Odaiba Gundam Project

In case you haven't noticed a theme here, Gundam is my favorite anime. So naturally, when I heard that there was going to be a full scale replica of the Gundam in Tokyo, I jumped at the opportunity to see it! I hopped on a train to head over to the man made island of Odaiba. The train ride was actually quite nice! I had to take a train that took me over on the Rainbow Bridge. It was a stunning sight! From there, I was met by a replica of the Statue of Liberty with Tokyo as the back drop.

I quickly walked over to the Gundam display. To my fangirlish delight, there in pieces was a to scale replica of my favorite mech (giant robot). It used to be erect by the Bandai museum. However, it was damaged in the March 11th quake so now it rests in pieces. First thing I did was get in line to get a picture sitting in the hand.

Such a happy nerd!

I stood around the Gundam for hours amazed by it's size and reality.

All the pieces laid out

The foot

The beam saber, it's weapon for hand-to-hand combat

The head and scale

Me with the head!

My entry ticket and food ticket. My entry ticket is advertising the newest Gundam series AGE and the food ticket is from the original Gundam. It has my favorite character Char <3

I spent the rest of the day wandering around Odaiba. There wasn't much else there besides shops and malls which was still pretty fun! I ate dinner at the Takoyaki Museum in Odaiba. It was so delicious! Octopus may be my new favorite seafood!

Takoyaki!

It was an excellent day. Even though the weather was rainy and cold, I had a blast!

Tokyo Day 4

My last day of summer vacation and in Tokyo :( I decided to hit up a couple of spots that I hadn't seen yet. First, I made my way back down to Harajuku. It was a Sunday so I wanted to see if people were dressed up or if the tourists and time had killed off that fad. Unfortunately, there was barely anyone dressed up and only one person who was dressed up was allowing pictures to be taken.

The one person allowing photos

After that, I headed over to the Meiji-jingu temple. It was very pretty! I especially enjoyed the walk over to the main temple. It was quite an amazing contrast to the scene of Harajuku located just minutes away by foot. My first stop was the gardens. Honestly, I was kind of disappointed by the gardens. I think that they must look prettier in the spring because there were barely any flowers. The coolest thing in the gardens was an ancient well that the emperor used to use. I got to wash my hands in it! It was a fun experience!

One of the largest tori gates in Japan.

The gardens

Ancient well

Meiji-jingu temple

After that, I headed over to the Roppongi area of Tokyo. My first stop was the Tokyo tower!

Me with the tower :)

It was basically like seeing the Eiffel Tower. I then went over to Roppongi Hills for some dinner and night life! I wanted to go there because all of the guide books I had said it was one of the most foreigner friendly places in Japan. They were right! Everything was in Japanese and English. This was a nice change for me for once since my Japanese is very poor. I had a great time! I found a little bar that was serving drinks for 300 yen (that's cheap!) and had a nice dance floor. About 50% of the people there were foreigners so I got to meet a lot of people who speak English! I also danced with a Japanese guy. It was an excellent way to end my Obon holiday!!

Tokyo Tower lit up with the moon

Yokohama

After 3 days straight of Tokyo, I needed a little break so I went over to Yokohama. I wasn't expecting too much because there were only about 4 things on my list of things to see there. It turned out to be really nice! I highly enjoyed my time there! The places that I saw were beautiful. The also reminded me of being back home on Navy Pier. When I arrived, I went straight to Yamashita Park. There, I just kind of walked around and enjoyed the view.

Fountain at the main entrance of the park

The park with the Marine Tower in the background

After eating some ice cream in the park, I decided to head over to the Marine Tower to see it up close!

Marine Tower

From the Marine Tower, I wanted to explore! There was an international docking terminal right next to the park. There was a observation deck there that had quite the view! I took a couple of panoramas of the city and sea.

I moved on to explore some more! I stumbled upon two more parks, the Red Brick Warehouse, and Yokohama Stadium!

Home of the Yokohama Baystars. Who wants to go to a game this year?!

 I ended my evening with a stroll around Yokohama Chinatown. It was huge! I ate a lot of amazing Chinese food and a dumpling that was almost the size of my head!

One of the ten gates that line the entrances

Walking down the main street.

The temple at the heart of Chinatown :) It was very ornate!

I loved this getaway from Tokyo!

Gundam Cafe Day! (Tokyo Day 3)

Today was the day that I let my nerd show proud! I've been reluctant so far in my journey to venture too much into hobby shops and whatnot because I wanted to establish myself where I live so I wouldn't just be THAT gaijin who is in Japan solely for anime and manga :P But today all that changed! It was my friends last day staying with me and we decided to spend the afternoon in Akihabara which is the big anime and video game area in Tokyo. The only condition that I set was that we HAD to go to the official Gundam cafe. For those of you who don't really know me, I am a HUGE Gundam nerd. It is my favorite series. I own about 30 models (and growing). It's kind of a weakness. She agreed and we were off. We spent the first half of the day walking around and shopping. There are many cosplay cafes in the area so we encountered many young ladies in costume :)

Anime EVERYWHERE!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Gundam Cafe!

A shot of the cafe

My drink! Notice the official emblem and the nutmeg Haro

A lady dressed in a Federation uniform took our order.

My food looks like a Zaku!

Gunpla-yaki with custard

Best day ever?! I think so.

Every thing was Gundam themed including the bathrooms! The ladies bathroom was themed as Char's Zaku. Here's a video of the bathroom.

It was a great day for my very nerdy self :)

Tokyo Day 2

Our second day in the big city was also pretty adventurous! We started off by heading to the Imperial Palace.

Me with the Palace

We weren't allowed to go inside the gates so we ventured over to the East Gardens (of the Palace). There actually weren't many flowers or anything in the garden. But it was still interesting to see. There were a TON of guard houses to see though.

One of the guard houses

A view of the gardens

After the gardens, we headed for Harajuku. Once there, we had a little dinner and walked and shopped down Takeshita Dori, the famous fashion street. I got a new dress! I'll have to put pictures up later.

The entry way to Takeshita Dori

We ended the night in Shibuya where we just kind of wandered around to see all of the night time lights.

The super busy crosswalk outside of Shibuya Station

Tokyo Day 1

This week I had off of work for Obon (summer vacation). I was in Tokyo almost everyday for it to see some of the sights and sounds! I wanted to organize these posts by days because I did a lot of sightseeing each day. Day 1 started with a my first train ride into Shinjuku Station. It was super easy because I can catch an express from my train station and be there in 45 mins. Shinjuku was actually not as packed as I thought it would be! It was HUGE but well laid out so I didn't feel claustrophobic. From there, I met some friends and we were off! We started the day b visiting Senso-ji temple. This is one of Tokyo's oldest and biggest temples.

The temple gate

The actual temple

The inside of the temple

Next, we headed for Ueno park. I had heard some good things about it and wanted to see what it was like. It ended up being pretty but smaller then what I had imagined.

Cherry blossom lane

We found another temple!

Water Lilly garden

After Ueno park, we headed back to Shinjuku. We ate a good meal at a bar and then did some karaoke! All in all, it was a very fun day!

Atsugi Summer Festival

This weekend I had a chance to go down to the Atsugi Summer Festival! It was a lot of fun! I got to see many new things and try a lot of good food. I think one of my favorite things was watching the people and seeing everyone dressed up in their summer kimonos! Here are some highlights:

There was a procession of family shrines down the streets. They were beautiful! It was awesome to see the families in traditional Japanese clothes.

Food Stands! Yum, yum!

My first festival food: Shaved ice! It tastes better here! Not quite as syrupy as the ones in the States.

I love this shot.

My second favorite shot from people watching.

A group of junior high students watching a J-pop group.

A Kabuki Magic show I stumbled upon.

Takoyaki! My new favorite festival food!

I uploaded some videos to youtube as well if you have time to check them out! They are about one minute each.
The shrine procession: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxGXMAD-eSs&feature=channel_video_title
The J-pop group performing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3sdt_foFls&feature=channel_video_title
The Kabuki Magic Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsxTJd5H0q4&feature=channel_video_title