, near the Olympic Stadium from the 1964 Olympics. Since it was rainy slightly, there weren't a lot of people around, but the mosquitoes were out in full force. We walked around the prak a bit and then decided to head over to the area of the park where the Meiji Shrine is located.

The Meiji Shrine is the most important Shinto shrine in Tokyo built in 1920, but destroyed and rebuilt after WWII. The entrance to the shrine area of the park is a large torii gate. From there the path takes you through a cedar tree-lined walkpaway leading up to the main shrine. After walking around the shrine we decided to head out into the HArajuku area for some shopping.

This was my second time in Harajuku and just like my first trip there- it was raining so there weren't alot of people out and we saw very few "Harajuku Girls" dressed up in elaborate costumes. We did managed to find some delicious crepes for sale on the street that included things like cheesecake, a number of ice cream flavours, fruit, and whipped cream.

We didn't find any good deals in Harajuku so it was off to Roppongi to have a look around. Since it was the middle of the afternoon and Roppongi is the main clubbing district, there was not alo tgoing on. We walked through the Roppongi area to Tokyo Tower- the giant tower modelled on the Eiffel Tower. Tokyo Tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower, but it is much more of an eyesore, painted in bright orange and covered in satellitles. We debated going up the tower but since it always seems to be foggy in Tokyo, decided to pass since we would only have a view of the fog.

In the evening, Rusty and I decided to take the momorail over to Daiba (also called Odaiba, literally means "obstruction" in Japanese). Daiba is an island "resort" area in Tokyo Bay. It's referred to as a resort since it holds Tokyo's only "beach"- not exactly somewhere you would want to relax and go for a swim. There is also a large ferris wheel on the island and the futuristic-looking headquarters of Fuji YTV. Daiba also holds an amusement complex of shops and restaurants called Decks, which was out destination for the night.

The monorail led us over the city and parallell to the Rianbow Brige, one of the larger bridges crossing the Sumida River. Decks is exatly what it sounds like- two malls with wooden decks on the levels overlooking the view of the Bay and the Rainbow Bridge. After our dinner on one of the patios on the deck (one of the few patios I have seen in Japan), we decided to visit Sega Joypolis, the small amusement park run by Sega which features new and interactive Sega games.

Sega Joypolis had a variety of virtual reality games and a few small rides, most of which were in Japanese, but that didn't matter anyway. The walls inside were lined with autographs and photos of celebrities who had visted Joypolis- The only ones we recognized were Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Jackson. After a few hours of games and rides, it was back on the monorail to our hotel is Asakusa in Northern Tokyo.

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Photos

Olympic Staduim
Olympic Stadium in Yoyogi Park

Meiji Shrine
The Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park. Emporer Meiji and his wife are enshrined here.

Meiji Shrine 2
Me in the rain at the Meiji Shirine in Tokyo

Sake casks
Casks of sake that were given to the shrine as an offering are on display on the path leading up to the Meiji Shrine.

Crepes
The delicious crepe display in Harajuku. They taste as good as they look.

Tokyo Tower
It may be taller than the Eiffel Tower but it's not as pretty.

Cat's Livin'
Here I am at a store called Cat's Livin' at Tokyo Decks. It's a stored geared for cat lovers and sells everything from purebreds to t-shirts...for cats.

Fuji TV
The odd Fuji TV building in Daiba, Tokyo.

Sega Joypolis
Here I am at the entrance to Sega Joypolis in Daiba, Tokyo.

Rainbow Bridge
The view of the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Bay from the Tokyo Decks complex in Daiba.