Just got back to Himeji after a few days in Tokyo with my brother, and it was pretty fun! We stayed in a hotel that was about a 10 minute walk from the main street of Akihabara, which is pretty much nerd heaven. Yes, I did have--inadvertently--dinner at a maid cafe/barbecue place, and yes, we ate lunch at the Gundam Cafe; you didn't hear it from me, but the bathrooms are super awesome there... although, according to my brother, the mens' toilet was quite a bit different from the ladies'. I definitely don't recall any smoke machines in the girl's room, which now makes me a little bit disappointed. But yeah, if you go to Akihabara, you have to go to the Gundam Cafe, and you have to use the bathroom. It's that amazing!
Anyways, if you've ever heard anything about Tokyo, you've probably heard about how there are people on the train platforms whose job it is to help cram everyone onto the train. It's true. Rush hour traffic on the trains was pretty ridiculously crowded. It was even worse when we had suitcases to deal with.
We visited the Emperor's Palace, and the grounds were humongous! We didn't get a chance to view the inner palace grounds, since those tours need to be booked well over a month in advance to get the required security clearances. But the outer grounds were pretty nice.
We also swung around to the Ueno Zoo, which is famous for its giant pandas. I've never seen one of those before, so it was cool. It was a surprisingly big zoo, and the animals had nicely made exhibits. We went into a vivarium full of various reptiles, and noticed this plexiglass wall that was all stretched up; it took both of us a few moments to realize we were standing about 6 inches away from a massive crocodile that was resting in the water on the other side of the glass. The scratch marks were on account of its prominent teeth scraping along the edges of the tank! In another exhibit, there was a red panda resting in a tree, and as my brother and I stopped to admire it, a crow came and perched itself on the branch by the red panda. The crow hopped a bit, and then suddenly grabbed at the red panda's tail, startling the poor animal out of its nap. It was a pretty funny thing to see! We also watched in envy as a tiger crawled underneath its exhibit's waterfall to escape the heat. The water looked so good; it was a really hot day.
Overall, though, I was expecting Tokyo to be... bigger, the skyscrapers to be more overwhelming. Maybe I've just gotten used to cities, or else maybe I just went to the wrong parts of Tokyo, but other than the sheer size of the populations, it wasn't as overwhelming as I had imagined it to be.
Without further ado, a compilation of some of the better photos from my time in Tokyo:
A view from the river behind the hotel, on the walk to Akihabara.
This is a shot of the "Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Gardens" that my brother and I tripped on while hunting for one of Tokyo's Pokemon Centers. We are both convinced it was the best place we saw in Tokyo, by far. Absolutely a stunning garden!
I liked how the garden is just smack in the middle of so many big buildings, but still maintained its serenity. It was a very peaceful garden!
A building along one of the palace moats. It looks a little bit similar to the architecture in Himeji, but reminds me more of Osaka-jo.
I loved the stone-work in this part of the Imperial Gardens.
This was a giant lake covered in lotus plants, nearly as tall as I am. It was around the Ueno Zoo.
Most of the lotuses were still closed, but this one had started to open!
A pretty pavilion inside Ueno Zoo. It was really shiny!
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