We had a short rest stop on the way to Nikko and I caught a fish there!

Hahah just kidding, this is a Japanese pastry called Taiyaki which has red bean paste filling inside. Very yummy

I also bought some other Japanese snacks to try during the day.

Wow I didn’t mean to have consecutive food pictures, but here is the lunch that was included with the tour. There was soup, tempura, salad, rice and some other things I can’t quite remember..

The Toshogu Shrine

The sculpture on the right is called The Imaginary Elephant, because the sculptor/painter who made it has never seen a real elephant before. The sculpture is how he imagined an elephant to look like, a horse like tail, clawed feet, funnel shaped ears and fur!

Here’s myself, Claire, and Cassandra copying the pose of the famous Three Wise Monkeys carving. Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil!

Shinkyo, aka the horse stable is where the monkey carvings are found.

I love how the leaves are growing on top of the lantern. Looks neat

Yōmeimon gate.

All of the buildings had such beautiful detail.

One of two statues guarding the Omotemon Gate.

I saw a few of these around the shrine.. some rocks that seem to form a turtle, kinda cute!

Leaving the shrine and going to see a few other highlights of Nikko.

Taken from the bus window.

We stopped at Lake Chuzenji for a little bit.

I want to ride the swan boat!!

Photo taken from bus window, driving away from the lake and going to see the waterfall next!

Our last stop of the tour was the Kegon Waterfall.

Some cats in rocking chairs we saw at one of the souvenir shops! They start rocking and meowing when you clap. aaahahaha cass’s laugh in the background

Once we got back to our hotel, we went and explored the Shinjuku area in search of something to eat for dinner.

The front desk of our hotel was extremely helpful and gave us a map of places to eat in the area, we were in the mood for some sushi!

We also went up to the observatory at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building to check out the view of the city. It’s free to go up and is also one of the best views of the city!

The next morning we went up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building again, this time at the South Observatory and to see the view in the daytime!

We had some time to spare until we had to catch our flight home at 6pm so we decided to venture to Harajuku once more. Our main mission was to find the BAPE store to pick up something for our friend. It was so hard to find, we got lost and were given the wrong directions twice!

The inside of the Bathing Ape store..

The Louis Vuitton storefront along Omotesando in Harajuku. So nice!

It was such an amazing trip, not quite long enough though! I’m dying to go back already! Hopefully I’ll learn some Japanese before going again so I’ll have an easier time communicating with the people! I’d also like to see more of Japan like Kyoto, Osaka and also see the Japanese cherry blossoms in bloom! Not sure when I’ll go back, but I’m certain I will! Japan is an awesome place and I love it ♥ :). Sayonara Japan!

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my Japan trip! Now it’s time to move on and post about different stuff! No more travel posts for a while, I’ve used up all my vacation days for this year haha. :(

That’s all folks! Come back soon.

This is the Chowaden Reception Hall. It’s where official state ceremonies and functions are held. This is where the Imperial family appears for every new year and for the Emperor’s birthday.

We were given English audio guides and the Japanese tour guide would shout out “Engrish audio guideo, number __!!” to tell you to listen to whatever audio track that corresponded to where we were in the tour. It was awesome.

Look at that pretty fence.

These look like Dr Seuss trees! Don’t know what exactly they are.. maybe bonsai or black pine, or something.. haha I tried to google it but I’m not sure.

Moats surround the palace grounds and this one is covered with lotus leaves.

Here are my friends being fascinated by the stone wall.

After the tour, we were free to explore the East Garden of the palace.

Look at that vine goooo!

I love the contrast of the city in the background with the large traditional stone walls.

I love lamp. This lamp is absolutely beautiful! Look at all the little details.

This looks like a bonsai tree.. but.. not sure! Biggest bonsai tree I’ve seen was barely a foot tall and it was already 500 years old! hmm

A sign we saw as we were leaving the Imperial Palace. We’re leaving! Geez ya don’t have to be so rude! Off we go to Ryoguko, aka Sumo town! HAI!

These two swans were swimming in the moat.

The sign said ‘No Bicycles Parking’.

Here we are at the Sumo Museum. You can buy tickets to watch a sumo match here! I wish we had the time to watch one while we were there.

At the Ryogoku train station. I took a stalkerish photo of these Sumo wrestlers buying tickets, they take the train too!

We managed to get a picture with these sumo wrestlers, or sumos in training, I duno! HAHAH oh man I used my ‘Point-and-speak’ and pointed to the ‘Can we take a picture’ diagram. He gave a weird look and just said “hai…?”(yes?) and after some embarrassing camera difficulties this is the result! I still feel silly for asking them, they must have thought we were some weirdo tourists! lol

This is our dinner for the day! We tried the tempura from the restaurant ‘Aoi-Marushin‘ in Asakusa. It is the largest tempura restaurant in Tokyo, it was pretty good and extremely filling. The tempura batter and taste was a bit different than what we were all usually used to though.

Here’s the famous ‘Kaminarimon’ (Thunder Gate) in Asakusa! A very popular destination for tourists and it’s where the Sensoji temple is located.

The street leading up to the temple was filled with shops where you can buy all sorts of Japanese Souvenirs.

In the marketplace I spotted these! I wasn’t supposed to take a picture as you can see with the sign there but I just had to sneak one! Uhhhhmm… what are these things?! Crazy booby jello treats?! wtf!? hahaha!

Here are some traditional Japanese souvenirs that I bought from Asakusa:

Daruma Nesting Dolls

Kokeshi Doll ♥

We got to the temple and got our fortunes! Here’s Cass shaking up the thing with fortune sticks inside. Whatever numbered stick that comes out of the tiny hole is what fortune you get! You find the drawer with your number on it and take your paper fortune.

Here is my fortune! It’s just regular. :T

Cass tying her fortune on the wire.

Now off to Akihabara aka Electric Town!

Akihabara is where you can find all sorts of electronic goods along and is also the center of the anime/manga, gaming, and animation culture.

We stopped at a KFC to rest our feet for a little bit and showed our patronage by ordering this. Turned out to just be flavoured icechips haha. Still refreshing nonetheless.

We went into this store called AsoBitCity and inside was a bunch of gamer/anime stuff, but on one of the floors I saw these pullip dolls! Normally I’m extremely creeped out by dolls, and actually the majority of these dolls here look quite creepy, but I simply fell in love with this one:

Her name is Maretti and I think she’s so adorable. I love her pink hair and her dress is the cutest! She has the moon in her eyes too :3 She’s still in her box in these pics so they’re not the best photos of her but I’ll probably take better pictures of her later! ^.^

Time to call it a day! These freakishly long posts directly reflect the extremely long days we had while we were there. So jam packed of fun times! Ahhh, off we go back to our hotel and resting for our last full day in Japan.. *tear* Next post (possibly last post of Japan) will be our day trip to Nikko!

Here’s Goofy giving an autograph to some kiddies and taking a picture with them! The kids are so adorable! Is it weird I took a pic of them with Goofy?! lol I didn’t want to wait to take a photo with him.

Here’s a cool thingy outside of the park it was called the AquaSphere. It turns slowly and water runs over it. I see my next dream destination on the globe, Australia! harhar Maybe I’ll go and visit Lam! :P

Stole this pic from Cass! We finally asked someone to take a photo for us! It was a friendly Disney worker. Actually all of the Japanese people we encountered were so nice, I don’t know why we were so afraid to ask them! Oh yeah, that darn language barrier. :X

As you can tell by the parks name, DisneySea had themes related to ‘myths and legends of the sea’. There weren’t any live animals like Sea World or anything, but it was a very beautifully designed park.

Spotted some more Characters walking around! I don’t think we even saw any roaming around in Disneyland. Does anyone know who that character on the right is? I have no idea..

These are some buildings in the ‘Mediterranean Harbor’. hmmm I just noticed that abandoned stroller when editing the pic…

The Mysterious Island theme port. We went on the ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ ride here which was pretty neat.

There were always some things to look at while waiting in line for the rides. Here’s a cool looking bird thing seen while waiting for the ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ ride. That ride was my favourite out of all the rides in both parks.

Here is the Mermaid Lagoon themed port. It was so dream like in there, I love the Little Mermaid theme.

This is the Sleepy Whale Shoppe! I got a few goodies/gifts from there.

We got a FastPass for the Indiana Jones: Temple of the Crystal Skull ride. We were pretty excited since the Indiana Jones ride in LA rocks, but this one seemed a bit jerky and at the end there was that same huge boulder rolling at you! Sorry for spoiling, but umm that doesn’t happen in the Crystal Skull movie does it?! Haha I was confused and disappointed.

Here’s our ride photo! We’re in the middle row. Claire was scared the huge boulder was going to squish us! We always wanted to do a cool pose for the camera but never knew when the picture was coming! The people behind us were posing haha

We came across this show while walking and decided to sit down and watch. It’s not the best view but the rest of the spots were extremely crowded already.

This show was called ‘Legend of Mythica’ and it was about the fantastic tales of friendship and sorrow between humans and the legendary creatures.

They had a unicorn! yay

Here’s Mickey on top of the main float. All the other floats had different characters on them, Minnie, Pluto, Chip N Dale, Donald, and Goofy.

We continued on to the Tower of Terror after watching the show. Eeek! (jk)

You can hear people screaming on the ride from down here. I’ve been to the one in LA so I wasn’t scared. It’s a fun ride! haha

This area was called the ‘American Waterfront’.

Here’s our dinner that we shared from ‘Cafe Portofino’ in the Mediterranean Harbor. We had some spaghetti, roast pork and beef, salad.. It was all sooo delicious.

The volcano lights up at night. This is where the ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ ride is. At the end of the ride you shoot out of the volcano and you have a view of the park for about a second before going back down.

After our dinner we decided to watch the BraviSEAmo show in the Mediterranean Harbor. It’s a store about two element spirits, Fire and Water, and how they fall in love! (aww)

It was a very impressive and beautiful show.

Can’t be a Disney show without fireworks!

I made a video with a bunch of clips from the BraviSEAmo show for you to enjoy.

Love the Japanese Mickey voice! hahahah *huHU! BraviSEAmooooo!*

At the end of the show we went to ride Journey to the Center of the Earth one more time before the park closed. Still awesome the second time!

The ‘Mediterranean Harbor’ at night. You can see the ‘Tower of Terror’ in the distance, so eerie looking. You can also hear faint screams coming from it too! haha

That marks the end of our Disney adventures! I’m sure I’ll be back to the visit park when I ever go back to Tokyo, but I’ll probably just go to DisneySea though! Hope you enjoyed reading about the Disney parks. Coming up for the last bit of my Tokyo blogs, temples and more! Be sure to check back. (:

Yum yum, it was very tasty udon. Mine came with egg on top of chicken and rice too, such a filling breakfast. *slurrrp*

After our breakfast, we took the train to the Disney resort. The brown building is a gift shop called Bon Voyage, and it’s designed like a humongous suit case!

Walking to the park, we were all excited!

My friend Claire has never been to any Disneyland before, so she was super hyped! (Cass and I have been to the LA one before.)

We got each got a 2 day passport for ¥10000 (approx. $120CAD.) There are two parks at the Disney resort, Disneyland and DisneySea. We decided to go to Disneyland first because DisneySea was newer, and we heard it was much nicer! Here are our tickets with an English map and entertainment guide! My ticket was the one with the Toy Story aliens! oooooOoOOooooooo

Mickey Mouse’s face made up of flowers! The three of us were not comfortable asking any of the locals to take pictures for us, so sorry there aren’t many pictures of the three of us. haha

Disneyland! We made it!! Just about everyone there was wearing some sort of Disney ears! They were pretty cute, I should have got a pair while I was there! hehe

Our first ride of the day was the Jungle Cruise!

All of the animals moved! It was pretty much exactly the same as the Jungle Cruise ride in LA’s Disneyland.

I love the elephants. There was actually a real animal in the ride, it was a duck sitting on top of one of the elephants! haha

The ride was all in Japanese, so we couldn’t understand all of the lame jokes hahah

It’s A Small World ride! The ride is good for when you want to get out of the heat, it’s also good for getting the annoying song stuck in your head! lol

Trying out the multiple exposure function on my cam! Turned out pretty neat.

Soo cool! A real life EVE and WALL-E, how adorable. ♥ I set this one as my desktop wallpaper!

Our feet, or at least mine, were getting sore already and it was barely even dinner time yet! Here’s our dinner that we ate in Tomorrowland. Cute meal!

Cassandra got some chicken(?) and scrambled eggs inside of a Mickey Mouse shaped plate!

I had fried chicken inside of a Chinese bun. Cutest ever, it was shaped like Mickey’s hand. It was really good too! mm

The sun was setting at the park. Overall, the park was very similar to the park in LA except it was a lot more spaced out. The line ups for the rides were brutal, over an hour wait for a 3 minute ride most of the time. I can’t believe people wait that long.. I can’t believe WE waited that long hahah. Oh well I guess that’s Disneyland for ya, at least we all still had a good time!

Cinderella’s castle at night, so pretty! The park was closing and we were all exhausted, it was time to go home and recharge for Day 2 of Disney!!

zzzzzzz Cass passed out on Claire’s shoulder! haha jk :P
Next up is Tokyo DisneySea!

This is a statue of the dog ‘Hachiko’. It’s a popular meeting spot and there were many people taking pictures of the statue. There’s a great story about this dog you should really read here on this wiki page.

They even made a movie based on it and it stars Richard Gere!

Once we finished taking photos of the beloved Hachiko, we crossed the scrambling intersection. It was madness! There were so many people crossing at once, and then an ambulance came and needed to make it’s way through. The people just kept walking and stopped maybe 1 foot away from the ambulance. Crazy people! We also lost our dear friend Claire during the process of crossing. Here she is on the otherside of the road. It was the only time we got separated during our trip! haha.

We weren’t sure where to go after the excitement of crossing the road, but we were all drawn into this one building after seeing all this sparkly Hello Kitty stuff! This is where you’d go if you wanted to ‘bling’ any of your belongings.. Hello Kitty style of course.

Walking to our lunch destination…. (after asking for directions!)

MOS Burger!!! We had to try their famous burgers while we there.

We all tried their Rice Burgers. Claire and I had the one with beef inside while Cass got the seafood one! mmm

A close up shot. Instead of using buns, they used rice patties! It was amazing! So tasty. Auhhh I am drooling just looking at this picture.

Went to shop some more after lunch.

A mascot handing out flyers! I can’t even read the flyers but I took one anyways because the mascot was so cute haha. In Tokyo there are lots of people all over the place who hand out flyers promoting different businesses. Sometimes they even hand out tissue packets too, and once we got oil-blotting sheets!

Ads at the train station. I liked the juxtaposition between pretty cartoon girl and the pretty model.

Harajuku! Here is the view of Takeshita Dori from the Harajuku train station exit! It was pretty crowded! yikes

We saw this cute looking store and went to check it out. They were selling donuts on the side.

Turns out it was a Tamagotchi store!! I didn’t know that until I saw these toys at the back of the store and I snuck a picture of them. They looked really cool because they had color screens. I would’ve got one but it cost almost 6000 yen! (approx. $65 US)

Walking down Takeshita Dori. We were there on a Sunday afternoon so we saw quite a few people dressed up in their goth, punk, cosplay, or lolita getups. I didn’t manage to get a picture of any of them unfortunately, but if you google Harajuku fashion, you’ll get the general idea! =P

Daiso! A popular chain of 100 yen shops. They sell lots of household items there. I love visiting the one in Vancouver!

While walking along the street I noticed a spot where you can take purikura photos! We couldn’t go to Japan and not take one of these pics so here’s ours! It’s me, Claire and Cassandra! *kawaii!!*ヾ(＾∇＾)♪

After our purikura photos, we came across the crepe stalls! These two stalls were right beside each other! I was excited to try some of the crepes from Harajuku. Both stalls looked good but we decided to go with the stall on the right, Marion Crepes.

MMMmm, they tasted as good as they looked! I got the one with strawberry icecream, whip cream, and bananas with strawberry sauce and sprinkles on top!

More of Takeshita Dori. Just realized the name of the street is pretty funny haha

A crazy looking costume shop in Harajuku! I ended up getting my costume for Halloween this year from Harajuku! Not from this store though, lol.

Elmo overload!

It was dark out when we were finished walking down Takeshita Dori. We ended up crossing the main road Meiji Dori and found out how much more there was to see in Harajuku! Unfortunately the shops would be closing soon so we didn’t have time to see all the shops we wanted to..

Ohhh Forever 21! ♥ Right next to it was H&M and further down the street was a TOPSHOP. Geeze so many good stores! We’d have to save these stores for another day because we were set on finding the Kiddy Land store before it closed!

Kiddy Land is an amazing toy store in Tokyo with 6 floors and filled with all sorts of Japanese character goods and toys! Each floor you’ll find something different, it was a lot of fun to explore. There’s a floor for just Hello Kitty stuff! As big a fan of Hello Kitty I am, I wasn’t too excited to see all that Hello Kitty stuff while I was in Japan, there was just so much of it that it sort of lost appeal for me! (I still love her though! Just in smaller amounts haha.) I found a new favorite character though, and her name is Korilakkuma aka. Relax Bear!

It came with a reversible ’sleeping bag’ with polka dots on one side and soft pink fabric on the other. I love it!

Some other Rilakkuma goodies I got. A 2010 Calendar, stickers, and ear phones!

I also got a Mameshiba Edamame keychain! Check out a video I recorded of it below, complete with sound effects by yours truly haha!

Pooped from another long and exciting day. Our feet felt like they were being stabbed by a thousand pins and needles! Eeeek. I love ya Tokyo, but you’re killing our feet! haha.

Thanks so much for reading! Please leave me some awesome comments while you’re here! Coming up for the next post, DISNEYLAND!!