Tokyo - Take II

The weather had decided to be our friend again.  So, with a sunny day and an invitation from Adam and his friend R. visiting from Korea, we ventured back to Tokyo for a day trip.

**This is picture heavy! Click on the picture to enlarge it if it's too small.**

Stop #1: The East Imperial Gardens

Of course I made the guys pose before we entered the gardens.  This is actually on a bridge that is suspended over the Palace moat.  

We ended going through, what seemed like, the main entrance. 

The doors were pretty large...makes Tim seem small in comparison.

There were three guardhouses on our way to the main pathway.  The largest of these stations housed about 100 samurai! This was the first one we encountered.

Once we got past all the samurai, we found a map.  They put maps everywhere here!  **If you'd like to know more about the addresses and finding places in Japan, it's at the bottom of the post**

Tim wanted to show off his ticket...it was free! We also had to return it...  :-(

As we made our way around the gardens, we came across the music building and the remains of the Edo Castle tower that was destroyed in the 19th century. 

The construction of the rock base is exactly like the rock walls that surround the gardens.  We thought the corners were the best part...see how they're angled?

Next we found ourselves in the midst of a orchard of Plum trees, which were all blossoming!

Our last stop was the traditional Japanese garden called Ninomaru.  We took many pictures here, but I'll post just a few...

 

After spending the whole morning at the Imperial Palace, we decided to head to our next destination.

Stop #2: Akihabara

We, obviously, had to show Adam and his friend Electric City.  How could we not share it?!  Of course, we didn't take any pictures...again.  Bummer.

Stop #3: Roppongi 

The area is known for its nightclubs and being the home of several museums.  There are also two large shopping complexes.  We spent the evening at Roppongi Hills.  

 

It had a FABULOUS view of the city...

In fact, it drove Tim a little crazy!

Overall, we had a great time, got to try some new foods, and explore some parts of Tokyo that we missed last weekend!

**More about addresses in Japan:

I found out what the deal was with all the maps.  Evidently, the addresses in Japan don't make any sense.  Literally.  To illustrate, an address is Japan would most like look like this: 

10-10-3 Ginza, Chuo-Ku

Tokyo, 170-3293

Doesn't make much sense, does it?  Well, it makes even less sense when I explain it.  Obviously this address is located in the prefecture of Tokyo, next it's in the city/ward/village of Chuo-Ku, in the sub-area of Ginza.  The first number tells us this is in the further sub-area 10, on block 10, in building number 3.  BUT, the buildings are numbered by order in which they were constructed, NOT by where they're located.  I've heard that most Japanese residents don't even think it makes much sense and if you get lost and ask directions, most people will be very vague because they don't know!  Also, I've heard that it's best to just stop at the area's police station and ask directions there, since the officers need to know their area well. 

Read More

The Buddha and Me

Monday was President's Day and even though we're in a foreign country, the government still gives its employees the day off! Woot!

I have to admit that I wasn't all that thrilled to be "wandering" that day...it was a deluge.  No joke.  Tim and Adam opted to just wear their rain jackets, but I put on full rain gear.  I was still pretty much soaked to the bone by the end of the day.

Once we got to Hase, where the Buddha is located, we followed the line of the other brave tourists and headed to the temple.  We had to buy tickets to get in and see the Buddha, but they did provide us with some interesting facts about the big guy. 

For instance, did you know that this is the Seated Buddha and named Amida Nyorai, but commonly referred to as the Kamakura Daibutsu?  OR that it is a national treasure? OR that construction began in 1252 and lasted about 10 years?  OR that Kamakura Daibutsu is 13.4 meters tall (including his pedestal) and 121 tons?

To give you an idea of his largeness, here is a picture of Tim and me standing close to the Buddha, while Adam took a picture from those first set of stairs...

And a picture of Tim and Adam standing closer to the camera...

We spent a little bit of time exploring his surroundings.  I found a pair of awesome sandals...

And, in the spirit of wanting to really understand and "get inside his head," we took an extra little tour...

literally inside the buddha! Here's his torso area, which has been reinforced to his head to withstand natural disasters.  We found that there was a lot of graffiti inside the buddha, in a variety of languages, but I'm choosing to believe that it's more spiritual graffiti than basic vandalism.  

After we got our fill of the Big Buddha, and spent some time in the gift shop warming up at their electric heater, we walked down the street to the Hase-Dera Temple.  The official program explains it as "A temple with a view and lots of flowers."  Rather poetic, isn't it?

This temple is famous for its statue of Kannon, an eleven headed Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva.  According to legend, in 721 AD the monk Tokudo Shonin discovered a camphor tree near Hase that was large enough to provide material for two statues of Kannon.  The statue from the lower part of the trunk was enshrined in Hasedera Temple, near Nara.  The larger statue from the upper part was thrown into the ocean near Osaka with a prayer that it would reappear to save the people.  Well, 15 years later it washed ashore not far from Kamakura.  The temple we visited was constructed to honor it.  

We didn't take photos of the Kannon, it wasn't allowed, but this is a link to the temple website, which does have pictures.  The gardens were amazing though, even in the rain. 

 

This is one of the buildings housing a different statue, next to the Kannon.

And a photo of the main Temple...

The rest of the grounds were pretty awesome and on a clear day, there would be a magnificent view.  We weren't so lucky...

The guys had fun wandering on the different paths...

I found a cave, but we didn't want to pay another admission fee, so we just stood outside of it...

Due to the downpour and being nearly frozen solid, we called it a day in Kamakura.  Hopefully we'll go back and explore more of the area on a sunny, clear day!  

On another note, Tim and I are still sick. :-( I woke up on Tuesday with whatever Tim had and am still recovering.  Tim has progressed to a loud and never-ending cough.  I'm practically drowning myself with liquid and getting lots of rest, and already I'm feeling much better.  It seems though that we've been on the tail end of whatever was going around.  Hopefully we'll be totally recovered soon, it would be no fun to spend another weekend sick! 

Read More

Tokyo Valentine's: Part 2

When I last left you, we had settled down for the night after visiting the Tokyo Tower and scouring the city for some IB Profun, which we didn't find...

On Saturday morning, I had planned for us to wake up super early and go to the Tsukiji fish market in time to see the end of the morning Tuna auction.  But Tim had other plans...sleeping in.  Poor guy was still sick, so we got quite a late start.  The second plan was to tour the Imperial Gardens then head over to Akihabara for some electronics overload.  When we finally got out of the hotel around 11:30, we found out it was raining.  Not just raining, but raining and snowing.  This is not, in my opinion, the best weather to tour gardens in, so we scrapped that plan and went straight to Akihabara.  

If you don't know, Akihabara is the electronics super-center of Tokyo.  You can literally find any thing electronics related in these few square blocks.  Tim was, of course, mesmerized.  

Unfortunately, we didn't take a lot of pictures here.  Ok, that's a lie, we took a TON of pictures inside the stores with the display cameras! :-)  But somehow I didn't think they would appreciate it if I put my SD card in the camera and actually saved those!  (Can you tell I thought about doing that!?)

In North America, the Olympic Opening Ceremonies were in full swing around the time we arrived.  How did we know that, you ask?  We watched the whole thing standing in front of a 60" LED TV.  We spent a long time on the TV floor of that store!

We ended up spending the whole day in Akihabara and had lunch in one of the side street cafes.  Here is a picture of the area at night, lit up by neon...

And Tim thought the street tiles were very fitting.  I believe this is some sort of radio/boombox, but every 5 feet or so, there was a different tile, featuring a different electronic.  They take their sidewalk decorations very seriously here, I could probably do a whole post on them!

When we got back to the hotel it was about 7:00, so we headed back to the department stores to purchase our Valentine's Day presents for each other.  I had found mine the day before, but Tim hadn't found anything he wanted.  When we got to the stores, we realized they closed at 8:00, giving us 1 hour to find everything!  We figured out that we went to the wrong store and ended up walking briskly down the street to find the right place.  I ended up with...

A Burberry wallet!  I keep getting denied by the train wickets because they have a hard time reading my Passmo card through my passport wallet, so Tim thought this would be the perfect solution!  And it is!  I LOVE IT!

Tim didn't find anything he really loved, so I still owe him a Valentine's present.  It was kind of amazing how restrained he was in Akihabara too...I kept glancing over to see him eyeing the wire spools and crazy computer gadgets, so maybe we'll go back and he'll get something there.  Oh and he just informed me there's an entire store dedicated to Robotics supplies, yeah, I'm sure he'll find something there! 

That evening we closed down the stores and then tried to find somewhere to eat dinner.  Our lunch had been pretty late and very filling, so we weren't particularly hungry.  This was really good because everything was closed.  No joke.  At 7:30, the streets were packed and by 9:00, we had the sidewalks to ourselves.  After going into a few restaurants and being told they were closed, we headed to an AM/PM and got Japanese convenience food and went back to our room.  We ended up watching the end of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and going to bed.  

On Valentine's Day, we had brunch at the military hotel in Tokyo.  This has been recommended to us a bunch of times, and now I know why...it was amazingly delicious and never ending!  I was stuffed until dinner.  By the time we were done with brunch, I wasn't feeling too hot and Tim was still feeling sick, so we headed back to Yokosuka.  

We got "displaced" in the business district finding our way to the JR train station, where we could catch the right train back home, but we did find a little park. 

We ended up finishing our Valentine's day with a long afternoon nap, our traditional heart-shaped pizza (no Papa Murphy's here, but Tim did a excellent job making it from "scratch") and a movie.  

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Valentine's!  I look forward to hearing all about them! :-)

Read More

Tokyo Valentine's: Part 1

This weekend, we had the chance to spend some time wandering the streets of Tokyo.  In particular, we visited the Ginza district, Akihabara, and the Tokyo Tower.  

On friday we left bright and early and headed to the train station.  We managed to make it to Tokyo in about an hour...amazing!  We figured the easiest way to get to our hotel would mean getting off at the main Tokyo station and walking to Ginza and our hotel.  Well, we made it to Ginza, but it took us a good 30 minutes and finally asking directions to get to our hotel.  We stayed at the Hotel Monterey La Soeur.  

The rooms were teeny tiny, but super cute!  It had all of the essentials, plus pajamas and a Japanese newspaper (in English) delivered in the morning.  

The bed took up the entire room.  It was quite cozy!  :-)

After we checked in (they let us in early!) we headed towards the main street of Ginza.  This is known as the "5th Avenue" of Tokyo and I can definitely see the comparison!

There were stores from every major designer in the world, plus some amazing company stores.  This apple building was 4 floors of apple goodness.  Unfortunately, they didn't have the iPad...we looked.  We ended up in the food hall of one of the huge department stores for some food.  They didn't have any place to sit, so we headed across the street to a Starbucks, got some drinks and ate there.  I'm not sure if that's totally kosher, but it worked for us!  As we were leaving, we noticed this on the wall...

  

We ate/drank at the FIRST Starbucks in Japan!  We thought that was kind of cool, seeing as we're from Seattle and all.  :-)

Tim wasn't feeling very good, so we headed back to the hotel from a nap before our evening adventure to Tokyo Tower.

Tokyo Tower was a must-see for us on this trip and we thought we were close enough to stroll over there from our hotel.  Ha!  We thought WRONG!  You would think that it would be a pretty obvious landmark to walk towards, but we failed to take into account the number of skyscrapers that made finding the Tower so difficult.  It was a long and cold journey to the tower that evening...

The elusive Tokyo Tower...will we EVER make it?!

Finally, after going the "scenic route" to the Tower, we made it!  I was shocked to find a mall sitting under the tower and absolutely no line to get to the observation deck.  

Unlike the Eiffel Tower, the elevator is in the center of the Tower and the main observation deck is about half-way up.  At night, they open up the top observation deck for an extra fee, we choose to partake in that.  

Here is one of many photos we took of the city:

Unfortunately our camera doesn't do "night" very well, so the pictures are kind of blurry.  I think it makes this one a bit more artistic...do you see the starfish?

After we had gotten our fill of the view, we headed down into the mall.  We hadn't eaten in a while and decided to just do dinner in their little food court.  As we were leaving, Tim had to take some glamour shots of the Tower.  

I made him pose when the Tower changed colors...

Tim still wasn't feeling very well, so tried to find a convenience store to buy some medication, but no one had anything.  By the time we figured out that we needed to go to a pharmacy, they were all closed. Then we started to notice how everything was shut down for the evening.  I asked Tim what time it was and, amazingly, it was only 8:30.  Evidently Tokyo is more an "early to bed" city.  

Read More