Tokyo

Vic and I had a bit of "Island Fever" so we took a short trip up to Tokyo to check out this fair Earth's largest city. We figured 4 days was about all we could take. As exhausting as Tokyo can be, I found it pretty entertaining and when it was all said and done I felt like I could endure a little bit more. To me Tokyo is like one of those friends you had in High School that you liked being with but just gets to be too much to handle when you hang out for more than a few hours at a time. I guess any really big city can be draining and as a visitor, Tokyo seems easier to manage and is best seen in moderate doses.

We packed a lot in during our stay, had long days and soaked up as much as we could. Upon our arrival we headed to Yoyogi Park. It was very shady and cool compared to the concrete jungle circumventing its borders. In the center of the park lies Meiji Shrine, considered by many to be Tokyo's most important Shinto place of worship. It was a nice afternoon and a relaxing way to spend the remainder of the day after a series of planes, trains and automobiles.

Large Torii at the entrance to the Meiji Shrine. The logs used to build this torii are said to have come from a 1,500 year old cypress tree on Mount Tandai in Taiwan, which surprised me due to my previous held opinion that everything that came out of Taiwan was plastic. Who knew!

Saki Casks along the path to the Meiji Shrine - these were typical gifts for the Emperor given by various important people and dignitaries over the ages.

We were sure to adhere to the cleaning rituals at the Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park. Left hand, right hand, then the face. Don't forget to bow.

When we go to sleep Kyra must sneak out and socialize because she seems to be pretty popular everywhere we go. Just one of many instances where we were stopped by a gaggle of Japanese locals who wanted to capture the enigmatic white child. I'm pretty sure these people were tourists themselves since they took about 200 pictures a piece. She took it all in stride for about 5 minutes and then got kinda sick of it all and started crying.


Across from Yoyogi Park lies the Harajuku District where you can glimpse the future leaders of Japan dressing up like comic book characters. Big hair, Little Bo Peep style outfits and lots of makeup. It was a pretty crowded area, full of self expression and individuality. Culturally interesting but not exactly enticing for me to adopt. It was just another one of those days where I just kept reminding myself how goofy some of the Japanese cultures can be. We all have our quirks and peculiarities, but it seems to me that the Japanese have more than their share.

Where's Waldo. One of these things is not like the other. Most places we visit we attempt to blend in as best we can, but I pretty much gave up in Tokyo. Even in the widely diverse Harajuku District I couldn't seem to fade into the masses.


We stayed near the world's busiest train station - Sinjuku. The book we had said about 2 million people pass through there every day. It seemed more like 4 or 5 million to me. We went through there several times and at all hours of the day and it was simply jam packed all day long. It made me miss Guam just a little bit.

Typical busy street near our hotel in Shinjuku.


We spent some time at Ueno Park, Tokyo's version of Central Park. It was filled with shrines, temples, statues, Japanese street performers singing La Bamba (Sabes Guantanamera?) and a Pandaless zoo. Everywhere we went we saw billboards and signs directing us to see the Pandas at the zoo. The little zoo map even has a big panda on the cover. Once inside you can take your picture with a 10 foot tall ceramic panda. Wouldn't it be safe to assume that there would be real live Pandas inside as well? Stay thirsty my friends. There are no pandas at the Tokyo Zoo. They had otters, tigers, gorillas and penguins, but no pandas. A few hours after leaving the zoo we ran into this guy who asked us what we had been seeing in his city and when we told him that we had just come from the zoo his head bowed in what I could only assume was shame and said "I am very sorry, we have no pandas anymore." I guess its a big controversy, perhaps China stole them, but there are definitely no pandas and Tokyo's citizens sure seem upset.

Swans at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo

A very large Hello Kitty in the Baskin' Robbins near our hotel, Kyra kept looking at it as if she was wondering what the purpose of such a thing could be. Sometimes even I have no answers.


One really cool thing we did was visit Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market. The largest fish market in the world. (are you sensing a theme here) It was big. Lots of strange things going on. The metro stop for the fish market is 4 floors underground and when you get off the train you can already smell fish. We followed our noses several escalators and multiple stairways up and had a nice morning meandering through the stalls and watching the salesmen tolerate our presence. There were lots of crazy fish I'd never seen before and several of the stands sold live seafood. Not jsut fish, but crab and eel and all sorts of other living creatures packaged up and squirming around in see through containers.

Tsukiji Fish Market

This guy is sawing up some frozen tuna. I tried to get Vicki to distract him while I grabbed a slab but he was not easily swayed.


We spent an afternoon in Odaiba. Japans architecturally interesting district as we later named it. There were lots of cool buildings that stood testament to Japan's superior engineering. I guess they have to somehow make up for the runway I often land on in Osaka that is sinking into the ocean. We spent a long time at the Miraikan building which is their National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Most of it was in Japanese (but there was a lot of English explanation) and there were several elementary school field trips going on, but we pieced together the gist of it all and came out a bit more educated in the process. The coolest thing they had was a huge room with a rotating electric globe hanging 50 feet up from the ceiling. You can lay in comfy couches and look up while the earth changes in real time. They also have sequences of weather patterns over the last 30 days as well as ocean temperature changes over various periods of time. Kyra liked it quite a bit and later decided to take a nice little nap. We didn't argue one bit. It was quite relaxing.

Kyra looking up at the globe

Big Globe

Shibuya - The worlds busiest intersection is here, there were lots of people. Kyra almost lost her pacifier crossing the street, but alas it was found and she was able to sleep that night.

It was a good trip, we were glad we went. I liked Tokyo even though it can be a bit too much at times. I think that visiting in the fall or spring would make a big difference as the cherry blossoms are supposed to be a nice background compliment to the vast urban feeling all around you. I'd go back, there was just so much to see and do, we had to be picky and selective, but I would like to see some of the other parts that we neglected. Survey says: B+.