Sarah and I were amazed to see how slow the city is to wake up on a work day. There were very few vehicles on the road and only a couple pedestrians, as we made our way towards the Sensoji and the Asakusa area. We were expecting the busyness of Toronto, but instead found it to be more like Hagersville.
We decided to begin the day at Denny's, in order to slowly adjust our diets. A good choice, as our waitress spoke fairly good English and our Japanese, unfortunately, might as well be non-existent. Mmmmm... orange yoked eggs.
The Asakusa Kannon Temple and surrounding grounds were quiet, but slowly came to life as people stopped for a prayer on their way to work and school. I got a good laugh out of watching a couple of the children going into the Kindergarden, which is located in the Temple grounds. One grabed the exterior gate with both hands, as their mother dragged them in screaming.
On our stroll back to the hostel, to grab someone's sweater and mittens, we were lucky to dodge a shattering fluroescent lightbulb, which a garbage man accidentily missed throwing into the garbage truck. He had an excuse though, as the trucks aren't any bigger than a mini-van.
After some frustrating searching and the best pastry/donut ever (Mister Donut) , we grabbed the subway to the Shinjuku shopping district. This is were we got to see the true Tokyo, with skysrappers and wall to wall pedestrians. We grabbed passes for our trip to Hakone on Wednesday and then began the argeous search for the JR Travel Service Center, where we picked up our JR Rail Passes for full train and ferry service for the rest of our trip.
Wanting to escape some of the hustle of the area, we walked to the Skinjuku Gyoen, one of Tokyo's largest parks, where it proceeded to start raining heavily. After a few pictures of traditional gardens and cherry blossoms, we made a dash for the subway to Harajuku.
Harajuku is the center of Japan's most extreme teenage fashion styles and cutures. Unfortunately with it raining so much all we really got to see was umbrellas, though I'll admit there were also alot of mini-skirts/shorts and heels. Just no pictures, sorry guys! They seem to sacrifice comfort for style, as we constantly saw them staggering and tripping, because of the heels.
After fighting for space on the subway during rush hour, we slowly made ourway back to the hostel, where I suggested we take a nap before dinner. Dinner never happened! Hey, I was up early blogging!
Check-out the web-site for some pictures.
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You're getting a little behind on your blogging. I check each day for a new entry and there is nothing!!!!! Come on guys, I don't have a life of my own, and I'm living it through you right now.
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