I did NOT plan this second trip in Tokyo. I have United Airlines to thank/blame for that. I flew out of Utah at 7:50am, got to Denver around 9:30am. I was supposed to fly out to Tokyo at 5:15pm. Unfortunately my scheduled seat's oxygen mask was faulty, so I had to be rebooked. I had to wait around Denver til 8, and fly out to L.A., where I flew at 12:00. 12 hour flight to Tokyo, in the middle seat. Needless to say my neck hurt. When I arrived in Tokyo around 4am, they said there were further booking difficulties, so instead of leaving for Nagoya at 8am, I had to wait around til 6pm. I had no problem with this whatsoever. I was hopping up and down when they told me, I must have looked a little kookie. It was a loooooong journey back to Nagoya, but I ended up with $600 and another day trip in Tokyo. So thanks United!
I started taking photos at LAX. Here's me taking the bus from the domestic terminal over to International.
I'd never taken an airport bus before. Interesting. The driver was super nice and chatty. I couldn't help but think that this was the last outgoing nice stranger I'd talk to for a few months ha ha ha.
Departures from LAX.
They had this HUGE pillar tv screen thing. tv screens on all 4 sides of it. Twas interesting.
I was laughing to myself silently as I wandered inside the terminal. The minute you entered the international terminal, everything seemed to be marketed to the Japanese. The packaging strategy was right out of Japan I tell you.
Landed in Tokyo at Haneda. Saw this advertisement. ha!
Yonder be the Tokyo Skytree. It's a huge tourist thing for the Japanese. As for that gold thing…...I really need to ask around and see if anyone knows what the heck that is.
Well, I had very short notice about my newly found free day in Japan, so I jumped on a train and started looking up places. My biggest beef about the first visit was that I didn't see much historical stuff. So I went to Asakusa. Minori told me I should go there, so I did. Did not disappoint.
Sensoji (senso-temple) built in 700AD. To get to the temple, you have to walk through the entrance gate with the huge red lantern, and through the Nakamise, a market street selling traditional local foods. Look how huge that lantern is!!!!!
This is a shot of right under the lantern. I was not expecting to see this! so cool.
I arrived at Asakusa around 9 ish, so I had an hour to kill before things opened. Nothing opens before 10 in Japan, except airports and convenience stores. That's what it feels like anyhow.
There were lots of side-streets lined with shops. This street was one that made me pause for a moment. How many mannequins can you see? I think I counted…4?
At the end of the Nakamise street (I think the kanji is (naka中 mise店) which would roughly translate to "middle stores") you have another lantern gate to go through. This one has 1 red lantern and 2 smaller black lanterns. I was happy to see the 5 tiered pagoda!
The temple grounds are right past this last lantern gate. Apparently back in the day, Asakusa was Tokyo's Kabuki and Red Light District.
Behold, the main hall of Sensoji!
This is the other side of the red lantern gate. I wonder what that is….I'll ask. I waited til a person walked buy so I had a size comparison. It was huge!!
Surrounding the main hall were lots of small shrines or gardens. I found a small garden filled with Haiku pillars from the Edo period. There were also a few famous Edo poets buried here too.
I definitely prefer checking out the older stuff! It's so exciting! Though technically most of the buildings here are replicas rebuilt after WWII destroyed them all. All of the colors on the buildings were so bright and new. I'm not saying the older buildings in Kyoto looked shabby. Not at all. These ones just looked slightly newer.
In one of the hedged off gardens, they had one of the original eco stone bridges used. I thought it was so cool to see the dip in the stone from all the walking!
Ok the way this picture's tilted makes it look like a wall, but actually it's the ceiling. I tilted it so you could see the dragon. This is the ceiling of the main hall. The main hall's huge, so try putting imagining these images much larger than they seem.
A view from the inside of the Main hall entrance. You can find boxes like this at any temple or shrine. You say a prayer and toss a money offering into them.
More wandering around the temple grounds. I initially wanted to check this area out because of the different layout of the stones lol. I got fascinated with the various stone layouts back when I visited Nagoya castle. Go back to that post if you want to see lots of stone walls ha ha ha. They're fascinating!
After checking out the stones, I read about the bell. Back in the day, they used these bells to announce the hour. There were 12 or so spread throughout Tokyo. Cool!
I forgot to take a photo of this one, but here's a copy from the internet. This teeny small building is found off to the side of the Sensoji temple. It's kind of funny because this is off to the side, really small, a little worse for wear…but it's the location of one of the largest annual festivals in Tokyo. This is the Asakusa Shrine, and it looks worse for wear because it's one of the few buildings that survived the air raids.
I wandered on one of the main streets nearby and found this WEIRD building. Turns out its the Asakusa Cultural Center. Ha! Figures.
I went back to Nakamise, determined to try some local foods. This looked strange, so I got one. It was like a green tea donut filled with red bean paste.
Ok this one looks weird no matter what I say. This is the famous treat Tokyo is known for. The Tokyo Banana! They are basically banana flavored twinkles. But they taste better than American twinkles, which isn't hard. Who knows why they look like flowers, leopards, giraffes and zebras.
Found these interesting socks at one of the shops.
I love these masks. My favorites are the ogres (the red faced bearded fellows) and the foxes ( the small white whiskered ones).
And of course, in the middle of those bustling shops, like every city in Japan, you can find tranquil old fashioned inns and restaurants.
Here was a visual of that restaurant's menu. YUMMY.
Here's a little more crowded version of Nakamise.
Oh, and there was some sort of event happening a few streets over, dealing with lots of women dressing in gorgeous winter kimono. They all wore huge thick furry feather wraps around their necks.
Now if you're not wearing kimono, the big trend these days is to wrap a mini fur over your jacket or something. Lots of people with these on, I'll say that much.
After walking over Asakusa a few times, I had to think of something else to do. It was 11am. I'd seen the Skytree nearby, so I figured I'd go check out the top. Unfortunately, my photos can't show you how freakishly windy is was that day. Due to the wind, the elevators were shut down for the day. But man, standing this close to the bottom was …WOW.
After checking out some Japanese chain stores I liked, I went over near Tokyo Station to the Imperial Gardens. You can't go in the main area without a reservation, so I was content to sit and relax in an outer section. Funny how everything felt so green in the middle of January.
I'd seen this once near Asakusa, and assumed it was some weird decoration. But after seeing it done here, I started wondering what the deal was. After going up close to check them out, I noticed that the ropes were holding up bamboo shoots which supported the branches. I'm guessing they are there to prevent snowfall from breaking the branches. Great idea, interesting look.
After the park, I wandered a bit around that area of the city. I got on the train and not 2 stops later, a freaking SUMO guy got on. You can't mistake those guys. He was large but fit, he was wearing a yukata, and he had his hair long but tied up in that traditional way sumo men put their hair up. Call me silly but it was like seeing Santa Clause. I wanted to scream and go give him a hug or something. But of course I didn't. He could have kicked my butt. Seeing him made me want to go check out the Sumo district, but I'd run out of time. :-( Tokyo might be fun to check out again for things like a Sumo match, Takarazuka, the Fish Markets, clubbing, and other shows or something. Anywho, I was very happy with the visit. I can't imagine what I would go look at if I had another day there. But I'm so glad I had those 2 long layovers there!
I was so happy when I got to Nagoya. No map help needed there :-) Yay!
