Tokyo Day 7: Sayonara!

Overall my trip to Tokyo was exciting, overwhelming, and fun.  It was a great experience for me to explore such a foreign city as well as bond with my father.  I loved it!  Here is a little slideshow of all of my photos from my trip.  I have also set up a shop to order prints.  Thank you for the great feedback from these posts!


My Tokyo Trip from Victoria on Vimeo.
Song: "Die On The Floor" - Franz Ferdinand

I never would have made this if I hadn't seen "This Is Japan!" by Eric Testroete. http://www.vimeo.com/2721992

My photos can be seen here in this Flickr album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/picatoria/sets/72157614424786240/

Tokyo Day 6: Shiodome, Roppongi Hills, Odaiba

On our final day in Tokyo, we went to the Tokyo Tower.  It is really bright orange!  We didn't go up it, but I ate a banana and chocolate crepe underneath.  We walked around this area and then headed to Roppongi Hills, a mall in Roppongi.  While there, we had a curry udon for lunch from Sugamo Kunaya.  Curry is one of my favorite foods and this did not disappoint!  Afterwards we went to Akihabara to find some neat little electronic.  My dad bought my mom a skinny AM/FM radio.  We then made our way to Shimbashi and took the Tokyo Monorail across Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba.  We walked around, watched the sun set and went back to our hotel to change for our fancy dinner!  My dad and I then went to Tofuya Ukai underneath the Tokyo Tower for a traditional Japanese dinner with many many courses.  My favorites were the deep fried tofu with sweet miso sauce, charcoal-grilled wagu beef, and the steamed soft abalone.  Since it was traditional, the servers wore kimonos and serving was part of the dinner and it was a true art form.  We also had to take our shoes off for the tatami mats and to go to the bathroom, they loan you a pair of traditional wooden sandals.  They were the hardest to walk in and I kept losing them; it must have been a hilarious sight!  A really fun experience!

Tokyo Day 5: Marunouchi, Shibuya, Harajuku

Our fifth day in Tokyo was cold and windy!  After watching the sun rise, we started out visiting the Imperial Palace in Marunouchi.  Afterwards we went back to Shibuya and crossed Hachiko Crossing a bunch of times.  It is just so impressive and intimidating and amazing!  We then walked down to Omote-sando and had brunch at Fujimama's.  The food was fantastic: coconut french toast with banana-almond butter with an apple spiced with cinnamon lemonade.  We then went to check out the Japanese cosplayers in Harajuku.  It was really cold, but there were still some people out there.  Around the corner from there was Meiji Shrine.  Massive wooden torii gate leads down a long path.  While at the Shrine we saw a traditional Shinto wedding procession taking place and we learned that the 3 torii gates reduce the shock of going from the physical side to the divine side.  We observed how prayers are done: 1) throw coins into slots, 2) bow twice, 3) clap twice, and 4) pray then bow once.  Afterwards we went in a couple stores to check it out.  Kiddyland was the best - I loved it there!  It is definitely something important to see!  Since it was really cold, we decided to go back to the hotel and have an early dinner at a place called Local India to get our fill of tasty naan bread.  All-in-all, a nice casual day.

 

I'm in these next two below:

Tokyo Day 4: Shinjuku and Ginza

Unfortunately my camera was out of service for the morning of the fourth day since I had dropped it on the floor at the restaurant the night before.  I was lucky that the only thing that was broken was the battery pack holder AND Nikon is from Japan!  We travelled all over Tokyo by train on this day.  So, we got up early and headed out to Akihabara, aka Electric Town, to look for a replacement part.  We were sent to the Nikon service center in Ginza...which ended up being closed for the whole weekend!  There was only one other Nikon shop in Tokyo -> in Shinjuku.  But before leaving Ginza we headed to Bic Camera, to see if they had the part.  They did not, but a man who spoke perfect English called the Shinjuku store for us and put the part on hold for us.  We were blessed with incredibly nice, helpful, and English-speaking people on this day.  Short story long, we finally bought the $6 part in the Nikon Service Center in Shinjuku.  The views from the building were amazing!  We decided to explore Shinjuku which was so colorful and fun.  We also visited another shrine: Hanazono Shrine.  As we strolled the streets I was on the lookout for used camera stores, but didn't find anything that struck my fancy.  Afterwards we headed back to Ginza and explored the stores and architecture, including the Sony Building and Mikimoto.  The only thing I bought was a cake from Baum Kuchen.  After heading back to our hotel, we had dinner around the corner at an ethnic restaurant called Mangrove Cafe, which was very yummy.