While in Akihabara, we spent most of our time in a 8 floored hobby shop. By "hobby shop" I mean a big anime store. I just bought myself a small tree spirit from Princess Mononoke and called it a day. I came to the conclusion that Akihabara is 50% arcades and 20% adult stuff. The rest are restaurants and more family friendly anime merch.
After Akihabara we hopped on the train to Meiji Shrine. Meiji shrine is in Shibuya, and was built for Emperor Meiji and his wife. Going to see it was really interesting. First you're walking through urban Tokyo - with the huge buildings and narrow roads. When you finally find the park that holds Meiji shrine, all of a sudden you're in this completely different world with a huge dirt road, then the shrine, with trees surrounding it, blocking out the sky. It was gorgeous.
The shrine itself was impressive. Unfortunately part of it had some construction going on, so we couldn't really see those areas. They did have some good luck charm shops and this huge open area for people to roam around. They also had ema, which are small plaques of wood with designs on them. You can buy one and write your wish on it, then hang it out on a wall that surrounds this huge tree that's wrapped with a shimenawa (rope used for purification). I got my parents a good fortune charm as an apology for all the money I have spent on this trip. Grace got herself an ema and hung her own wish near the tree.
Grace's wish
Trees next to the wishes wall that's also wrapped in a shimenawa
After this we headed back to Harajuku! Once there, we treated ourselves to some crepes and went souvenir shopping. Here's where I say: mom, dad, I am sorry. I had a lot of people to shop for and it gets expensive. I got all my souvenir shopping done (except for one birthday present), so I promise the rest of my money will be spent towards food.
The street in Harajuku that we fell in love with.
So after our shopping excursion, we headed off to the Tokyo Skytree to meet up with the rest of our group!
When arriving to the station, we almost didn't want to leave. There are so many things to do inside! When first arriving, we walked by this huge titan head from the anime Attack on Titan. The skytree station highly advertised Attack on Titan and I couldn't have loved it more. I proceeded to get a selfie with the titan --
After this, we stumbled on a Pokemon center. There were huge figurines of some pokemon and I basically had to drag Courtney and Grace away since we had already told our teacher that we were heading her way.
I didn't drag them away before I got more selfies with pokemon, though --
So we finally met with our teacher, but we got to kill more time while waiting for the guys. Our teacher's children showed us some cool augmented reality games that were available, which essentially equated to us jumping around while staring at our reflection on this huge monitor. Grace went back to the pokemon center.
Finally the guys arrived, but Courtney and I had to go back and find Grace. We found her quickly enough, but we also got some free eevee headbands from one of the workers. Here's a cute picture of us.
We couldn't go up to the very top, as that was an extra $10. We did go to the first observation deck, which is 350 above the ground. Going up on the elevator popped everyone's ears.
Once up, we got to see Tokyo. You know how I said Tokyo is big? I wasn't lying. Tokyo is very big.
To top it all off, the skytree had a short viewing of Attack on Titan. Unique this viewing, they actually edited the Skytree into the anime so that it looked like the titans were attacking Tokyo Skytree. I was fangirling all over the place.
A picture of us before the anime showing.
Adachi-sensei was nice enough to send me this picture she got of the viewing :) I was too busy jumping around and filming it with my video camera to take pictures.
After the show was done, we ate at Mos Burger. Why did we eat at Mos Burger? This is the place that is mentioned in our Japanese book back at NAU, that's why. I can now tell my Japanese teacher that I ate an avocado burger at Mos Burger. It was very oishii.
So that was yesterday! Today was a complete work and rest day. I basically just left the hotel to get food, and I've been sleeping for the majority of the day. I know, I'm doing the exact opposite of what I said I'd do and stay at the hotel, but it was raining all day today and I was just plain sleepy. Also, there's some assignments due tonight.
Tomorrow will be the end of our excursion. We will be heading back to Kashiwa to drop off our things and then to Abiko for an oral exam. Wish me luck!
So glad your enjoying yourself!
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