our main destination was ginza and area.
leon started using his 2-week JR pass so when he went to exchange it, he was gone for like… a long time 😛 so we just sat there waiting for him to get back. we (michelle and i) are starting our 3-week tmr (today). we bought buns and fast stuff for breakfast and walked to ueno station, about 15-20 minute walk? or longer. iuno. so much exercise for my legs this trip. gonna be covered in calluses by the time we get back.
anyways. our first stop was the imperial palace garden which would lead into the actual palace. however. it was closed – -;… it was still nice though, we tried T_T. still ended up taking a bunch of pictures there. hahaha. this palace holds the pinetree corridor as i mentioned before, too bad we couldnt go see it 🙁 there were like 4 gates and we expected one of them to be open to the public. there was one that was open… but it led to the other gate – -; what a tease.
we then headed randomly towards… hibiya park, eventually. was just a small park for business people to gather at lunch time and stuff. turtles! and the pond had another bird statue.
after that we walked to tokyo tower. walked. lol. wasn’t -too- bad. along the way we stopped by two shrines. the first was a crazy set of stairs that HURT as we went up them the stairs were so steep. up at the top were some small stuff, meh. but the way back down was a lot easier, ahahah…
the second shrine we stopped at was very clean, it had four statues within glass cases. the highlight of this shrine was the hidden dragon water fountain thing that michelle found. it was mostly green and gold-colour 0.o plated and coming out of the wall, it was pretty crazy.
and we finally arrived at tokyo tower. it’s not bad, the actual tower doesnt really compare to the CN tower, but we spent a bunch of time in the gift shops after eating some soba. apparently this time, we had to order from the plastic food ‘models’ outside and pay before we sat down. interesting 0.o… the tower had an aquarium, wax museum, space wax museum 0.o, trick art gallery. we didnt really go see any of them… but… yea 😛 owell
and then we headed back to…. the JR line, sorta. we got to it, then kept walking towards the next one. arrived at a small port area where it was setup like a small stadium. hmmmmmm battery’s dying. brb o.o…
finally back. morning now. well, not anymore. around 11. so we kept walking to the next station along a nice bike path beside a large street and the overhanging JR line until we came across shiodome plaza. they had several outdoor tvs setup and they were promoting a bunch of movies and gokusen… 3! chronicles of narnia: prince caspian, and leon’s favourite, speed racer. hah. i noted chronicles of narnia because i brought the whole set (7 books) to read during this trip and i’m still in the 2nd, which is coming out in theatres. the wayfinding map was placed on a transparent pink glass, so that was pretty cool…
we continued on towards the next JR station and we decided to hit up shibuya! went into bathing ape, which was mad expensive, and went to uni qlo, where the prices were so good! finally bought a bunch of shit for myself. finally. actually, got 2 shirts for rosanna and 1 for eric. i could keep the rest or give some away… i need to get kev somethin. haha… but yea, that was the most i’ve spent at one place… so far. got separated from leon and michelle for about 15 minutes, yikes.
when we were deciding on dinner, we walked through shibuya food show, which turned out to be a lot of food vendors set up in an underground area like a supermarket and it was just full of people and ingredient stuff, interesting. leon didnt wanna eat over the subway again, it was pretty crazy in the sushi place we ate at, the trains passed once in a while and the whole place just shoooook, hahaha. so as leon, the decision-maker, he pointed at some random place in the buildings and thats where we went. haha. it was a bar/drink place thing, the food wasn’t bad though, the atmosphere was….. blah. o well.
as we left, we got a bit separated again since leon could enter from a different entrance since he started the JR pass and shibuya was the opposite side from Ueno so we could have taken either north or south trains, since it goes in a circle on the yamanote line. we went to both and couldn’t find him… and then finally did. hahaha, cell-phones would be nice but… we could just be more careful instead. the trip back was… blah. the weather was already pretty messed up, scattered showers, hot times, cold winds, so in the train, i was sweating. everyone else seemed fine… lol. blahblahblah, got back to our hostel.
for some reason the hostel was holding a ‘party’ that started at 10, and special price till 11, and a free cocktail + snack… with entertainment… and we missed it. hahaha… but we went down anyways, although i was feeling a bit lazy. met up with phil, an vietnamese australian, masaki, a square enix translator! and his friend, akihiko, a producer of some sort 0.o… and we talked for a bit and masaki’s like… 31 and akihiko’s 33, we’re so young~ wakai yo! there was a floating idea and then we ended up going to karaoke. hahaha just the 6 of us.
it was actually a lot of fun, the place wasn’t that far away, walking in the rain, and we learnt a lot about leon’s music tastes.. haha, he’s nothing like the ysdn leon! we sang a lot of english songs, which was a first for me at a karaoke place… masaki and akihiko’s english singing was pretty good, they both still had the japanese accent and pronunciation tho. phil’s aussie accent just carried through too, lol. akihiko’s like…. crazy. good singer too. think, ronnel-type-crazy but at karaoke, i’m not sure who could be crazier though 😛 so that was pretty cool and entertaining. whatever beer we had, went down smooth for me… and we ended up staying until… 5. fuken insane. so thats why we’re waking up at like… this time…
i should brought a different bag. when i went to try on clothes at uni qlo, u could see the redness or where the strap usually is. ow :(… and i’m burning through batteries like mad. might end up buying a charger and batteries (eneloop) the next time i see them. and… i think we’re gonna head over to odaiba today, whenever we all get ready. this writing is slowing me down! we only have one outlet so the comp went on forced standby from lack of battery power.
the dragon fountain
as per stine’s request… a blurry pic from my cam of me leon michelle phil and masaki
2 Comments