Thursday the 5th
Today was much colder than yesterday and that sort of sucked. We went to the grocery store across from the Train Station exit for breakfast items. Shinigawa Train Station is HUGE, so there were a lot of stores right along the street there, but we just kept to this one little grocery store that had about 2 aisles (but everything we needed).
We took the train to Hama-Rikyu Garden which was about 300 years old. I really liked it even though it was super cold and none of the flowers were in bloom (hahaha!) But htere were some awesome looking trees like a huge Black Pine. We ate breakfast just on a bench. Clara ate 3 gyozas (wonton things stuffed with I think shrimp) and some of my apple.
After walking around the park for a little bit (not too much becuase, like I said, it was FREEZING cold!) we bought tickets for the water bus to Asakusa. The boat took us up the river and pointed out a lot of bridges and other things, but it was a little hard to hear and was mostly in Japanese. It wasn't crowded though, so that was nice. There was a group of school kids on the ferry and the girls couldn't get enough of clara. They finally dared one to come up to us and ask where we were from and what her name was. (I could tell, it would be like me making Stephanie or Dana go up and ask a spanish speaking couple where they were from and what their daughter's name was). Clara is a tough name for the Japanese though. I always get a sort of 'dropped face' response or a blank stare. Sometimes they'll try to pronnounce it, but mostly they just nod and say ""oh! oh! She so pretty!". To which I just nod and say "thank you!".
ANyway, after the Ferry dropped us off at Asakusa we walked to the Sensoji Temple. IT was orignially built in 628 AD but got destroyed and moved and has been at it's current location since the 60's or something like that. We also walked along the famous street that leads up to the temple. Nakamisi Dori I think? I'd have to check my book. BUt it's basically a gauntlett of trinkett stores. Fun to look at but a waste of money really. We tried to go to lunch at a place mentioned in my Frommer's guide, but it was closed. So we took the train back to Ueno and walked through the park.
We saw some street performers but I don't think they were working for tips. . . so I'm not sure how that works in Tokyo. We saw a bunch of homeless people in the park too, which was innteresting becuase we didn't see any others really, except at Ueno. But it was a nice big park and at the end of it was the Tokyo National Museum. We acutally missed a lot of stuff that was in the park--a zoo ab unch of statues and some other things, but I didn't know about them until Friday night.
Before we went into the museum we had lunch at the museum cafe right outside it. I had a delicious ratatoulle. They dind't have a high chair for clara so we had ot keep her in the carrier, but she did fine.
The Tokyo national Museum is HUGE. It's about 5 buildings and we only saw the permanent collections in 2 of hte buildings. While we were taking a break (becuase she took to screeching in the big, echoey display rooms instead of while waalking through the park or any other place we'd been that day) a TON of people started coming up to clara and saying how cute she was (in Japanese) and taking her picture! There were probably half a dozen japanesse people, men and women, crowded around her at one point, trying to take her picture.. She's still not an awesome walker, so I had to be near her to catch her and prevent head bumps, but I was also trying to get her to smile. Of course it didn't work, but the people didn't seem to mind. It was weird though. SHe's pracitcally a Japanese National Treasure now! Hahahahaha!
Then we walked back through Ueno park to the train station (clara had a little nap finally) and went to Akihabara, or, "electric city". I bought a teeny tiny 2 gig USB drive that's acutally a cell phone charm. We went to the Sega Arcade and tyler played a little bi of a display game, then we just walked around and looked at all the stuff! There were booths with nothing but wires and cables. Spools and spools of them. One stand had nothing but speaker plug ends and electric do-dads that I didn't know what were. There were also a bunch of stores like Spencer's Gifts back in teh states. Full of random crap and cartoon paraphenaliea (except the cartoons were all Japanese and mosstly Hiyo Mizaki's, like Kikki's Delivery Service or Howl's Moving Castle).
We got on the train at 5pm which I was nervous about for rush hour in TOkyo, but it wasn't too bad. Clara liked to hold onto the handles and fish hook tyler's mouth. I thought both were funny : ) We hit the grocery store again outside Shinegawa for dinner/breakfast items, but we still stopped at McDonald's which was across the street from the station. Clara started to lose it around now but we kept feeding her puffs until we could get back to the hotel. . . . when we realized I dind't quite pack enough food despite the fact that she was still eating what we were eating in ADDITION to the food I brought (mostly raviolis and jarred foods).
So I had to go down and talk to the consierge about where to buy some baby food (pronnounced "bebe food!" but said very fast) in Tokyo. The guy and girl were very helpful and found 3 places near the hotel with baby food. So we made plans to stop by in the morning and buy some.
Labels: Japan, Trips
ankie always looks super cute. She has a bichon named Cota that hangs out with her at work in his little sweater and play pen behind the counter. Its awesome.
for clara!
ankie always looks super cute. She has a bichon named Cota that hangs out with her at work in his little sweater and play pen behind the counter. Its awesome.
for clara!
