NOTE: This is a very luvo post, i.e. lots of photos and many of Rik. If that’s going to sicken you, turn away now 😉

I got up relatively early this morning and went over to my local convenience store to get some small lunch items (onigiri and inari, as well as KitKat Triple Berry flavour), and then straight toShinjuku to meet up with Fay. After a lot of complications, we finally met up and made our way to Otemachi where we would be going to the imperial palace and gardens. This is how you know your day is gonna be great – when you arrive at Otemachi, and go over to check which way to exit the station to go to your particular destination, and this is what you find:

If you can’t read Chinese characters, I’ll tell you what the characters next to the “Imperial Palace” entries say: they say “CLOSED”. Far out, we’d gone to this station for absolutely no reason! I didn’t want to waste the experience, so Fay and I left the station to see if we could find anything interesting outside.

And interesting we did.

Dude, that is the maddest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a woman sleeping inside a bed on a billboard. Yes, the woman is live!! Japan pwns Australia… Also judging by the temperature outside at the time this photo was taken and the sweatless look, I swear there’s an air conditioner under those bedsheets. I’m sure of it.

Anyway, there was nothing else to see so Fay and I went down to the basement of the station to get something to eat. We ended up at a traditional style restaurant, which was different to the norm in the sense that you’re required to pay before you sit down (in Tokyo, it’s really rare). I ordered a karaage (deep fried chicken pieces) set meal, and it came promptly. It was okay – not excellent, simply okay. For the price I guess I was disappointed. But I suppose you can’t eat excellent food every single day, right?

Anyway, afterwards we went over to Asakusa and found our way to Asakusa’s Kaminarimon (a massive “gate” into the temple compound, see the two “gate” pictures below.) We took some photos and checked out the stalls; Fay bought a little something for her grandparents whilst I felt like the prices were ridiculous and thus decided not to get anything yet. I did, however, grab some An Nin (as in, like the Chinese “an nin dao fu” flavored) soft-serve icecream… it was really really nice <3

We went over to the temple; I had completely forgotten until this point but I have visited this temple before today – in fact, in 2005, with my host mother from the exchange trip! I waited outside while Fay went inside and took photos.

Eventually we got tired of it and walked in a lost kinda way towards where we hoped the “suijo bus stop” (lit. on-water bus, think like a ferry but smaller) was. After asking a few store owners along the road, we found it. Luckily, the waterbus hadn’t left yet (the next one was almost an hour later) so we bought our tickets and dashed on. We took the waterbus to Hinode Pier, and then changed to go to Odaiba Marine Park on Odaiba Island. Although we had crap seats, it was a welcome change from the trains.


You know you’ve arrived at Odaiba when you see the Fuji TV building with the big sphere in the middle there… it’s so weird but really aesthetically pleasing to the eye imho 🙂

We hopped off and I stopped for a ciggie break while Fay went to the bathroom. I took some photos here too – doesn’t everyone just love the “smoke privately” ads? You may not know what they are but you’ve probably seen them before. Another thing I had to take a photo of was the sign that asked people not to smoke because someone (presumably the person who made the sign) “loves this city”.

Anyway afterwards I entered Fuji TV and although most stuff was closed, Fay and I entertained ourselves by looking around, taking photos of the great view and also photos with the cute mascot dog. Fay has those ones so I’ll put them up later…


Afterwards, we left Fuji TV and went over to Aqua City, along the side near the water and took more photos of Odaiba’s Rainbow Bridge and (imitation) Statue of Liberty. I’ve put those here too… I feel sorry if anyone’s on dial-up (but who is!?)

Fay and I parted ways; she went shopping and I went back towards home as I was dying and my feet killed. Now let me give you a quick explanation of how the Yurikamome line works, here in Tokyo. You could say its Tokyo’s monorail, except they have a seperate one of those somewhere else I believe. The Yurikamome line consists of automatic trains that have no drivers – they drive themselves around, basically. This, to me, is really really cool so I tried to get in right at the front of the train so I could take some photos. Because my camera isn’t great, and the speed of the train – also cos it was really crowded I couldn’t take any good photos. 🙁

I changed trains at Shiodome and checked out the buildings – I particularly liked this one because it was (aerially) shaped like a teardrop (or so I’m told) – check it out! 🙂

After I got back onto my line (the Toei Oedo Line in this case) I just went back home. Went past the 100-yen Shop and bought a bunch of different menthol pads and things for my sore feet/legs as well as a variety of other things. Ended up having dinner at Matsuya where I had another, non-embarrassing but yet OMFG moment. I’ll talk about it later cos I want to have a long bath now – this blog took like an hour and a half to write. You guys better be reading it >=|