Tokyo Weekend, Part Two

one lone swan in the moat

Before we took a rest Saturday afternoon we made one more stop across the street from our hotel.  We walked over to the Imperial Palace gardens (past the very palace-like moat and stone wall) and took some photos.  The palace is where the Emperor and Empress of Japan (who are adorable, btw) live with their family.  You can't go in the palace or even close to it, but you can walk through the extensive gardens surrounding it.  I think on a couple of days in the year (New Years and the Emperor's birthday, maybe?) you can go closer than usual---those are popular days for visits.

After some picture-taking we headed back to the hotel for awhile.  Then we went back to Naka-Meguro to try to get some of that elusive Mexican food.  Fortunately we enjoyed walking through the area (since we did it several times) because it was quaint and everything stayed open really late.  The streets were lined with hat shops, vegetable stands, clothes boutiques, tiny restaurants, tiny drugstores and antique shops.  Finally, we managed to get into the hopping Junkadelic for some burritos and Coronas.  It was pretty good...not the quality of Mexican food you find in South Carolina but it hit the spot.

One thing I was looking forward to was seeing Tokyo all lit up at night like you see in pictures.  However, once it got dark we realized we were going to be disappointed.  Since the goverment is asking everyone to save energy only the most necessary lights are kept on at night.  So it's not all that spectacular, although we were staying in the quieter Chiyoda area rather than some of the hotspots which may have made a difference.  But we noticed a lot of Christmas-type lights and bare bulbs on the streets of Naka-Meguro that weren't lit up either.  Hopefully we'll be here long enough to see everything light back up again.

The next morning, because of a little incident involving Chad's iPhone the previous night, we headed to the cell phone store in Shibuya.  We didn't spend much time there because we were exhausted and on a mission but I took a few photos.  Shibuya stood out to me because the streets were tree-lined.....some articles you read say it's a financial district and others say it's a party town.   Who knows.....after Chad finished at the cell phone store we hopped on the subway and headed back home.  But....I think we're making a trip to Ginza next weekend (about that dang phone) so check back!
  

the Imperial Palace at sunset across the
Nijubashi Bridge

Imperial Palace gardens

Junkadelic was a total hole in the wall....when closed
they pull down metal shutters and it looks abandoned

Shibuya...that is a condom store on the right....

Shibuya...just like downtown Greenville,
right?  ;D

Tokyo Weekend, Part One

This past weekend we wanted to go to Tokyo and couldn't agree on whether to go to the Imperial Palace (me) or Roppongi (Chad).  So we spent Saturday night in a hotel and did both!  (Our justification was that our 3rd anniversary was a few weeks ago and we did nothing to celebrate.)

We did so much that I can't cram it all in one post so I'll spread it across two.....we stayed at the Peninsula Hotel which turned out to be really nice and well worth the cost. The service was great and the room was great (there was a TV to watch while in the bathtub...fancy ;)).

On Saturday we went to Roppongi first for a little while and just looked around.  Roppongi is known for being where foreigners go in Tokyo.  There is an Outback, Tony Roma's, TGIFriday's etc....also a lot of bars and nightlife.  Supposedly it's like Chinatown in New York but Americatown in Tokyo instead.  But honestly other than the restaurants, and there being a few more foreigners wandering around, it wasn't all that American.  The views were great though, especially of Tokyo Tower.  (The Tower is supposedly super crowded on weekends so I'm lobbying for a future weekday trip to actually go up in it.)

I already mentioned the problem with finding Mexican food in Japan but Chad did some research and located what someone said was the best Mexican restaurant in the city.  It was way out in a 'burb called Naka-Meguro on the west side of the city.  So we traipsed out there for lunch to find that they are open for dinner only.....we ended up going back to Roppongi and wandering, starved and forlorn, into the Hard Rock Cafe like a couple of tourists. But I had a cheeseburger for lunch that tasted like America. The Hard Rock Cafe was crawling with Americans.  More than I've seen since we've been here.  The menu was in English and all the waiters spoke it perfectly....it was a little bizarre.

After that we had a rest in the room and checked out the pool and then continued our adventures (we didn't give up on that Mexican food).  More photos on Shutterfly and come back tomorrow for the rest of the tale!

me next to a rose sculpture in Roppongi Hills...you can just see 
Tokyo Tower to the left above the trees

we had a nice view of the Sky Tree
from our room

there's also a giant spider sculpture
in Roppongi Hills

Naka-Meguro was a quaint little town

the peninsula hotel

i love Tokyo Tower

a dude was selling cute bonsai from a cart on the street

Happy 4th of July!!

I've gotten a lot of feedback from everyone saying how awesome life in Japan seems to be. And for the most part it is pretty awesome. ;) However, before you all start applying for visas, here are some things to consider (roughly in order of most to least annoying and subject to change):

My Top Ten Least Favorite Things About Japan

1. The government is eventually going to make me take their ridiculous driving test to continue to drive on their ridiculously narrow roads.
2. (Rice) paddy fields breed mosquitos like crazy.
3. The humidity is wreaking havoc on my skin.
4. I can't go to the library.
5. Mexican/Southwestern restaurants are virtually nonexistant outside the largest cities and even there they are notoriously bad. I'd pay $50 for a Moe's burrito right now.
6. $25 for a couple of American hotdogs. More if they are Skin's hotdogs.
7. Imagine trying to.....give a delivery man directions to your house....order a pizza on the phone....get your McDonald's hamburger without onions...ask an attendant why the turnstile won't take the train ticket you just bought....tell a door-to-door salesperson to go away.....make a doctor's appointment....all in Japanese.
8. The cashiers at the grocery store are super stingy with plastic bags to carry your purchases in. No matter how much you buy they rarely give you more than two and then look at you like you're a greedy American.  (They give you the bags, but you bag it yourself.)
9. I can only throw away paper once a month.
10. Did I mention it's hot, humid and buggy?

In the name of fairness I'll follow soon with a post of my favorite things about Japan but for today...Hooray for the USA in all it's wide-roaded, Mexican restaurant-ed glory! ;D