040/02 - tokyo

Today we went to Nikko and Tokyo. Coming into Tokyo station was pretty neat as the amount of people, trains and activity were much more then anything we've seem so far. From Tokyo we took a train to Nikko, famous for their temples, tombs and mauseleums. We first dropped off our bags at the trainstation day locker. It took a lot of work fitting all 3 bags in 1 locker but we somehow managed.

On the walk to the temples we came across a guy selling charcoal grilled fish on a stick so we ate one, not bad. We first came up to shinkyo bridge and eventually to the shrine area. One temple was closed for a traditional rice eating ceremony but we didn't see it.

The places we saw were rinnoji temple, toshogu shrine, taiyuin temple, and futarasan shrine. The temples and shrines here were covered in gold leaf and intricate carvings and also had a strong Chinese influence. It was really cool to see. One of the more famous carvings here is of 3 monkeys covering their ears, eyes and mouth. We ate some cheap soba at the temple.

Back in Tokyo we checked into our capsule hotel. The "room" is pretty much a torpedo tube with bed, tv, and some other stuff.

We walked around akiba first and Dima found the same street singer as last year, which was neat. Next we went to Yodobashi Camera so I could buy a laptop, it was one of the harder experiences in my life. No one spoke English so asking about duty-free and return policy was tough. Eventually we spoke via altavista translator. The laptop is Japanese only so Dima is going to make it English for me.

We went to shibuya next to walk around and see the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world. Its crazy how many people are in Tokyo. We found a little ramen store there for dinner. It was probably the best ramen I've had and the broth was a milky white color, good stuff. After wandering around a little more we headed to our capsules as we had to meet keegans friend the next morning.