Our night at the ryokan was fine – we slept well, even though we were (once again) sleeping on the floor. However, we weren't quite as cold during the night as we were when we had our first experience with Japanese-style accommodations. We had breakfast at the ryokan before leaving, and even though one breakfast option was "grill your own fish," we were happy to see some western food was available as well.
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| Erin and James in the Ryokan Breakfast room. |
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| The Japanese version of a traditional Western breakfast - complete with potato salad. |
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| A traditional Japanese breakfast, with "grill your own fish" option inclued. |
Our plan today was to head to Tokyo! We left the ryokan and headed for the bullet train. We took the shinkansen bullet train into Tokyo and arrived about an hour later. We had to transfer to the local JR train, but it was a quick, short ride. We arrived at The Prince Hotel in Shingawa around 11am, which was too early to check-in. We left our bags at the hotel, and ventured out into the city with our group.
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| Tabitha poses before a (stopped) shinkansen (bullet) train. |
Our first stop in Tokyo took us to Akihabara, also known as the Electric City. The area is known for its discount electronic goods and cutting-edge products. We definitely made a few stops into some of the stores and played with some of the products! There were plenty of street vendors along the way as well as giant electronic stores for us to peruse.
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| There's no mystery to the focus of Akihabara. |
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| Brett, Cheryl and James enjoy shwarma sandwiches in Akihabara. |
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| James peruses some technology. |
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| No trip would be complete without trying the country-specific McDonald's offerings... |
After our time in Akihabara, everyone in our group decided to break up and explore the city on our own. We decided to take the train to Shibuya – which is supposed to be where all the action in Tokyo is. We were expecting to see bright lights like what you might see in Times Square in NYC, but the display wasn't quite as impressive as we had hoped. Don't get us wrong, there were plenty of big buildings, and massive shopping centers – we just didn't all of the bright lights we were expecting. We did, however, see a rap video being made.
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| Tabitha rises above the action in Shibuya. |
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| James and Erin add a photo of their own in Shibuya. |
After we walked around Shibuya, we headed toward Japan's Harajuku section. As we approached Takeshita Dori, the major shopping street, we were surprised by how full the streets were with people. The street heads up a small hill, so you can see all of the people in front of you as you walk. Realistically, it didn't seem congested as we walked, but from a distance, it was striking how many people were walking down the tree-lit shopping area at the same time that we were. We walked through Harajuku until there wasn't anything left to see! By this time it was dark, and we decided to take the train back to the hotel so we could have dinner with our tour group.
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| Erin poses in front of the lights in Harajuku. |
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| The Chicago store shines brightly in Harajuku. |
Our tour group had some difficulty finding a place to eat as most places were full and there would be an extensive wait (this was surprising, considering it was a Monday night). After some active discussions amongst our group about where to eat, we finally settled on a Japanese diner-style restaurant. We enjoyed our last meal together and we all chatted about where we were heading next (only one person on the tour was going back home).
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| James had a dinner of Eel and rice, along with some dumplings. |
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| While it's a Buddhist country, everyone loves Christmas! |
It had been a long day, and instead of wandering even further through Tokyo, our group went back to the hotel together and met up in a hotel room to watch some TV on our tour guide's computer. We ended up watching a few episodes of a British television series (The In-Betweeners) before going to bed.
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| The spectacular view of downtown Tokyo from our hotel room. |
