It's amazing how you can go from one world to what seems like a completely different world within hours. After about 12 hours of flight from Paris, we were taken to the other side of the world into Toyko, Japan. From there, our week of adventure started!
Our first day in Toyko started off with a stroll in Yoyogi-koen, a large park where we saw many people running and doing tai-chi. Unfortunately, the weather was not great (it was rainy or snowy the whole week) so it wasn't as lively as it could be. From there, we walked to the Meiji-jingu; a shrine built in the early 1900's dedicated to the Emperor Meiji and his Empress.
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| Yoyogi Park |
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| Gates of the Meiji Shrine |
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| People's prayers and wishes |
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| pretty |
After our walk, we headed to Harajuku, an area in town known for it's fashion shops and fashion showoffs....including youngsters dressed as anime characters and outrageous outfits. Then it was time for lunch. Not being able to read or speak a language definitely proved to be difficult when it comes to ordering food. Luckily, in Tokyo, most places have pictures or English translation. For lunch, we stumbled into an underground restaurant.
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| Fried Ham with slices of beef and vegetables |
On our way home, we walked by the Shibuya train station where we had a wonderful view of the Shibuya crossing; one of the busiest crossroads in the world. It was very interesting to watch the crowds of people cross all at once; it was even cooler with all the clear umbrellas.
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| Shibuya crossing |
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| Picture as we crossed the Shibuya Crossing |
The next day, we took a day trip tour to visit Mt Fuji. Unfortunately, the weather has been pretty unusual lately and it has been snowing mounds and mounds of snow. It's been snowing so much that we could not go up Mount Fuji, instead, we stopped by several points to try and view Mount Fuji. However, it was all covered up with clouds and fog. We were not able to see any bit of the mountain until the end of our trip. Our tour also included a traditional Japanese bento box lunch.
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| Wheeee....a picture of me and Mt Fuji! |
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| Braised Seaweed, Dried Radish with Sesame Sauce, Rolled Omlette, Tuna Sashimi, Deep Fried Breaded Prawn, Brasied Vegetables, Seasonal Vegetable Salad, Fried Chicken, Seasonal Fruits with Rice and Miso Soup |
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| Whoohoo....the peak of Mount Fuji right above our heads |
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| Close-up shot |
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| Japanese dumplings with hot green tea |
After our trip to Mount Fuji, we took a direct train to see the Toyko tower as the sun started to set. In front of the tower was a temple. We didn't go up the tower since we planned to go up a different tower the next day. But it was still something we had to visit and see.
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| A peaceful temple in the middle of the busy city |
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| Not sure who these are in memory of, but the color was beautiful |
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| Toyko Tower |
And for dinner, we found a cute little sushi place in Shibuya. The great thing about it was that we ordered everything (even water) on an ipad! Didn't need to speak to anyone! lol. So, we would scroll through the English menu on the ipad, select what we wanted and the kitchen would make it fresh (ish) and then send it through a track right to our seats! Cool huh? The sushi tasted fresh too!
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| Yumyum sushi! |
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| =) |
During our last day in Tokyo, the weather was much nicer. First we made our way over to the Tokyo Sky Tree. Built as a radio tower, it has two observation decks for the public to visit. It is the tallest tower in the world standing at 2080 feet high.
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| wow it's high |
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| Eep! Don't look down! |
Afterwards, we made our way to the Imperial Palace, the residence of the Emperor of Japan. The building are off limits to the public (as it is the current home of the Emperor) but we were able to walk in the gardens.
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| Bridge into the gardens |
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| Spring is coming! |
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| Cool building |
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| Back outside |
Lastly, one of our last stops in Tokyo was Artnia; the official Square Enix store in Tokyo (a video game store) I was quite excited about this stop, but in the end, a bit disappointed. They closed their bigger store back in 2012 and opened this store. It is much smaller than I imagined and they carried a lot less merchandise. Nonetheless, it was a place I had to visit.
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| Artnia |
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| Materia and Crystals |
Well....that's our trip to Toyko in a nutshell. Of course, there were a lot more eating and a lot more site seeing, but I didn't always remember to take pictures. It was really a great experience and definitely a place we would visit again. Everyone was super nice, the city was really clean, the food was quite afforableand there are still lots to see. Maybe one day, but for now....
Next stop: Kyoto!
