Tuesday, July 8, 2014

When in Tokyo... (Tokyo: Part 3)

Tokyo: Part 1
Tokyo: Part 2
 
The last two days of our trip were spent exploring the bigger districts of Tokyo.
One night we checked out Shinjuku, which just so happens to have the world's busiest subway station. We took the subway system everywhere so of course we had to experience the busiest one. There were a ton of people! We were packed on the subway train like a can of sardines, and none of the locals had a care in the world. That's normal for them. I can't imagine having to deal with that everyday to and from work... no thank you! Not only was the station busy but so was the outside city. It was filled with streets all lit up with stores and restaurants. I thought it was fun to walk through the streets to see everything that was there. Once we were done exploring there we decided to find our way back to Shibuya, which if you read my previous Tokyo blog post, you know we had already been there once. We wanted to experience it at night time. I'm glad we did! That famous Shibuya intersection was packed full of people and it was just a cool experience. 


On Thursday, we headed out to find the big Gundam Wing statue. By this time, we had gotten pretty good at finding our way using the subway system, so we didn't so much look like lost ducklings at each station. The Gundam Wing statue was so much bigger than I expected and really cool! I'm not a huge Gundam fan, so I'm thinking it would have been cooler if it was a Transformer :) The statue sits right outside a mall, so we decided to go check it out. It was probably the nicest mall we have been in so far in Japan. It even had some American stores like Old Navy, American Eagle, and Krispy Kreme! After shopping around there awhile, we headed toward this huge ferris wheel that wasn't very far from where we were. We found another shopping mall over there, so we checked that one out as well. It was really pretty decorated on the inside, and even had a fake sky ceiling that made you feel like you were outside. We had walked quite a bit since we started our day, so we headed back to the hotel to rest our feet.


Our last full day in Tokyo was spent at the Zoo. Our main purpose of going to the zoo was to see Pandas, which happened to be the first exhibit as you walk in the park, which was pretty cool! I was impressed by the Ueno Zoo, it was pretty big and had some cool animals to see. We even caught a glimpse at two elephants mating, which was sure a sight to see!

One thing that I have heard a lot about since being in Japan is flavored kit-kats. Whenever we would pass a shop or convenience store, I would check to see if they had them. I then researched and found that there was an actual Kit-Kat store that sold all these unique flavors of them. Of course, we had to go find this store! We ended up buying 3 different flavors; chili, cream cheese, and strawberry maple. At the time, those were the only flavors they were selling. I think the flavors are seasonal, but if you're interested you should check out all the different kit-kat flavors there are out there! We tried all 3 flavors and they were all good. The chili one was a little weird to me, it actually had a little spice to it. I did end up finding 2 more flavors at the airport on the way out; raspberry and red bean. 


I should have wrote this blog sooner because I'm sure I'm forgetting some amazing details and stories to share but what can you do? We had a great time in mainland Japan and have already talked about going back possibly for a long weekend. We'd love to go see (and maybe climb) Mt. Fuji. We only have a year left on the island, so we'll see how it all plays out. I hope you enjoyed reading about our Tokyo trip and if you have any questions, just ask!

We are currently stuck inside because of Typhoon Neoguri. We are safe in our cement house. There have been some reports of cars being tipped over and a building crashing down, but other than that all I see is rain and wind! Stay safe all my Oki friends!