May 11


Our first full day in Tokyo/Japan consisted of numerous places. I loved the location of our hotel in Shinagawa. Although it wasn’t super close to the convenience store, I loved the area it was surrounded by. First, we ate breakfast at our hotel which did not disappoint at all. Little did I know that this would increase my standards for all my breakfast meals. Our first stop was the Imperial Palace East Garden. Being there was very peaceful and it was definitely a good start to the day since a lot of the day consisted of a lot of running around (but still fun!)
We then headed to Tokyo station where we got lunch. I was surprised when Matubara Sensei told us to get lunch in the station! This is where I learned that a lot of stations are connected to shopping malls, which I think is so neat. Trains are the most popular form of transportation in Tokyo, so that makes it convenient for all those people. The stations in the states in my experience don’t have a whole lot to offer, but Tokyo station was full of places. There were so many places it took us some time to decide where to go. Caroline, Ava and I ended up getting rice, eggs and chicken.

After lunch, we headed to Character Street, which I immediately knew I had to come back to. It had lots of shops centered around all kinds of characters, including Snoopy and anime. After that, we went to another popular shopping area- Akihabara. Unfortunately, it ended up raining even though the day started out nice. After Akihabara, we went to Sensoji Temple and I liked looking at traditional archite
cture for a little bit of a change for the day (though surrounded by a city). We ended our day with a visit to Shinjuku, which was a perfect ending to the day in my opinion. It had stopped raining so we were greeted with a beautiful sunset and it was so cool seeing the transition to its nightlife activities. Half the group got ramen and walked around for a little bit, and I took part in that. First ramen meal in Japan and I wasn’t disappointed. The first day in Tokyo was great. I got to see a good mix of traditional and modern places. I particularly think it’s cool how Tokyo is a very advanced city, yet you can still find all these shrines and temples preserved in the middle of it. This really shows how much Japanese people respect their ancestors and the land they built up and developed for them. And it also shows that no matter how far technology gets, their history will never be forgotten and the sacredness will always be preserved.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 18

Image
Today we woke up early to attend a Buddhist fire ritual. I grew up in a Christian household and have never experienced any other religion before, so I was intrigued for this. The ceremony was performed by two monks, one by the main table and another by the gong instrument. They both recited prayers while the monk by the main area kept adding wood to the fire. The fire got larger as they both started chanting louder and faster, which was a cool touch to the ceremony. I felt it wouldn’t be polite to take pictures or videos, so I don’t have any pictures of the ceremony. After the ceremony, we went to Reihokan Museum. I loved the location of this museum. Several of the museums we’ve visited so far usually are surrounded by whatever city we are in, which is what made this one a little different. It was nice to walk around and be able to enjoy what I was seeing more. I also liked this museum because it had so many cool artifacts. It was interesting to see how the art style and materials used...
Read more

May 20

Image
This day was my favorite day in Kyoto. We started by visiting a museum. The grounds of this museum had a pretty garden on it. We then went to Kiyomizudera and it was amazing! There was a little bit of an incline and some steps as we walked, but nothing we weren’t used to. I was so in love with the view, I didn’t even mind the huge crowd that was there. Eventually some classmates and I saw snow cones and decided to get some. They were bigger than we thought and were a good price. After this, we went to to Gion to shop around-there were so many shops so I definitely will be coming back here! It was hard to see because of all the people, but the buildings are the ones I always see in pictures when I Google Kyoto. They are traditional type buildings, which is so cool. I also noticed a lot of Japanese women wearing kimonos, as well as some men. We went to Yasaka Shrine, and our last stop was Shijo Kawaramachi. Originally, a couple of us girls were going to rent kimonos to wear. By the time...
Read more