June 22 – Tokyo, e.g. LOTS of people

Today we took the train into Tokyo and it’s time I had a little bit of commentary on that. Despite it being fairly difficult to figure out the map, the train runs extremely efficiently here. The trains are almost always on time and inside the trains there are usually digital displays showing what’s next in Japanese and in English. They are always pretty full of people. Most of the time you have to stand, so to get to Tokyo we had to stand for nearly an hour and a half. It can get a little tiresome.

We stopped in an area called Harajuku where we saw another shrine (Meiji Shrine). It was a little bit bigger than the others. I guess on the weekends there is just a non-stop train of weddings, although it can be quite expensive to get married there. The wedding parties cross each other in the main walking areas as they go from place to place. They walk in a train of people really slowly led by the bride and groom and a guy holding an umbrella type thing above them. The bride in particular had a very elaborate gown.

We also went to Yoyogi Park where most of the time you can find some the Japanese youth who dress up like Goths and other strange things mainly for the benefit of the tourists I guess. We didn’t see too many of these people though, perhaps we were too late in the day, or maybe their makeup doesn’t work with rainy days so much.

Next we took the subway to Asakusa. Here we saw the Senso-ji Temple where you can see Jen below rubbing on the Nade-Buddha’s bald head for luck.

For lunch we had Soba noodles. You can get these cold or hot. They served the cold ones on this interesting tray which we suspect they use to actually drain the noodles of their water. Getting better with the chopsticks still.

From here we went down a very busy strip for shopping where all the hip Japanese teenagers go for clothes. It was loud, busy, and crazy.

Next we went to the Electric City, or Akihabara. Here they sell every type of electronic gizmo you can think of, some old and some new. There was a ton of cool old-school video game stuff and one store in particular was really fun. It was raining quite a bit so I’m surprised we didn’t all get electrocuted.

Next we buzzed over to Shibuya, which is sort of like the Times-Square of Tokyo with huge signs and flashing lights.

This is also where you can find one of Japan’s busiest intersections.

It was even crazier when you add in the fact it was pouring and nearly everyone had an umbrella. We have never seen so many umbrellas in our lives and it was tough not to get jabbed in the eye or have someone dump the water off the top of their umbrella on you by accident. I managed to climb up above the fray and get a couple pics, as well as a shot from an overhead Starbucks.

We got some really good Indian food which satisfied us all. It was an all you can eat buffet, but you were warned if you didn’t clear your plate you would get charged more.