Touring Tokyo
This past weekend, Stephen and I hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and went a few stops down the line to grand old Tokyo. Stephen has passed through the station on his way up north to one of the FHI factories for work, but neither of us had spent any time in the biggest city in the world. I expected to find it overwhelming and needless to say, not exactly a break from city life…
We arrived Friday night and stayed in a hotel in the Ginza neighborhood (this is where you can find all the big shopping 
). We are nerds so we decided to go check out one of the three Zoka’s now open in Japan (http://www.zoka-coffee.com/), it seems the owner in Seattle now has a business partner in Tokyo. Stephen and I met at the Zoka location in Greenlake and we were hoping to purchase some beans. After a nice cup of coffee and seeing that the beans were $32 bucks a pound, we passed on any more purchases and headed back to Ginza. We enjoyed dinner at a sushi bar which left me feeling a bit woozy. I guess I still can’t seem to handle seeing everything prepared in front of me raw… but it was tasty!
Saturday morning we woke up super early (5:00am) to go see the Tsukiji Fish market, it is the biggest seafood market in the world, supplying something like 80% of the fish that Tokyo eats. It wasn’t nearly as smelly as I was expecting and Stephen loved looking at all the live octopus, squid, and other fish. We also saw the frozen tuna auctioning….
After a nice hot shower and breakfast, we took off for a day tour of the city. The tour bus was packed and we moved through the sites quickly, but we were able to see the Meiji Shrine, the National Diet Building, the East Garden of the Imperial Palace (I guess the Emperor doesn’t like tourist inside his house), and Sensoji Temple. We then ate lunch overlooking a beautiful garden in “downtown” Tokyo which was actually near the Tokyo Port and then went off on a cruise of Tokyo Bay. It was a long day and needless to say we crashed a bit early.
Sunday we decided to head up to Ueno Park, which I guess reminded me of Central Park in NY. It was beautiful full of trees that hung over the wide walkways and in the park area are several museums. We spent a few hours in the Tokyo National Museum and enjoyed getting another peek into Japan’s past.
Beyond the specifics of the weekend, I found Tokyo to feel much more Western than our hometown of Nagoya. It was very green with parks all over the city which we just loved… we even saw some grass, not rice fields, but actual grass. I didn’t get to touch it or anything… but it was a welcomed site. It’s amazing the little things you can miss from home.
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