Today, we set out again to see many more sights. We even revisited a few from our last trip to Japan since it was raining a lot the last time here.
Asakusa, Senso-ji:
Senso-ji is a buddhist temple that lies right in the middle of Tokyo. The bustling city streets reach right up to its perimeter and within that there are a myriad of shops and food vendors. Here’s a picture from in front of the temple gateway:
On our way up to the gate Sara decided to get an omikuji (fortune). To retrieve the fortune one tithes a 100円 (yen) piece and then shakes a metal box with a small hole on top. Inside the box, which is sealed other than the hole, are many wooden sticks and when you finally manage to get one out by shaking the box you will find it has a number on it. You then take that number and find it on a wall of little drawers. Once you find your drawer with the matching number you open it up to get the fortune. Sara’s fortune was terrible, calling for disease and misfortune for the next year. In the case you get a bad fortune you tie it and leave it behind with all the other bad fortunes like so:
After we looked around the temple some and looked at all the food vendors in the area, we walked down some smaller side streets and got a bread snack that was in the shape of a cat’s head and had a cat’s face on it. The bread had the texture of a firm, yet soft cookie and mildly sweet but not overbearing at all. While walking around the side streets we saw this lady advertising for an owl cafe where patrons can sit with owls of different breeds:
Yes that is a real owl on her head. Various animal cafes exist in Japan and we intend to visit one this trip so we will talk about it more then.
After we finished up in Asakusa, we headed over to the Tokyo Skytree.
Tokyo Skytree:
Tokyo Skytree lies just a short walk outside of Oshiage Station and through a neat mall called Solamachi Mall. The shortest route from the station to the tower is right through the mall which is a straight corridor and the first level is full of restaurants and dessert shops. Before heading into the mall here’s the view:
Tokyo Skytree is taller than Tokyo Tower, which we visited a few days ago. In fact, the Skytree is the tallest tower in the world standing at 2080 ft (634 m). We will come back to the Skytree in a moment.
So, out of Oshiage station and into Solamachi Mall we went. As we entered the mall we could hear Halloween music playing throughout. We walked past a takoyaki restaurant, which I’ve been waiting a long while to try and it was awesome! Takoyaki is a piece of cooked octopus with a dumpling around it, covered in a sweet sauce and topped with bonito flakes. It is served hot and the flakes writhe in the heat making it look like tiny dancing snakes. The flakes add a smoked flavor to the takoyaki. The takoyaki was served in a neat wooden boat seen here:
Once we finished the takoyaki, we continued onward to the Skytree. Once in the Skytree we went to the fourth floor to get our tickets and to catch the elevator up. We filed into the spacious elevator with 15-20 others and up to the top in just one minute. He is the view from the observation deck:
Also, here are some other views that also show some of the locations we visited and where our hotel is at for perspective on the size of Tokyo. This first picture shows Senso-ji in Asakusa, which is a 10 minute train ride to the Skytree:
The picture above also shows Ueno Park which was about a 13 minute train ride from the Skytree. We went to the park after visiting the tower. This next picture shows Shinjuku which is where our hotel is located. From the Skytree, Shinjuku is about 30 minutes away by train:
In the picture above, look right under “Shinjuku” at the edge of the haze and you will see skyscrapers and two side-by-side in the center, that area is Shinjuku, which is about 7.5 mi (12 km) from the Skytree. We decided to enjoy the view a bit longer and got a dessert to share and a latte for Sara. The dessert was a cream roll which was very rich and tasty. Sara’s latte was a piece of art, look at this:
On the way to the elevator to go back down we came across the glass floors so we of course had to step on them:
It may look like we are not standing on the glass, but there were two tiers of windows, the one you can stand on then one underneath about 10 feet down. The picture of course doesn’t do it justice, but I’ll tell you, you definitely feel the height when standing on the glass. Nonetheless it’s a really cool view.
Ueno Park:
After visiting the Skytree we headed to Ueno Park. Ueno is a really pleasant place to visit and is how I’d imagine Central Park to be, a quiet, peaceful getaway from the busy city. Inside Ueno there were various temples and shrines to visit and even a flea market too.
As we walked around, we came across a street performer who was conducting magic tricks and he was funny too. The bit we saw, he had a young boy of about 10 years sitting on a chair surrounded by a fairly large crowd. At first he had the kid choose which hand he hid a small rubber duck in after swapping it quickly between his hands. After the kid chose correctly, he placed a lollipop on the suitcase, serving as a desk, in front of the kid. Letting him know it was his if he chose correctly again. Same thing, he swapped the duck between hands and the kid chose right and got the candy. This time the magician pulled out a laughably huge sized lollipop and had played the same game, but this time while switching hands with the duck he tossed it behind the kid’s head so both hands were empty. The kid chose wrong and everyone laughed. Next time, he got a larger duck that was no longer concealable in his closed hands, same game and again he tossed the duck over the kid’s head where you could clearly hear it hit the ground. The kid chose wrong and again more laughter from the crowd. The performer then took off his shoe and again did the same. The kid chose wrong again! This time the performer gets out a metal bowl and bangs it on the ground so the kid hears the sound of it on the cement. He swapped hands with the un-concealable bowl and tossed it over his head again, it crashed loudly on the ground and the kid still chose the wrong hand. Acting as if the performer just didn’t understand what else he could do to help the kid out and evoking more laughs from the crowd, he showed the kid the pile of objects he’d been tossing behind his head the whole time. So once more he played the game very slowly with the small duck, letting the kid win and holding out the large lollipop as his reward… he then broke open the lollipop revealing a tiny one inside which he gave to the kid and getting laughs from everyone. Lastly, the performer took off his hat laid it before him and pretended to remove gold watches, rings, teeth and you name it to ask for tips, which everyone was more than happy to oblige for his performance.
We walked around the park looking at all the sites within. Here’s a view of the park with the city surrounding it:
The plants you see above are all standing out of water and are japanese lotus. They look like giant lily pads extending above the surface of the water.
After the park we headed to Akihabara, as it’s a really cool area with lots of bright lights. It is known for manga, anime, video games and anything else electronic. It was getting late by this time so we just walked around for only a little while, plus we already had planned to come back on our last day of the trip since our hotel is in Akihabara then. We will have more to post then, but for now here’s a picture, which after looking back on it, I think it’s from the same area of Akihabara we were in on our last trip to Japan:
Ebisu Robata:
To finish the night, we got back on the train and headed to an area called Ebisu about a 15 minute train ride south of our hotel in Shinjuku, but about 30 minutes from Akihabara. There we went to the restaurant called Jinya Ebisu Honjin. This restaurant is a robata, which is akin to cooking barbeque style over a charcoal grill. There was a bar that surrounded the chefs so you can watch them cook. This was a very good dining experience we were the first customers of the night, despite it being about 7:00 pm when we arrived, but most people were still in transit from work and the place filled up while we were there.
As we entered the two chefs and one waiter welcomed us graciously and they couldn’t find the english menu so they asked if we spoke any japanese. We told them we could a little but when we saw the menu it was beyond us as the menu had many kanji we have not learned yet. Our waiter knew very little english but tried his best to explain some of the meals, but mostly left it to us to figure out. We put together what we could and just said what the heck, let’s just take a shot at something. I asked him about one item which the chef explained in two words of english, which turned out to be a potato but after it was cooked was more like tofu, it was good.
They then found the english menu and we then put it all together, since the prices were so cheap you pieced together your meal item by item, so we called the waiter back and told him what we wanted. We certainly dodged a few bullets with the english menu because a lot of the meals were things such as tongues, blood vessels, hearts, kidneys and other odd parts of animals. We ordered various chicken cuts, meatballs and a large potato we split. The food was very good. They gave us appetizers which I’m not sure what they were, but I think one was tongue and one was liver. I tried both and certainly was not fond of the liver looking one, the tongue looking one didn’t have much flavor and I’m not sure it was even that.
That was the end of the night then, we headed back to our hotel and we totaled another 10 miles of walking today.
Tomorrow we explore more of Tokyo.
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