Japan 2012, Tokyo Day 2

Breakfast!

So first full day in Tokyo - we had it all planned out!  It was actually the only day we had planned out.  In any case, we woke up and had our free breakfast at Toyoko Inn.  We loved it the first day, but mich was pretty much done with it by the end, although the rice balls were always good!

How'd I get here?

Then we left the for the subway to head for the Tsukiji Fish Market.  I didn't really know how to get there, but after a elderly Japanese man helped us out.... we were still lost.  How we ended up at the right station, I'm not really sure (I actually tried to figure it out again), but we did!  We missed the Fish Market auction, but had a good sashimi lunch - we just picked a long line in front of a random restaurant and waited an hour to get in.  We found that Japanese are very orderly - everyone got in line around the corner and waited patiently!

We had an hour to look at the menu, but everyone
kept looking.

Small lunch shop!  Big line...

Bridge to Hamarikyu gardens - can you see me?

After lunch, we walked to Hama Rikyu gardens which was < 10min away.  It was pretty cheap to get in.  When we paid, they asked if we wanted an electronic tour guide.  I was going to say no, but it was free!  So we both got them.  I had to ask for the Eigo one.  A lady behind the counter came over to give one to Michelle, but looked a bit shocked when she asked for English.  Guess Michelle looks super Japanese!  They even put on the earpiece for us.  The guide was really cool, cause it had a GPS or something, so would just start talking when you got near a tour item, and play a video on its touchscreen - pretty awesome.
The gardens were nice.  We stopped for tea at a little stand because the worker lady told Michelle to have tea in the gardens.  Apparently, she meant a teahouse in the middle of the lake - oh well.

Garden is probably really nice later in the spring, but only one plum tree had blossoms when we went.  

Plum tree

Cool GPS tour guide

Stand where we got tea

Where we were supposed to have tea...

View from deck - I was the only one outside.  It was cold

After the gardens, we took a boat ride from a dock inside the gardens on the Sumida river to Asakusa.

Dock for boat ride

In Asakusa, we saw the Kaminari mon, walked down the something mise where mich bought a really good fried manju thingy.  We looked around the shrine for a bit then had some vending machine drinks!

Kaminari mon

Nakamise street shopping

Awesome fried manju!

Shrine and vending machine beverage!

Washed my hands in the fountain

Mich waving incense on herself

Tokyo National Museum

Next we walked to the Ueno park, maybe 1/2 hour away.  We got into the Tokyo National Museum - apparently half price cause of some Tourism thing, plus we got a free little Dogi keychain thing!  Museum had like 5 buildings.  We ended up going to three of them, one was supposed to have a bunch of treasures - the buildings were nice inside, but didn't seem to have to much?  We did see some of the Haniwa that they put on the funeral sites, and some really really old pottery.

old stuff

10,000 year old Dogi pottery!

Am I supposed to take pictures in here?

Gallery of Horyuji Treasures

Ueno Park

After the Tokyo National Museum closed at 5pm, we walked around Ueno park for a bit before going to the Ueno train station.  From Ueno, we went to Harajuku.

Ueno park - main drag

In Harajuku we walked town Takeshita Dori and found a little Katsu place for dinner that had really good Tonkatsu and Ebi Fry!  Really light batter - what wasn't great was this side bowl of gooey stuff that the guy told us to put over our rice.   Hmm.  We sort of skipped that.  Then back on the train to our hotel to end our first full day!   

Haradas?

Yum!

Harajuku train station back to the hotel