Roppongi...
The First day we had breakfast at the hotel then headed to Asakusa to see Senso-Ji Temple, which enshrines a golden image of Buddha that 2 fishermen found washed up on shore in 628 AD. From the street, you enter through the "Thunder Gates" that we are standing in front of.
This group of girls had their Jinrickshaw driver take a picture. I think they are Korean because of their formal dress. Not Kimonos - that's for sure!
The approaching the shrine is the shopping street, Nakamise-dori, packed with people and even decorated with fake Cherry Blossom branches for the season.
I bought a block print but Nikki got a little Lucky kitty!
NOT these masks though.
More for my enjoyment but hopefully for everyone else's...I think these three videos are hilarious of me getting mad at Brandt. I laugh every time. :) Just ignore how crappy I look when I'm mad,
Into the inner portion with the Temple...
Under the Big hanging lantern.
Thes this is the Golden Buddha. I coudldn't really see it though.
The ceiling had these awesome murals painted on it.
There was also a pagoda and even instrustions on how to properly wash your hands before entering the temple. I still am not keen on washing out my mouth with that water though. Even if you do spit it out!
This is another lucky Buddha whose foot you are supposed to rub for good luck. So we did.
Outside the temple are more shopping streets set in the old Edo-period style. Not much to buy but interesting. All the shop faces had murals painted on the doors when they were closed. That was my favorite part.
Some technicolor suit coats. A color for every occasion!
And of course, the boys are hungry and grumpy again. This is what grumpy looks like...
In the area was supposed to be this AMAZING tempura place. However, I forgot the book at the hotel (Opps!) so I tried to find in from Memory. Didn't work out so well but we did find another one. I thought it was good but it was cold so Brandt wasn't happy. Here's Brandt when I say, "TRY to pretend like you like it for a picture." There goes Brandt's career in acting.
There were Jinrickshaw drivers all over the area. It woudl have been fun but they wanted $80 for 30 minutes. I can walk just fine, thank you.
After we got some food in his tummy, Brnadt was much cuter and begged for money to get a drink. I'm the only one that gave him money though. Nikki and Peter were busy looking inside for a Sake set. See how cute Brandt can be?!
For the afternoon, we decided to walk the 2 mile walk to the Imperial Palace. Once again, Brandt didn't were walking shoes and wasn't happy. Then he a Peter proceeded to look at every Family Mart for different Chu-hi flavors. Took Forever! So they got yelled at and once again, Brandt was not happy. Do you see a trend? Anyone? That's why I call him MR. Grumpypants.
Along the way I did finally get a good picture of the Boys Day carp flags.
Some old style Junk boats on the river.
And after a few hours of walking, it finally started to get warmer and we arrived at the Imperial Palace East Garden. Not much to see though. Here's the front gate to enter in the "garden", if you can call it that. Just a bunch of dead trees...
you do get an admission ticket to make sure you don't get locked in. I'm no harm to the Emperor though. No need for me to stick around.
and OUT!
As we exit the gate, we see these carriages coming down out of the Palace so we assume the Emperor is coming out. Then we look behind us and all these people coming running to take pictures. We felt so excited to be witnessing this.
All the people came running.....
Then we come to find out that no one is even in the carriages and they do this same practice run everyday. Stupid! At least we found a place to take a better picture of the palace.
Then Nikki really wanted to look at the Tokyo International Forum Building, designed after a ship and all built out of glass. Couldn't really see what it was like from below but it was cool inside.
Next we headed up north to the "most controversial" shrine in Japan. Yasukuni-Jinja is dedicated to the kamikaze and the "wardead". Not the most exciting shrine but pretty because we were there at sunset...
AND acsross the street was a BECK COFFEE SHOP!
By that time we were tired and cold so we cabbed it back to the hotel and changed for Yakiniku at Gyu-ku in Roppongi (we walked quick to get there).
I as was feeling pretty good after drinks at dinner so I cozied up to the hotel cat when we got back.. Such a good kitty!
Day 3, we ate at the hotel and then headed to check out the busy business district of Shibuya, famous for the world's busiest crosswalk, Shibuya crossing, which conveniently has a Starbucks right on the corner for people watching.
Shibuya train station...already so many people.
Right next to the train station is the Hachiko dog statue. In the 1920's a college professor lived near the station with his dog, Akita. his dog woudl meet him everyday at the station for his master to return. The master dies in 1925 but the dog continued to wait at the station for 11 years until he passed away. Crazy dog!
The great thing about Shibuya is that there is no smoking ANYWHERE expect designated little areas. Here is one....Just amazing! I love it!
Then it was time for us to cross. First in our black coats to blend in, which we don't do very well with blonde hair.
Second with our pink shirts. Good Planning!
Definitely good people watching. We enjoyed our views from our window seats in Starbucks.
There were the orange haired wanna be rockers.
The Asian Barbie doll....
And wanna-be prostitute...also called fashion in Japan. I don't know about that...
After an hour of so, we decided it was time to go check out Love-Hotel Hill, with the highest love hotels per capita of any area in Japan. A lot of babies made in this area!
Basically, you walk down the street, find a hotel per hour in your price range...
Find a fantasy room that suites your tastes....
Then press the room number on the screen, find the room and pay at the end of the hour to get out. Sounds like fun, but how well do they clean those rooms? Gross!
Here are some girls coming back from an enjoyable time at the love hotels...
That Afternoon we headed over to Sinjuku to view the Skyscraper District. IT got even better at night! I was so excited I didn't want to leave!
We rode to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office, which is free!
Views from the top - City for miles and miles. You can't even see the end of it!
Then Nikki wanted to see this pendulum clock in the Shinjuku NS Building. It is 29 meters high.
Dusk...Starting to light up. I'm getting so excited!
We walked through Kabukicho, Tokyo's most notorious red-light district. Very imaginative and has everything from "soapy-lands" to peep shows to nude cabarets. Pretty secretive though.
I'm not sure why these nice girls were walking through the red light district though...
On the other side, we found the Hanazono-Jinja Shrine, where apparently you go to reflect your bad deeds. Just kidding.
Nice quiet grounds and then you see the city peeking through...
And my favorite was the walk back - So lit up! Much better at night!
I REALLY liked this cute Penguin with the crown but he came out kinda blurry - bummer!
I just loved all the lights!
Then of course, when it was time to head back, it was rush hour traffic. So here's rush hour on the train.
Luckily they have "Women only" trains and lines for us!
Brandt wanted to eat Indian that night but all really wanted Sushi so Mr. Grumpypants flared up and had some drinks. We were planning on hitting club Asia for their Anniversary party with DJ Ken Ishnii (Majorly Excited!) but clubs don't start until 12:30-1am so we had some time to kill. Brandt drank heavily and pouted while we relaxed and watched some TV. Then we had a few drinks before heading out.
After some heavy pouting and drinks, Brandt felt better and ready to hit the clubs! Yeah!
No cameras in the club (or so it said, but we saw people with them) so no pics. It was a weird vibe though and all the guys worshiped Brandt and Peter. If Brandt danced one way, they would all follow. Another clubber tried to pick Brandt up and throw him but the guy was pretty small...Didn't go so well. Peter had some guy trying to check his family jewels all the time. And upstairs they were Zombie dancing all the same in lines. Brandt then met some drunk military American puking in the bathroom so we paid $10 in water for this dumb guy to get him home since Brandt wanted to take care of him. Then we saw the guy later in the club partying it up. Some Cigarette promotion girl was passing out cigarettes so Nikki and I grabbed some to give out to people and make friends...worked well until the very end. Nikki went into the bathroom then all of a sudden came out super wasted. I don't know what happened but it was 4:15 am so probably ready to go home anyways. Poor Nikki.
Needless to say, we didn't make it to the fish market like I wanted. The market opened at 5 am to I just wanted to go straight to the fish market and then home to bed. Instead, we to a cab home, the to McDonald's because the boys were hungry. I got a green tea McFlury - don't knock it until you try it. It was awesome!
The next morning we slowly got up, some VERY slowly...and headed over to Harajuku. It was a pretty crappy day too so not a bad day to be hung over.
First stop was Meiji-Jingu Shrine built in memory of the the Empress Meji in 1920. The shrine was destroyed by bombs in WWII and rebuilt completely of Japanese Cypress in 1958.
Of course with every shrine, there most be the sake barrels. Two kinds here...
Big City = Many prayers!
AND another wedding! This Bride had a BEAUTIFUL traditional wedding coat.
I wanted most to go to Harajuku to see the Cosplay-Zoku girls in Yoyogi-Koen park, who dress up in crazy outfits, but the weather was awful and none were out. I was SO disappointed...
We did a little shopping along the "Spain slopes" and then were distracted by a street protest...maybe Korea, maybe the Tibetan monks....not sure.
Brandt found a cute little bunny to love!
Nikki found a cute fish to make her feel better!
That night we met Xavier out for dinner at Gonpachi restaurant, which the fight scene in Kill Bill II with Lucy Lui was modeled after this restaurant. Good food but a little pricey! Plus our waitress was a real dip and kept saying the kitchen made too much of something and we woudln't get charged, then she lost our check and it came out to be this huge bill. I'm sure she was charging us for it all. Tricky!
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