Welcome to Tokyo!

Last week from the 3rd to 6th, Joe and I went up to Tokyo. The purpose of the trip was not so much to see the city, but to see the people that we knew. And so, the first day we were met at the airport by our good friend Yumi, and soon were joined by Mike, Jiai, and Aki. So the six of us trekked around the city a little, making stops at: McDonald's to eat (Joe's suggestion, and a good one, since it was the last day of holidays, and all the "real" restaurants were packed), Harajuku, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro. To people who have never been to Tokyo, these names mean very little, so let me explain what the areas are known for, and what we did.

Harajuku is a MAJOR shopping area. (See if you can find Joe in the picture above. Click on it to see it full-sized. Hint: he's wearing an orange cap.) The streets are always packed, and a lot of the 'freaks' (people who dress like their favourite anime characters, etc.) come out even during the day! While we were there, a bunch of people were standing with signs quoting the Bible, and had loudspeakers with a recording playing, urging people to come to the Lord. Cool, but I couldn't help but wonder if anyone was actually listening. You had to be there, I guess, to see what I'm saying.

Shibuya is home of the famous "Hachiko Dog." Follow the link for his story. Anyways, Mike and I took a picture with it, and even though Joe is a big dog lover, he refused to have his picture taken with it! Well anyways, we didn't stay in Shibuya too long.

Then there was Ikebukuro. There's a huge shopping area there called Sunshine City, which has a lot of cool things. The most amazing of these was a place called Namja Mura (I think). Joe describes it as the weird island in the Scooby Doo movie. I haven't seen it, so here's what *I* think. What is the POINT of this place? SO weird... there's a gyoza market, an ice cream market (including Turkish ice cream and all sorts of weird flavours from around Japan - beef tongue ice cream, anyone?), a cat section (no live cats, mind you), a karaoke game (see photo below), a massage area, a haunted house, and all sorts of other things. Talk about weird!

Well, we stopped at Starbucks before heading our separate ways, and since all the seats inside were taken, we "roughed it" outside - the temperature was probably around 5C, so Starbucks supplies blankets for their customers. How sweet of them!