Adventures in Nagoya!: Tokyo Day 3 (Hitori day)!!

Tuesday, March 18

Today was such a beautiful day!! I just wore a T-shirt and a skirt for most of the day and I was fine. If there hadn't been so much wind, it would have been too hot!

The weather being so great just makes me love Tokyo more!!

Btw the title of this post is my attempt at a play on words. "Hitori" means one person. And "hitori de" means alone. So this was the day I roamed Tokyo alone.

At breakfast this morning, this guy started talking to me, asking where I was from and what I was doing in Japan and stuff. He was here from Indonesia sightseeing for the week, because he'd always wanted to come to Japan.

I also heard people around me talking about coming here and the fact that they don't know any Japanese, but they're happy people speak English! It made me realize how happy I am that I can at least say basic things in Japanese! One girl was saying how today she accidentally said "arigatou gomen nasai" instead of "arigatou gozaimasu" hahaha.

Anyway, Rashaa came up while the guy was talking to me and we both talked to him for a bit and then I went back down to get ready. I said goodbye to Rashaa because she was leaving in an hour to catch her bus back.

I went downstairs to get ready to go out today. I was putting sunscreen on when another guy talked to me, asking if it was supposed to be sunny out and he should be putting sunscreen on too.

How come only guys have been talking to me?? Maybe the girls are scared of me? Hahaha.

My first stop was Asakusa (which is only 2 stops above the stop for my hostel) to see the tenple with the giant red lantern in the center of the gate. The entire time I was there I couldn't remember the name of the temple, haha. But I looked it up later and it's Sensoji Temple.

(Pretty street in Asakusa)

When I stepped out of Asakusa station, I saw the Tokyo Sky Tree right in front of me!! I was so distracted by it, I ended up walking completely past the shrine and crossing a bridge.

(Tokyo Sky Tree!!!)

(Selfie with the Sky Tree and the golden poop thing)

I realized my mistake then and after having some random Japanese people take different pictures of me in front of the Sky Tree, I asked this guy where the temple was. He couldn't hear me over the blustering wind, so I had to shout "jinja!" (that means shrine, because that was when I didn't know the name and thought it was a shrine) and then he realized what I wanted and told me how to get there.

I walked in one of the side exits, so to get to the front gate with the lantern, I had to walk through one of the walkways lined with shops that had these pretty paper sakura decorations with shiny papers that sparkled in the sun and blew in the wind. It was really pretty!

When I reached the gate, I had random Japanese people take my picture until I got one I was happy with lol. Also, I couldn't feeling remember how to ask for someone to take my picture. I kept saying "may I take a picture" instead, until I realized what I was saying and just switched to "shashin o tote kudasai" (please take a picture) lol.

When I was done, I walked back through the sparkly sakura path and then looked at the rest of the temple.

At one part, there was a little building where a bunch of guys were coming out carrying a golden dragon! Everyone was crowded around trying to catch a glimpse of it!

There was another gate with a huge lantern in the middle that opened onto the main temple. I went up to the main temple where people were praying and took some pictures and then went back down.

I had this cute Japanese guy take a picture of me in front of a large pagoda. The wind was blowing super hard and he was having a hard time, haha.

I noticed this security guard watching us, and when we were done, he made us move to the side. I realized everyone else in proximity had moved to the side as well.

Guess what was going on?

A festival was coming through to the main temple!

It just so happened that at the time I had picked to come visit Sensoji, there was a festival! The guy at the front had an oni mask like the guy in the penis festival and he also had super tall sandals!

Before him were two flag carriers who had to lower their flags later because of the wind, and after him were three floats carried by men!

Sugoi! I took tons of pictures on my camera.

But here are some from my phone:

When the festival had passed, I went through the rest of the shrine taking pictures, and then I headed back to the station.

(Cool decorations I saw on a store)

On the way, I walked trough some covered alleys with shops. One shop was selling really cute bowls for only 100 yen!

I bought a pink one with rabbits on it! :)

(Inside)

(Outside)

There was also this cute bunny bowl for 200 yen:

And inside was:

Ahhh, adorable!

Some other things I saw for sale:

("Only sake is believed" ... wtf?)

(I liked the pink button that says "chome chome". I found out from a friend later that that's something you say when something is awkward and shouldn't be said lol)

Then I went back to Asakusa station.

And guess what I saw there????

Up on the platform was, get ready for it...

(Omg what even is this??? I hadn't seen one in so long I almost forgot how to use it! Thank you Tokyo for being up with the times)

I had to drink from it to make sure it wasn't just an illusion. And the water was delicious!

Then I posted this picture of it on the CJS Facebook page saying I can't believe I finally found one, and got a bunch of likes, haha. Everyone else feels my daily struggles of having nowhere to fill my water bottle.

Anyway, with that fun over, I made a pit stop at my hostel since it was on the way and dropped off my bowl so I wouldn't have to carry it around all day and worry about it breaking.

My feet were in serious pain already! So I sat down on the stairs on my way out to lace my shoes up well so my feet would be kept sturdy. While I was doing this, Ryan passed by and asked if I was going to the host club. I told him, actually I was! Minju had said she'd go with me tomorrow night after the Ghibli museum! FY!

So I left again and headed to Akihabara, aka nerd central. Akihabara is nicknamed "Electric Town" because most of its stores are dedicated to electronics. In war times, it was where radios were manufactured and sold.

First thing I was greeted with when I exited the station? A guy in a kitty hat working at some little store.

I went to this huge department store called Yodobashi, because I'd read online that that's the best place to get streetpasses, which was all I was interested in. I looked around inside a bit and then headed out.

And holy crap!

Outside the exit, were a whole bunch of benches with pictures of video game characters on them. And sitting on all these benches were grown men.

And every single one of these men (I kid you not, every single one) was playing a DS!! I was blown out of my mind.

(If you look closely, one of the guys had his son next to him and his son is playing a DS too!)

So what did I do?

What any normal girl would do, of course.

I plopped down where you see the empty space in the picture above and whipped out my pink DS and played right along with them!

I was the only girl there with a DS and definitely got a lot of stares.

And even more when the wind decided to blow extra hard and turn my skirt upside down... :/

So after the fun of DS playing was over, I went to go check out a store I'd seen, called Hobby Off. It's part of the chain of "Off" stores like Mode Off, Book Off, and the kind of funny Hard Off.

I went into the building it was in and pressed the basement elevator floor button to go down to it. The elevator lit up and rang, but wouldn't open. I mashed the button for a few minutes until the doors finally opened and this maintenance dude let me in. Then he asked (in Japanese) if I was going to a store and I said I was, so he figured it was Hobby Off and told me this was the wrong way to go and then took me back outside and around the building and then downstairs. Whoops!

Hobby Off turned out to be full of action figures. Boring! So I didn't buy anything.

I was getting hungry and wanted to eat cute food at a maid cafe (they're all over Akihabara).

But I went back to the station to get in the wifi to look up maid cafés and found all the ones with cute food had a fee you had to pay just to sit down! And then you had to pay for your food on top of that. No thanks!

(Girls getting ready to go to work in a maid cafe)

So I decided I'd just head to my next stop, Roppongi, instead.

So I knew of Roppongi as the hot place for foreigners to go clubbing and nothing else. But I was reading my guidebook and discovered Roppongi is actually like the art district of Tokyo!

There were some pretty cool parts, namely Roppongi Hills, so I decided I definitely wanted to check that out.

I took the subway to Roppongi and then got off and followed the signs to Roppongi Hills. I found it easily, but I was soooo hungry I decided I'd go get something from a konbini and eat that up in the hills because I knew it was a park so there were bound to be places to sit. I couldn't see a way to cross the busy highway to get to the Family Mart on the other side, so I kept walking, praying I'd come across another konbini.

In Nagoya there are Lawson's on every corner. But in Tokyo, they're really rare. But thankfully I came across a 7-11 a couple of blocks away, so I stopped there and got a bento that they warmed up for me and a Fanta melon soda, because I love melon soda.

(This was a pretty park at Hanamatsucho where I switched from JR to subway)

(I saw Tokyo tower when I exited the station!)

(Artwork at Roppongi station)

(Girls in kimonos)

Then I walked back to the hills and headed up there to eat. On the way up, the guy in front of me was there with his wife/girlfriend/whatever and they both had purses! My friends and I have talked about this before, the fact that men in Japan carry ladies' purses. It's so weird and we don't understand it...

The first thing I saw was the giant spider I'd seen pictures of! Yay!! I wanted to see that!

There were also two water walls and the whole thing was a rooftop garden! It was beautiful!

(I stood under the spider thing!)

(It actually had eggs in it's egg sac!)

(Selfie w da spider!)

(There was a giant rose statue...)

From the side you could get an amazing view of the Tokyo tower!

There was this geeky American guy standing there whom I asked to take my picture haha. Poor guy. He was all awkward about it and stuttered a bit because he was nervous, wondering if he did alright since I was super dark in the picture. I told him it was fine.

Then I sat in the sun and ate my lunch with a beautiful view of the Tokyo tower in front of me! :)

When I finished and it had gotten really windy and kind of chilly, I decided to head out.

I went down in search of the Roppongi Art Triangle, but found the TV Arashi building instead!

It was celebrating its 55th anniversary, so there was a bid display inside.

(Huge garden out front)

(Kin no Kokoro. Another heart to pose under to make you feel like you're forever alone. Man, it must be hard to be a single girl growing up in Tokyo)

There was a sign that said 10,000 Space Medaka were released into this pond (Mohri Pond) in 2003. They were born from a Medaka fish brought into space on the 1994 Columbia space shuttle.

(The front of the TV Arashi building. Sew cute!)

(It had the date and time)

(Doraemon picture)

(Me and Doraemon)

(The weird show my host family watches)

After that I kept searching for the Art Triangle.

(Freaking awesome playground!! I would have loved this when I was little! Look at all those slides!)

But I couldn't find it!

So I headed to Shibuya. I'd seen this girls post in the CJS Facebook group about this display going on in Shibuya right now. It was a statue with characters from the animes One Piece and Dragon Ball Z, neither of which I watch or read, but I thought it would be cool to see anyway since I'd been planning on going to Shibuya to see Hachiko.

Shibuya station was covered with anime posters to celebrate whatever event this was all for.

I headed for the Hachiko exit (he has his own exit, so cute!!). For those who don't know, Hachiko is the dog who faithfully waited for his master outside Shibuya station every day, even after his master died. :(

The first statue I saw wasn't Hachiko, it was a bunch of naked kids.

But then I found Hachiko!

There was a fake train you could go in and learn about Hachiko. The lady in there was really nice and talked to me in English.

(The actual Hachiko!)

(Omg! I saw a girl being interviewed by ZIP! the news channel my host family always watches in the morning)

(Hachikoooo)

After visiting Hachiko, I was going to go sit in Starbucks and watch the crossing, but it was suuuuper crowded! So I just headed to Parco.

(Cute thing I saw on the way)

Then I reached the Parco and went around to the front and I saw the display! There were a whole bunch of people crowded around it taking pictures.

(The Dragon Ball guy. I think his name is Goku?)

(I liked how they made it look like the ground was all torn up)

(The One Piece dude. I have no idea what his name is)

Sweetness.

After that, I looked around at stores.

(Pretty sure that's the Empire State made out of Coach boxes)

(Ca-yute)

(Fail)

(I feel like this would be a good book for me to read... If only I knew enough Japanese...)

Then I went into Book Off and looked around in there and ended up buying two more cheap games. The dating sim game I'd wanted at the other Book Off was way cheap here, so I decided to go ahead and get it lol. It'll be interesting to play.

By the time I left, it was dark out. I decided to head to Akihabara to try to get more street passes. You get an achievement if you get 100 in one day and I wanted that!

(The Electric Town at night)

(Date and time)

There were still guys playing DS outside of Yodobashi, though not quite as many as earlier!

I saw a Starbucks and decided I'd go finally try the sakura chocolate latte I've been wanting to try. It's only a limited time thing and it's already been out for quite a while.

It was soooooo good!!!!! Omg so so so good! I burnt my tongue because I couldn't stop drinking it.

The top was pink white chocolate shavings and pink pop rock like things. Ahhh!! And it did taste faintly of sakura but not overpowering flower taste.

Holy crap, it was excellent!

So I ended up getting over 70 street passes! But not quite 100. :(

I was super exhausted, so I headed back to my hostel. Minju and Sayaka (Minju's Japanese friend who I'd met before at the New Year's Party who was coming to Tokyo too for the next couple of days) an I were all going to meet at 10 am tomorrow for the Ghibli museum, yay!!

So I went to bed right away, hoping that a long rest would make my feet feel better, because they hurt like crazy!!

~*~PICTURES~*~