Alright, the jet lag wasn’t that bad and I wasn’t effected to the point that it interfered. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so by around 5am, I was up and moving around the hotel room looking things up on the computer and getting ready. By about 6:30, Brittany’s Dad (Steve) was up also and we got cleaned up and headed out for breakfast before the girls were even conscious. When we first arrived, we were (or at least I was) too unsure of the customs and language barrier that we didn’t make any purchases alone, as we always had Tyler or Mana by us. BUT this morning since Steve and I were all alone and hungry, we went out to find some food. We ended up by the Shinjuku station and found a pleasant pastry shop and got some food. All by ourselves. 
Tell me you’re not proud of us amerika jin for having the initiative (and hunger) to do it on our own.
This is Steve showing the fruits of our efforts. And, of coure, the food was quite yummy.
Moving on, we finally met up with the girls, Tyler, Mana, and her mother. We headed straight to Shinjuku station and hopped on a train to head us to Yoyogi… which is one stop away. Thank god for such a well put together transportation system (with the trains and the subway). It makes it so easy for everyone to get around inexpensively. Which I’m sure is the point.
Here is a platform that we were getting onto in Shinjuku station on our way to Yoyogi.
Once there, we walked a short distance to the entrance of a Shinto temple for a quick run-through (I’m not sure of the name exactly, but one of the signs talked about a particular spot as Meiji Jingu Garden, so is it the Meiji Temple?) It’s the Meiji Dori Shrine. Thanks Matt Echols.
This is one of the entry posts that marks the imperial property. The three medalions on the top are the imperial crest/seal (?). Only the Imperial family can use that symbol. We ventured down to the main temple. We did the Shinto ritual of cleansing yourself before entering the temple, this particular instance was rinsing hands with water from a fountain (I’m not going to begin to believe that I know anything about it or the religion). We briefly saw a ceremony going on, but I was forbidden to photograph anything.
After the temple, we rendezvous with our straggling companions that had to stay behind for something and were in Harajuku. We went down Takeshita Street, which as I was told and observed, is a happening place for the youth/young adults of Tokyo, as well as Shibuya, one district south of here. At this point, we did a bit of shopping, and with aid of Mana’s mother, I got a red shirt of Japanese script that said yopparai, meaning drunk.
My recent acquisition of my yopparai shirt. They had several other cool shirts, but that one seemed the most unique and one I would most likely wear back home.
A bit more shopping later and we leave this area for Akihabara, Electric Town. Now, let me tell you this: this place rocks. All the anime, games, manga, books, and electronics a 21-yearold could ask for.
This is just a fraction of the view of this place, covered in ads and displays for merchandise.
After lunch, the guys and girls split up. Steve, Tyler and I went wandering around, went to a bookstore and I bought some manga for about 130Y (amazingly cheap). They’ll make good gifts. Then we headed to the electronics megastore: Yodobashi-Akiba.
This photo is just for the sense of scale that this building has (you can see it in the middle-top with the character on it). It’s 6 floors (and basements?) of wall-to-wall electronics, toys, and goodies.
I got a few small things from some toy dispenser machines, and on our way out hit shashinka (photographer) heaven. Rows and rows of camera equipment of all brands: lenses, bodies, accessories, everything. And they were all out so you can touch them and try them out. You can pick up the lenses and mount them to your camera body if you wanted to try them out yourself. Quite awesome. Then I found a mother loud. A Canon Mark III with a 500mm prime f/4 lens mounted out for display and demo.
This is me playing with the ~900,000Y lens.
Sure, the selection can be expected. But what I was most surprised about is how they had everything out and ready to be played with. That camera outfit that I’m holding is about $15,000 worth of gear. And you can walk up and shoot with it all you want. And that lens is unbelievably sharp. Too bad I’m not a action sports shooter and can utilize that thing to it’s potential.
Ok. Enough drooling for me.
We ran out of time and didn’t get to hit up the arcades (we will another day) and had to meet up with the girls to head to Tyler and Mana’s long-stay hotel (they’re there for 3 weeks total) so they could change for the festival. Their room is in Ryogoku, just a hop and a skip over from Akihabara. They changed and we got to lounge and cool off, then headed to Asakusa for the Tanabata Festival at Sensoji Temple, which is a popular landmark in Tokyo.
This is our group standing in front of the entrance to Sensoji Temple with the HUGE lantern overhead. A pretty popular place.
Just beyond the lantern is a few avenues of shops, small restaurants and, well, the festival. I don’t know/didn’t find out what the festival is all about (anyone know?) but it was pretty neat to see everyone together there. We did a bit of shopping as we made our way towards the temple.
This was one of my favorite images of the site, but it isn’t the main temple (it was under construction). But you get the idea of the grounds. Once inside the temple we offered some money and threw it in as an offering looked around and headed out.
Now, you think American soccer moms like to have a nice camera, but there were so many people out here that had NICE slr’s to tote around and use. I mean about a good 5-10% of them, and they seemed to know what they were doing with them. And they had Pro lenses that cost (in America) about $950-1200! I was jealous of THEM!
Anyway. The streets were lined with people selling Hozuki plants, haggling and trying to get you to buy theirs rather than the 100 other people out there selling them.
This is one of the people selling the plants that caught me looking at here and she threw up the peace sign. Haha. You can see the plant in her right hand. The custom is to (and correct me if I’m wrong/misunderstood) hollow out the red bulb/fruit and to blow into it to make a sound. I heard it’s not that pleasant of a sound, but I didn’t get to hear it myself. Kind of interesting, though.
It was finally time to head towards our dinner spot. We met up with Mana’s father in his dentistry office, met his side of the family, and headed to a very nice Italian restaurant across the street (I didn’t get the name or the district we were in). This was a very upscale restaurant and the food was wonderful. We had a full five course meal with champagne, and red and white wine. This was the kind of restaurant that serves small portions on a big plate with a wonderful appearance, but that small food packed a big punch! Delicious.
It was interesting meeting Mana’s Dad’s family (his mother’s mother, two sisters, and nephew). They spoke a little English (mother not very much), but they were incredibly interested in us, extremely polite and entertaining, and welcomed us with open arms. Great dinner with wonderful people.
We were given a taxi ride home across town, and stupid me, I rode in the back seat. I get quite car sick sometimes and felt very nauseous when we arrived at the hotel. Thus, I couldn’t go out for some beers with Takao (Mana’s Dad), Steve, and Tyler, nor could I make my blog post last night, unfortunately. I went up to my hotel room and passed out and settled down.
Overall, the day was FANTASTIC. Saw a lot of stuff, and most importantly, I have been really embracing the culture and using an occasional Japanese phrase or word here and there. It’s an awesome feeling to really be participating in the culture and the language, interacting with people all the time, and just being in such a fantastic place. Once you get into a culture, you truly learn so much more in such a shorter amount of time. Traveling is definitely something I can (and hopefully will) be getting used to. And I’ve been having random Japanese pronunciations and phrases running through my head for the past few hours of being awake. Haha. Odd.
It’s now 8:45am and should be getting ready for the day. We leave at 10am. As usual, I’m not sure of our complete agenda for the day, but you can follow me on twitter (or on the sidebar of this page), assuming of course, you’ll be awake, where I can be giving tweets during the day, as that doesn’t take much data to use on my data roaming plan. I’m only allotted 20mb. I’ve got 17mb left.
Sayounara and duomo arigatou gozaimasu,
Ben
P.S. I’ll be leaving you with two cute images of the day: A Pomeranian riding a man’s shopping cart on a bike during the Tanabata Festival, and an adorable panda shuttle bus.
Tags: akihabara, asukasa, dinner, harajuku, japan, shinjuku, tokyo, yoyogi
Wow. I want that bus. And what’s an II-something something machine? Like an arcade game? Anyway. I hope the wedding goes well. Put some shots of the landscape if you get any…?
Ooooh. IIDX? It took me a while to figure out what you were talking about. IIDX – it’s pronounced (two-dee-ecks); The full name is Beatmania IIDX, and it’s a dj simulator-ish video game, yeah. It’s pretty rare to find a machine in the states, expecially a newer one. All of us DanceDanceRevolution Freaks were into all the cool Bemani music games.