Tokyo Day 3 & 4

Yesterday, we slept in a bit to recharge our batteries (in both senses) then grabbed a wonderful Japanese brunch at the famous Ueno Yabu Soba (since 1892!). Continued on foot to Ueno Koen (park), with its beautiful and vast lotus pond (Shinobazu-ike) and Benten-do temple right in the center of the pond. By this time, we felt much more masterful of the Tokyo subway system (map below) and had smartly bought the most useful one day pass (TOEIC & Tokyo Metro for ￥1000).

Tokyo subway map, plus my stamp print from the Tokyo Nat'l Museum

From the park, we walked to Tokyo National Museum where we made our own postcard-size Japanese stamp prints of the famous big wave art print (see bottom of Tokyo subway map photo, above). Favorite exhibit: samurai swords

Yellow Watermelon!

Later on we went back to Shinjuku to get dinner and wander through the classic Tokyo-at-night scene. At one point, we even found ourselves in the middle of Kabukicho, Tokyo's most notorious red-light district.

Tokyo: Shinjuku area

We indulged in the general sensory overload for quite some time, but we were all happy to head back to our hotel for a bath and more sleep after yet another long day of walking all over Tokyo.

Today we took it easy and visited the Metropolitan Government Offices for a free visit to their observation deck.

Followed that up with a surprisingly "oishi" (tasty) brunch at "Jonathan's coffee & restaurant"... hooray for pancakes and beef stew omelette-rice with the ￥300 all-you-can-drink juice/coffee/tea bar!

now it's time for me to take a nap on the shinkansen (high-speed train)

Next stop: Osaka


(sent from my docomo phone)