Museums, street markets, temples and sushi!
Yesterday I went to a place called Odaiba, the other side of central Tokyo... it was a bit of a mission to get to but after a tube ride, a train ride and about half an hour on a fully automated mono-rail type train called the Yurikamome, I found my way! I went there mainly to see a museum as it was chucking it down with rain so wanted to do something mostly under-cover! The museum I went to was the National Museum for Emerging Science and Innovation and it was absolutely fantastic, more than I had hoped for and thank god the information was written in English as well as Japanese! After that I went to Ueno again and had a coffee and watched the world go by, came back to my hostel for a bit of chillaxing (was feeling really tired!) and then I went out again in the evening to get some sushi and supplies from the local shop. Was in bed by about 11pm which is just as well as I was woken at 5am with the korean girls banging and crashing about in a mad flap to get packed as they had overslept and were due at the airport to fly to Moscow for the second part of their holiday! They still had time to take millions of photos of us before they left though! I got up about 6am as I was wide awake anyway and it was really nice to have the room to myself after they'd gone, to be able to shower and prance around in my pants listening to kenny rogers ha ha. I sorted out my stuff and cleaned and tidied the room so it's nice for the next girls that come in.. am a bit anxious about that, I hope they are friendly!!
After I had finished prancing about this morning, I went to reception and got a zillion maps in preparation for my mission not to get lost finding the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa (the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo). One of the maps I got actually had a walking route round the whole area of Asakusa so I decided to do that.... it was a really lovely walk (albeit veeerrrry long) and I saw loads of different things including the Sumida River, the river that rns through Tokyo. One of the streets I walked down was full of catering wholesalers and kitchenware shops and they had such random things! It is so random around here but I think that's one of the reasons I love it because I just find myself struggling not to laugh out loud at some of the things. Some man stopped me outside the temple earlier and said "hello my name is blablabla (some japanese name!) i would like to practise some english and then before i had chance to say anything he said "i am mechanical engineer, i live near Shinjuku with my wife and 2 children and I like to watch the football" haha it reminded me of french class at school! I said "oh very good" and said I was here on holiday and that I didn't speak much japanese. He asked me to tell him all the words I knew in Japanese which I did, and he translated them all into english. (YESSSS! at last, someone can understand my Japanese!! woopwoop!) Then he said "okay, thank you for the english practise, goodbye" ha ha it was very funny. Also I have been stopped by different 3 women today to ask me to get something or hang something up on a top shelf in their shops as they are all about 3 foot tall (maybe thats a slight exaggeration!) and I must seem very tall to them.
Anyway.. back to the temple, it was built in 7th century (although I think a lot of it was destroyed and re-built following the wars) and it is devoted to the Goddess of Mercy. It was really beautiful, especially the temple grounds and the road leading up to the temple (nakimise dori) which was lined with lovely little shops selling traditional japanese gifts, clothes and food. There was a giant incense burner outside the temple - apparently incense appreciation is one of many japanese arts and this incense is believed to have healing powers.
When I got to the temple, I said a little prayer and lit 2 candles and then set off on the rest of the walking route. When I got to the end of the route I decided to go a little further to see what there was... which was more cool street markets and a post office, so I changed my travellers cheques (stupid me had forgotten to sign them once i'd picked them up from the post office in england so there was a little trouble with that but got there in the end - everyone is so helpful in Japan, and most people seem to want to help)
Now I am resting my aching feet and tonight I am going out with Noriko - I meeting her at the JR station down the road and we are going to have Japanese food but i'm not sure what yet! I can't wait!! xx
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