Ayako and I decided to go to Tokyo for 3 days during our winter holiday as well as a day in Kamakura. We started off in early afternoon near Ueno park. We visited the Ameyoko market street, which sells lots of fresh fish & vegetables as well as clothes and other goods. It's a small, very crowded street:
Lots of vendors were shouting the prices of their goods and putting on a show as they try to show how cheap their stuff was:
Many are also in costumes to try to attract customers:
Here's an arcade that was along the street where you could try picking up a stuffed toy:
They even had Care Bears that you could try to win:
After that, we went to an area with many ski and camping stores. I bought some hiking pants in one of them. The next area we went to was Ginza, which is an area with many luxury stores. While we were walking, I noticed an interesting type of taxi/rickshaw that I had never seen before:
It's called a Velotaxi and it's from Germany. Similar to a rickshaw, a driver peddles these taxis and two people can sit in the back. Since we were in a luxury area, the Velotaxis also looked grand and the drivers were all dressed in tuxedos:
Here is a shot of a street in Ginza:
There are many nice department stores including the one below, called Wako department store:
We went to look around the store, but it only had a few displays of high-priced bags and watches. I saw one leather bag that cost about $20,000 (or enough to buy a medium-sized car). Here was their window display:
And here is Ayako in front of the window display:
Here was a pretty window display with many paper cranes:
A brightly lit store, which colours slowly changed through the colours of the rainbow:
Here's the Apple store there:
The next day, we started off in Yoyogi park. Many people were there for walks or performing some music in small groups. Here are some shots we took in front of a fountain in the park:
We continued to Harajuku area and Omotesando street, which are famous shopping areas. Ayako got in line at H&M store so that she could do some shopping there. She said she wasn't in line for long before she could go inside. I looked around at some of the clothing and record stores in the Harajuku area. There were many small, cool stores in the area. Unfortunately, I didn't buy anything since the stores were too specialized for me, too expensive for me, or too cool for me. Oh well. Here is a shot looking down Omotesando street:
After doing some shopping, we got on the subway to Roppongi area. When I visited my cousin Jeff in Japan six years ago, we stayed with his friend, who lived in Roppongi. The morning after I arrived, I took a walk by myself and found Nogi shrine. I took one picture which is the centre picture of my "Wandering in Japan" banner on this site. Anyway, here's a picture Ayako took of me walking towards the shrine:
And here were some small tori gates near the shrine:
We continued walking and passed by an art museum with very modern architecture:
We then arrived at Roppongi Hills, which is a complex of many buildings with all the services of a small town. In the centre is an impressively tall building called Mori Tower, which is 54-stories tall:
They also have a large spider sculpture that looks very creepy at night:
Our last stop that night was at Tokyo Tower, which is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world and the 21st tallest tower in the world:
Ayako didn't think that it would be all that popular anymore, but there was quite a line-up at night to go up to the first obervation deck and it was quite crowded up there. The view was beautiful at night and there was also a very interesting touch screen display that gave you good information at what you were looking at and views in that direction throughout the day. Here are some of the pictures I took up there:
You could see many red lights on buildings for warning airplanes:
Here is a shot of Rainbow bridge:
A shot of busy streets in Tokyo:
And a close-up of the street:
Tokyo Tower is 50 years old this year and they are building another tower (Tokyo Sky Tree) now that will be double the height (610 metres). It will be completed in 2011.
Overall, I was impressed with Tokyo Tower. There was a higher floor that we could go to for addition money, but from my experience going up the CN Tower, a higher view doesn't mean that it is a better view. I liked the view from the first observation deck and it was much cheaper that going up the CN Tower in Toronto.
The next day, we went shopping in the Harajuku and Shibuya areas. Here is a shot of Shibuya:
Here are two men putting up billboards:
At the end of the day, we were pretty tired, so we had a break at Starbucks across from Shibuya station. It overlooks a massive zebra crossing.
To get the full effect like seen in the movie "Lost in Translation", I took a video:
After taking the video, a woman from Starbucks asked me not to take pictures. She had to go around to many people (mainly foreigners) to ask them to stop. It seemed strange that they wanted people to not take pictures but that they didn't have any signs requesting it.
We had a good time looking around Tokyo and headed off the next day to the historical town of Kamakura.
Many people were visiting it on this day, and they were getting ready for the huge crowds of people that will come there on the first few days of the new year:
Here you can see some gifts to the shrine from various companies:
We then visited Kencho temple, which is one of the oldest Zen temples in Japan and the oldest in Kamakura. It was built in 1253:
Here is me in front of a large bell, which has been designated a national treasure:
Inside the temple:
A beautiful painting of a dragon on the ceiling of the temple:
In another part of the temple:
Ayako in front of one of the gates:
We went for a small walk behind the temple, near a bamboo grove:
The next temple we visited was Engaku temple, which is the second-most famous Zen temple in Kamakura:
We then had a long walk to see a giant buddha statue and along the way, we saw this old entrance to a bank that looked very western:
We then had lunch close to the giant buddha statue. The restaurant's special was the buddha-looking udon:
Finally we arrived at the giant buddha statue:
Here's a close-up view:
We had a nice picture taken in front of it:
And then had fun taking other pictures in front of it:
After that, we were on a train back to Hamamatsu. WE both enjoyed the trip but are fairly exhausted after four long days of walking.
