Tokyo Trip (part shi) ...

Tokyo Train Station:
As I'm blogging about my Tokyo trip I am realizing that we accomplished a lot in a short time. This is part four and so far I've only been in Tokyo for about a day! Where did I leave off ....

After sumo wrestling we took the subway back to Asakusa to head back to Sensoji Temple. We wanted to see it during the day and to go shopping in some of the shops considering that none of them were open at 1:00am the night before. Although the temple was more peaceful in the middle of the night, it was nice to see it in full effect - tourists, shopping, and of course the heat. I can't forget the heat. It's like another member of our group - always with us everywhere we go. An unwelcome member of our group.
Teresa modeling how you are supposed to breathe in the smoke to achieve long lasting health. Doesn't that seem like an oxymoron? We did it anyway.

Yet another place where you could make a wish and/or pray.
Two ladies in traditional kimonos. You can tell they are not married because they are wearing bows. Married women have a flat back piece, not a bow.


You can't possibly leave Tokyo without visiting Akihabara, the electronic shopping district. Anything and everything you could imagine was for sale. The electronic stores had 8, 9, 10 stories full of anything that plugs in or takes batteries. I priced some video cameras, which I did not purchase, and we just wandered around. It's so easy to do. You can just walk & walk & walk. And watch the people. I could sit & watch for hours, but we did not have hours to spare.
The ads go on forever!

A famous electronic shop:

We headed to a ramen shop for dinner before going to get cleaned up.
Melissa, Teresa & myself waiting for three open seats together.
Mastering my chopsticks.
The ramen I had for dinner:



We then back to Asakusa to Ashley & Teresa's hotel room to shower & get ready to head out.
Their hotel room was about the size of my bathroom back home, but we were all able to shower & put clean clothes on, which was nice.

Melissa, Xiao & I headed for yet another area of the city called Roppongi.
This area of Tokyo is known for it's active night club scene and here you can also find a relatively large presence of Western tourists. First we headed to a Tequila bar, advertising more than 400 different types of tequila and then we found a shot bar called Geronimo's.
This place reminded me a little of Suds back in Cedar Falls. It was mostly filled with tourists and played American 80's rock music. Many men tourists hang up their ties on the bar with personalized notes saying where they are from or where they are going. They were interesting to read.

Finally we ventured on and found Club Flower. We paid 3,000 yen to get in (roughly $30) but that also included two drink tickets. The club had two rooms, loud American hip hop music, a lot of Japanese people, and a large bar. We danced the night away, used up our drink tickets, met some local people, and left the club around 4:00am (no gasps please - it was a holiday weekend & I'm in Tokyo! Give me a break). We were all so tired we could barely stand, but somehow we managed to find a place to go shopping! There is a famous store called Don Quixote that is open 24/7 and sold anything and everything imaginable. We didn't buy anything, I think we were all too tired, but we did start thinking about finding a place to sleep. We had heard about internet cafes and started looking for one before it became impossible for us to move our legs anymore.

American Internet cafe: a place like Starbucks. You plug in your laptop during normal business hours, get some coffee, maybe a bagel, and do some work while enjoying a snack.

Japanese Internet cafe: you rent a small cubical that comes with a computer & telephone and you can rent by the hour, or pay for a 3 hour stay to take a nap. Most people utilize internet cafes as a place to sleep if they have missed last train or are having trouble getting anywhere else. :)

Here are the options: High back seat, Reclining seat, Massage seat, or Pair/Quad seat (which translated to a tiny sofa)

We decided to stay at an internet cafe because we were tired, it was close by, and it was very cheap (about $10 for the 3 hour stay). We 'checked in' and found our cubicles and got comfy (we TRIED to get comfortable, but it was impossible) in our leather recliners. I managed to sleep straight through until 7:00am when the alarm went off & we had to leave. With the exception of it being cold (which I didn't notice until I woke up) and not having a pillow, the internet cafe did it's job: gave us a place to take a 'nap'.
This is honestly where I slept:
After two nights of little sleep we were walking to the train station rather slow on Sunday morning at 7:00am.

stay tuned - almost half way finished ...
much love,
-tara-
xoxo