Day #3

We woke up and went down to breakfast in our hotel. Breakfast was part of the hotel fee and I was surprised to see we were being seated in a restaurant type place....Japanese style of course!! I was even more surprised to see what our "waitress" was bringing to us for our breakfast. She came over with a tray full of many small and mismatched (but extremely pretty) bowls, plates, etc. These plates and bowls carried food I had never seen before. Hope tried to explain to us what each thing was. What I remember was we got an "omlette" which was a small 1 inch in diameter cube of egg that was sweet. We also got dried seaweed in thin little strips which you were suppose to wrap around rice that was in a plastic bowl with a cover on it to keep it warm. You were also suppose to dip the seaweed wrapped rice in this sauce. I didn't dig the seaweed...the rice was fine though! :) There was also some ginger thing that was suppose to clean your palette in between courses but Hope told us that it was nasty so I didn't try that. There was also Mizo Soup that was made from fish stock and big thick noodles that looked like worms. I didn't know it had fish stock in it until the end of the trip but that is probably why I didn't like that either. ICK! The wierdest thing that was given to us for breakfast was FISH!!! Salmon was given to us later on in our meal. I couldn't believe it....it was cooked with so much salt or something in it that you needed to drink in between each bite but they only gave you a small amount of orange juice to drink.



So basically breakfast was NASTY and that was the first and last time I ate it in Japan. I instead ate my granola bars each morning....thank goodness I brought those granola bars!!! :)

After breakfast we walked back to the train station and hopped their version of the T and went to Taito City (a prefecture of Tokyo) and saw the Asakusa Kannon Temple. This was a place with a lot of shopping and a temple at the end. This is actually how a lot of the temples were set up (shopping leading up to the temple). We were in heaven seeing all the stuff we wanted to buy. We were a little concerned that we were shopping the first real day out in Japan because we knew that we would have to carry whatever we bought around with us for the rest of the trip...but we also didn't want to miss out on buying something either. It was "Golden Week" as well which is a religious holiday week for the Japanese. This is actually the worst time to go visit Japan because everyone is off of work and everything is crowded and overbooked but we didn't seem to think it was that bad. We did get to see a lot of kids running around and having a good time. All the kids were shopping with their friends and family and visiting the temples. The temple at the end of this shopping street was the first one we entered this trip. We stopped by a fountain where you were to take a cup full of water from the fountain and dump it on your hands into the bottom part of the fountain (so as to not contaminate the "cleansing water"). This is to cleanse you before you go into the temple.



A Japanese guy came over to us eager to practice his English and told us to drink the water and we'll be cleansed on the inside as well. We laughed thinking that he was kidding but Hope later told him that he wasn't kidding....oops! :) We went into the temple to find an alter type area where people were throwing in coins and praying.



There was also an area to get your fortune. You put 100 yen (less than $1) in this locked box and then grabbed this metal cylindar, shook it up, turned it over and it gave you a stick with some Japanese writing on it. Hope then matched the Japanese writing on the stick to the wall of small drawers. Once we found the matching drawer you opened the drawer and took out a piece of paper with your fortune. I got the best fortune you could have (I'm hoping that this good fortune carries through for a while...hehe!) Rachel also got a good fortune. To my surprise you could actually get bad fortunes. This fortune is actually one of the favorite things I got from Japan....usually things like that are...the non commercial, small things. We walked around more and I noticed a sign that was brightly colored and had a picture of an octupus on it and asked Hope what was at the booth. She told me that they were selling octupus balls to eat!!! NASTY!!! At one booth there were a bunch of teenage girls. The man running the booth was talking to them and they were all giggling. When he spotted us he tried his hardest to get us to come over to buy whatever he was selling (I think it was some sort of snack or candy) and all the girls were looking at us and still giggling. Very odd.

We shopped our way back and I ended up buying a cute red purse that I have been using since I got back from Japan. They had them in all different colors and patterns. Hope and Rachel bought one too. Hope and I got red ones and Rach got a blue one. I don't think Rach has used hers yet. I fear I'm going to lose or ruin mine but I love it!

Next stop of our day was the Imperial Gardens (we took the subway again). This part of Tokyo reminded me a lot of Washington DC and it was eerily quiet because most of the companies were closed for the holiday. We weren't quite sure where we were suppose to go to get to the Imperial Gardens. Hope tried to ask directions and we were kinda sent on a mini goose chase but we made it there eventually. It was very beautiful.



The trees especially were cool they are shaped so uniquely....so different from in the US. We got to see some large Koi fish too. Unfortunately you can't actually see the Imperial Palace because the royal family lives there and it's under a lot of security.

Ginza, the shopping district of Tokyo, was our next stop. I really didn't feel like I was in Japan at this time nor much before this so I was a little disappointed in the trip so far. Tokyo just seemed like New York City except with Japanese people and signs that we couldn't read. It was not much different from home. We walked in a few department stores and in the Sony building where we frolicked with the robotic dogs who love the color red *hehe*. Hope went to say "hello" to the robotic dog and it started to go NUTS and then the other dog on the table started to run to her and went nuts too. After a few minutes of laughing the lady doing the demonstration told Hope that it's sensored were attracted to the color red which was the color of the t-shirt Hope was wearing. :) The Tokyo Tower looks exactly like the Eiffel Tower and is suppose to be a replication of it.

This night for dinner I tried eating Mizo Soup and some fried pork thing. It was just not working!! ICK!!! The fried mushy crusty stuff just was no holds barred friedness. There is no such thing as low fat in Japan I swear. McDonalds seems way healthier than most of the Japanese meals. I ended up taking only a few sips of my Mizo Soup and scraped all the friedness off of my pork which ended up being the size of a playing card. The pork without the friedness was good. We had fun videoing each other eating and listening to everyone around us slurp. Slurping is considered complementary to the cook.

We decided to dress up in the robes, belts and slippers that were provided by the hotel and take some funny pictures. Oh you are suppose to use the hotel slippers to walk around your room and then there are seperate bathroom slippers for the bathroom. Some more Japanese traditions that we learned as we experienced them. :)