Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Tokyo!


Here's Dave in Tokyo! We had quite an adventure getting to Tokyo as we were extremely tired from staying out late the night before with our friends. It was raining when we arrived and it took us a good bit of time to get from the airport to our hotel. After a much needed good night sleep we started the next morning off with a Hato Bus tour of Tokyo. We first stopped at Tokyo Tower and went up to the observation deck. The Tokyo Tower is actually taller than the Eiffel Tower. Had we been there later in the day we probably would have been able to see all of Tokyo, but we stopped there first and it was pretty foggy out, so we weren't able to see much. This picture is of Dave in front of the Kamirarimon Gate. This gate is about a block ahead of the Asakusa Buddhist Temple (the biggest and oldest in Tokyo).
Next we stopped in front of the Imperial Palace. This pic is of us outside the outer gardens of the Palace. The bus tour ended around 1pm, so Dave and I decided to do some more site-seeing on our own! We used the Tokyo Metro and JR lines to make our way around the city.

After a few stops throughout the city, we stopped at the Shibuya intersection. I'm pretty sure that this is one of the busiest intersections in the world! It was amazing! You couldn't help but just stare at all the people crossing the street. Dave held the video camera up high as we crossed for the first time. The intersection was filled with all sorts of people. There were young people dressed in funky clothing, school students in their uniforms, businessmen in suits, tourists, and even some women dressed in traditional kimonos! What a mix!

After a long day of touring the city, we met up with Saki-san! Saki-san is my friend Hisano-san's best friend. She is Okinawan, but moved to Tokyo a few years ago to pursue an acting/modeling career. We had a great dinner at an izakaya (of course)! Dave ordered the large sashimi platter, assuming Saki-san would like sashimi. Well, he was wrong and ended up eating a huge portion of raw seafood! haha! Well, this was the end of our time in Tokyo, stay tuned as I hope to have Kyoto and Nara pictures up soon! Check out the link to our picture page (to the right) for more pics of our trip to mainland Japan.

1 comment:

Carolie said...

Totally cool, Em! How did you do the trains...were there English words, or did you just get on and off however you wanted? Can't wait for more! I'll post the next day of your visit to me soon...I'm so behind! (What else is new??)