So, I thought I'd share a couple choice photos of my trip to Tokyo, Japan from last week. I took well over 250 photos, so I'll try to trim that number down to something more reasonable
First off, guess who was lucky enough to get a first class seat for the 13hr flight to Narita airport?
Air Canada's long haul fleet has these awesome new seats that fully recline into tiny beds. They are soooo comfy.
The first morning we woke up as early as possible (which wasn't to hard because your bodies' clock is still so messed up) to hit the Tsukiji Fish Market, which was crazy. Here's a pic from the famed tuna auctions. Man those fish are BIG.
Me in a section of the Imperial Palace grounds. This was our only nice day of the week, the rest of them were wet and rainy!
Dusk in Akihabara settles. This neighbourhood is nicknamed 'Electric town' for its cheap electronics and manga, but honestly nothing seemed cheaper than at home.
Entrance to Senso-ji temple, which was right by our hostel. Love the bigass latern.
5-storey pagoda on the temple grounds. Wish that darn tree wasn't in the photo
My buddy Kyle with one of many weird / crazy mascots and stuff you see on the streets.
Tokyo Tower shrouded in mist. Kinda an ugly Eiffel Tower
Cool statue in Roppongi Hills! Which by the way is a super sweet "city within a city" design. We weren't really sure what to expect with that description before visiting, but it was totally appropriate after visiting.
Takeshita-dori, which was one of many small market streets we visited. This was on a Sunday, hence the busyness!
Shibuya Crossing! Reportedly the world's busiest pedestrian crossing, and I believe it. We spent a good 30 mins just fooling around taking photos and video. On a side note, wiki "Hachiko statue" to read a cute story about a dog who is commemorated with a statue by the train station there. Fans of Futurama will be happy.
I got this shot late Sunday night when the subway people kicked us out 2 spots earlier than I expected. The last trains leave at midnight'ish there, but I was to understand they finished the lines. I guess for some of them they only go to certain stations, so we were forced out 2 stops earlier and I was confused where the heck we were. I did however get this sweet shot of the city at night right outside the train station. It took us about an hour to walk to the hostel from there, although admittedly we were slightly tipsy so I'm sure that added some time hehe
The next day we took the train outside the city to the seaside town of Kamakura. Upon getting off the train, we saw a sign for bike rentals and joked about how sweet of an idea it would be to rent some. We paused for a couple seconds and then said to each "well, why don't we?" hehe. Here are our sweet hogs.
The Great Pacific Ocean as seen from the other side...looks kind of the same
Just had to share these cute little buddhas
Kamakura's most famous attraction, Daibutsu, aka the Great Buddha.
On the steps of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine
Having fun in a tiny little shrine off the beaten path in Tsurugaoka. Thank you self timers!
Senso-ji temple at night.
Walking thru Ueno Park. We got a small taste of the cherry blossoms upcoming bloom. I imagine it will look very beautiful there in a few weeks time
Most restaurants had these plastic food displays outside, which I thought were really funny. Never seen that before
I visited a couple museums while there, notably the Tokyo National and the Edo-Tokyo museum. The Edo one was fantastic, while the National was so-so. Here's a cool sword from the National though, because we all love Japanese swords after Kill Bill right?
The awesome man who ran the hostel we stayed at. All the staff were super friendly and helpful, probably the best one I've stayed at so far
And just for fun, here's a shrunk map of the Tokyo Subway system...it was sure fun learning to use it
Ok well thats just a small sampling of the many pics I took while over there. Hope you enjoyed! Tried to keep the pics down to a minimum in this post but I'm not as good as Roophus heh, I just take to many photos and want to share them all.