Saturday October 7, 2017
After all of the excitement last night, we leisurely set out later than normal. Today we are heading out to meet up with Allyson. She is a friend of Leslie who has been living in Tokyo for a while working at an embassy. We were looking forward to having someone show us a more “local” side of Tokyo rather than the tourist side. The last time we had sort of a local guide was when Jonathan showed us the ropes back in March 2004.
We decided to meet up with her at the Kinshichō train station and then head to the St Marcs Cafe nearby to get some chocolate croissants and beverages before setting out for the day. It was then off to see the sights and she decided to take us to the Senso-ji temple. At first we didn’t know where she was taking us and we were not really paying attention to where we were going. Once we got out of the metro Daniel and I looked at each other and were like, ” isn’t this where we were yesterday?” We laughed when we realized we were in fact at the same exact spot as the previous day.
After leaving the temple, we decided to head over to the electronic markets in Asakusa. I didn’t really need anything but it was nice to look around to see what was there. We also ventured into some music stores just to see what they had as well just to look at some shops that had pop culture merchandise. I was actually surprised to see a Carl’s Jr in this section of Tokyo. I did not know they even had Carl’s Jr in Japan!
We spent some good amount of time in the area before setting off to see Roppongi and the Minato sections of Tokyo. We visited a shop called Don Juan which is a discount store that had most everything and we were delighted to discover a new place to go shopping. They have everything from cheap electronics as well as costumes and all sorts of items between. Hungry, we ended up having dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. I had no idea they had an Outback here in Tokyo and it was a welcome surprise. Between Carl’s Jr and Outback I feel like I am home again.
To cap off the night, we wandered around the area and eventually ended up at Tokyo Tower to get some night shots around the neighborhood. I know its a really ritzy area with a lot of embassies and I really hope to be able to stay in this section of Tokyo one day. I love all of the trees and the relative sanity of the area. Of course it might be because it was late at night.
After a long day of slogging around, it was time to say goodbye to Allyson as we walked her back to her apartment. Thankfully, there was a metro station not too far away that was an easy connection back to our apartment. Time to get ready for our three days at Tokyo Disney Resort.
