Traditional Wedding

Hi all!

So I was looking for some new pictures for the new post that I'm working on and I found this video that I had forgotten about. This was taken at Meiji Shrine the day I was there of the wedding procession. It's fairly short because people kept swarming around to take pictures. Enjoy!!

                                                             

Four Days

I'm going to warn you that this is a long text-oriented post covering roughly four days. Okay, you've been warned. 

Anyway. Thursday, June 21, was my first official day of working in the corporate offices at Co-Op. Rob and I met a little early before our first meeting so that we could check each other’s office attire and see if it was appropriate. I wore some brand new heels that my mom gave me and felt as though I was being smart by wearing sandals to commute. The commute was fine, but the second I put on my “office shoes,” (this was literally RIGHT OUTSIDE the front door of the office) I caught my left heel in a drain guard which caused the little rubber part of the heel that protects the metal screw of the heel to come off. Mom, if you’re reading this, I plan on taking those shoes to a cobbler when I have time and getting them fixed, don’t freak out and kill me, please. 

I think I mentioned what happened while we were at the office on Thursday (check post titled “The First Days”), so I’ll jump into Friday. 

We showed up to our second day at the office ready to hit the ground running. The first thing that our boss had us do was translate the company policy and union procedures from English into Japanese. Let me tell you, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Not necessarily because I couldn’t figure out what words or sentence structures in Japanese to use, but rather because it seemed like policy was originally printed in Japanese, then thrown into Google Translator for the English, then given to us in a jumble of confusion. The whole thing was a test by our boss to see our abilities and luckily, we both passed with flying colors. 

Our boss decided that that was enough at the office for the day and he took us to the University branches that would be our first assignment. Rob now works at Waseda University and I work at Keio University. Both Universities have reputations in Japan for being outstanding schools, so it’s been an honor to be able to work there. 

First, we stopped at Waseda where Rob met his supervisors. We were able to take a tour of the places and offices he would be working in. His campus is beautiful. There’s a gorgeous auditorium that’s the central focus of the campus and just behind it is a park that is seriously the greenest park I’ve ever been to. If I was a student at Waseda, I would make it mandatory to visit that park every day between classes. It was so amazing. 

I told you it was beautiful..... 

Once Rob felt comfortable at Waseda, we stopped at Keio University in the goonies of Tokyo. Ironically, it’s not even in Tokyo, but rather in Yokohama in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan. Not Tokyo. At. All (I'm bitter about my 6am commute). Keio is slightly smaller and older than Waseda with dated buildings, but the campus is still gorgeous. It is located right outside a subway stop and has a huge tree-lined road that leads to the main part of campus. It provides the perfect atmosphere for my morning and evening commute. When we arrived, I met the supervisor of the entire Keio Co Op. She was extremely tall for being Japanese, I was so surprised. She took me around to the cafeteria, convenience store and bookstore where I am stationed. 

At the cafeteria, I met my 店長(tenchou: branch manager) and who they introduced to me as スポート　(supo-to: support). They were both very friendly and explained the basic policies in the cafeteria. I’m not allowed to wear any jewelry, minimal make-up and my hair has to be up in a tight bun every day. They also showed me my shoe locker, regular locker, and the uniform I wear. I was very excited to start and thanked them profusely for the extensive instructions. Unfortunately, I have a tragus piercing in my left ear that I for the life of me could not figure out how to remove, so I broke the rule of no jewelry, and put a bandaid over it. (Shhhh.... don’t tell them, they didn’t even notice it.) 

After we left my school, we parted ways and headed home for the night. I was exhausted so I passed out immediately after dinner. 

So for the weekend, I didn’t do anything terribly extensive because I wanted to be refreshed and ready to go on Monday when I started my first assignment. 

Saturday I slept in (8:30 am WOO) and had breakfast with Rio. Rob’s host family had so graciously invited me over to their house for dinner on Saturday, so after I got ready, I met up with Rob to go alcohol and fruit shopping. I didn’t want to show up to their house empty handed, so I bought wine, whiskey, peaches and a watermelon.  After a long walk back to his house, we sat and skyped with some friends back home and blogged. 

When dinner was ready we went upstairs and met the neighbors who were joining us. They were so nice and had the cutest kids. One of Rob’s neighbors is a strict vegetarian, so I got in a big discussion about how hard it was for her to be disciplined when Japanese food has so much meat in it (meanwhile Rob’s host mom was serving fried chicken, shrimp, and meat, lol). We adults (it’s weird that I’m of drinking age in Japan) exchanged turns pouring each others drinks. I’ve only seen that done in Asian dramas, so it was so cool to actually do it in person! After talking a bit and eating and drinking our fill, I decided it was time to go home. One of the neighborhood kids, on the other hand, wanted me to read him a book about vegetables and translate all the vegetable names into their English equivalents. When I said it was getting late, he refused to get off my lap and started stuffing his face with chocolates that one of the neighbors brought over. When I finally pried him off me, I made my rounds to all of the neighbors and the family members and headed to the station.

He was so fidgety!

Much to my dismay, the Chuo Line that normally takes me home was down for the night, so I had to cab it back, making me super late. I called my host mother a billion times, apologizing profusely and she promised she wasn’t mad, but I think she was just being a typical Japanese person and not complaining about anything. 

On Sunday, my host family took me to my host dad’s favorite ramen place. The broth was made of pork bone and not the typical soy or miso that us Americans are used to. Hands down, without a doubt, that was the best ramen I have ever eaten in my entire life. I finished it in about 5 minutes, and I ate the entire thing (a normally impossible task for me). I am seriously obsessed with that ramen and cannot wait to go back to the restaurant. 

Host Father's Ramen, Nao's Ramen and Mine. Heaven-sent. 

After we finished lunch, Nao wanted to go to the mall and buy a friend a birthday present. We all went to the local mall and browsed. I loved the fact that there’s a Zara so close to my house (as opposed to the other ones I found in Harajuku and Shinjuku). I stay focused though on the fact that I want to go places and don't have enough room in my suitcase and didn’t buy anything. 

While we were there, there was a fan signing for a girl group that my host mom said as popular when she was my age. I couldn’t believe how young the girls looked for being almost fifty (curse you, good asian genes). They performed their new song and took pictures with their fans. We didn’t participate, but I got a good picture of the group that turned up to see them.  

Fan-signing.

We took a break in Starbucks to relax. The Starbucks in Japan are busy no matter where or what time you go. I don’t get it, their coffee is fine, not great though. After a round of frappuchinos (did I spell that right?), we headed to a revolving sushi bar. Oh my god it was so good. I have never been to one before, so it was truly a cool experience. I sat by my host dad and Rio and he set us up right. He would pull everything off the belt and put it in front of me. “It’s good, I promise” he would say. I’ve always been an adventurous eater, so I ate everything he put in front of me. The Natto (fermented soy beans) and the Uni (sea urchin) were the two that were the strangest to me. I really enjoyed the Natto, but the Uni made me want to throw up. I thanked him on his second offer of Uni, but declined to accept it. We headed home kind of early so that I could head to bed and get a good night’s sleep for work on Monday. 

Rio thoroughly enjoying her strawberries and cream frap. 

I’m finally caught up to this week! Yay for diligence and getting out of work early! :)

Lions and Tigers and... Maids?

So today, I’m on my third day of my internship and it’s going fantastic, but I’ll go into more detail about what i’ve been doing in my internship at a later date. 

I got great news from my mom this morning that she wants to come play with me in Tokyo after I finish my internship and before I go to Seoul! I seriously can’t wait to see her! I honestly thought it was going to be Christmas until I could see someone familiar from home. 

Anyway, I’ll dive straight into this weirdly titled post. After the sheer exhaustion of the previous day, I found myself having to meet my boss for the first time. He had called Rob to schedule a pre-internship meeting and to take us out to lunch. We, being broke college students in what is probably the most expensive city in the world, took him up on this offer. After stopping by the company and informally introducing ourselves to some of the fellow staff members , we headed out to grab lunch in Shinjuku. On the train we were discussing some of the places that we had yet to cross off our list with our boss and he happily suggested that we try Akihabara. Akihabara is known worldwide for cheap electronics and Japan’s anime and manga culture. Ironically, Akihabara is also the place that the previously mentioned group 64-member girl group AKB48 was founded. 

We grabbed lunch at a small sushi place in Shinjuku and talked for a while with the chefs and our boss. The chefs complimented both Rob and I on our ability to speak Japanese so well. We both denied profusely (a Japanese cultural practice) and said we were still learning. Once lunch was finished, our boss surprised us and took us to some Shinto shrines in Shinjuku and Akihabara. At the first shrine he took us to in Shinjuku, he showed us how to properly pray in the Shinto fashion. I felt a little foolish and ignorant since I (obviously) don’t practice Shintoism, but overall, I’m very glad that he taught us the proper way so that we could be more respectful to future stops. 

In Akihabara, he took us to some more shrines and an old Confucian school. I unfortunately left my camera at home that day, so I don’t have any pictures to share.

While we were shrine hopping, the sky opened up and Rob and I experienced the beginning of our first typhoon. Our boss decided to halt the shrine excursion and take us to an origami museum/paper-making factory. We happened to stumble across a class and decided to participate. The instructor was probably in his late seventies and was a frequent volunteer at the museum. He made origami look effortless. He would explain what he was making while inserting witty jokes and laughing with the observers. He noticed Rob and I were foreign so he folded us some souvenirs.  For me, a star brooch and for Rob, a paper dog. 

We decided the rain was too much after that, so we departed and headed home for the night. 

The next day was filled with the most random events. We first stopped in the “Electric City” in Akihabara, and walked around some department stores and anime/manga stores. The colors of everything in the electric city were so amazing. Being outside was like watching an LED screen. It was scorching hot after the typhoon and Rob pointed out a six story arcade that he wanted get lost in, so we decided that we would take a few minutes and play some Tekken. As much as I love video games, I am absolutely terrible at button punchers. I just sit there and punch the same button a billion times and lose instantly. Rob, on the other hand, was quite good. He got through a lot of the levels in the street fighting game. 

Akihabara's Electric City

Losing at Tekken

When we left the arcade, we decided to stop at a maid cafe that was close to the station. Maid cafes in Japan are huge. To me they are extremely strange, but Rob was in heaven. Basically the concept is that a bunch of twenty-something girls dress in french maid costumes wait hand on foot on their “masters” (or princess as I was so called). Every girls is adorable in a child-like way, has a voice that is probably ten times higher than normal, and sing and dance much to the enjoyment of their “masters”. I will never really understand how some guys could get turned on by that, but I digress..... Rob loved it. He couldn’t stop grinning and squealing. (Totally threw you under the bus there, Rob) The extremely unfortunate part of the experience was that they don’t allow pictures to be taken, so I ended up taking a picture of the food they served us. 

Turtle Matcha Flavored Ice Cream

Rob's Bear Curry

The biggest problem I had with the maid cafe was how expensive it was and not with the concept. To just sit there and not order anything was 1,000 yen. But with drinks, food,  polaroid pictures of the girls, and glowsticks (all part of a package you had to buy with the food) brought us out to around 6000 yen (over $60). Absolutely not worth it if you’re someone like me who’s not into older girls acting like they’re five years old. But it was an experience in Japanese culture nonetheless. 

Rob’s family gave him free-entry tickets to the Ueno Zoo so we headed to Ueno next. The park that the zoo was in was amazing. It reminded me a lot of Central Park, skyscrapers everywhere and locals relaxing in the nice weather. When we first entered the zoo, we checked out the ever-so-famous pandas that everyone hypes up (is there a zoo in the world that doesn’t hype up pandas?). They were lackluster, though, as were the rest of the animals. I’ve never been a huge zoo person, so I let my exhaustion creep up on me as we walked around. Rob, on the other hand, majored in Biology when he was at U of A, so he really enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, I was very appreciative to have received a free ticket to the zoo, but I always feel bad for the animals in the cages. 

Rob and I

Cute sign saying "Don't feed the animals"

Ueno Zoo!

Engrish is the funniest here in Japan. What exactly a "Jackass" Penguin is, I don't know.

There were two big parts of the zoo that I did enjoy though. The first was a huge pagoda that they had towards the front of the zoo. It was beautiful. The other was the giant lily pond in the center of the zoo. It held a lot of the zoo’s cranes and swans. With the skyscrapers surrounding it, it was a beautiful sight. After a quick pit-stop and an Asahi later, we decided that we had enough for the day and headed home.

Pit Stop. The lady passed out in the back is how I felt that day.

The Lily Pond and Tokyo.

Pagoda in the zoo!

On my way home, I stopped by the local shrine in my neighborhood and took a few pictures. It was so peaceful that I’m thinking about making it a frequent stop on my way home from work.

Sanctuary

Have a good rest of the week! :)

Pleasant Surprises!

Hello all!

So after my exhausting first day in Harajuku and Shibuya, I was able to meet up with Rob (remember, we’re going back in time before I actually started work). 

We decided that we’d spend a day being typical American tourists. After meeting at Hamamatsucho station in Central Tokyo, we made our way to Tokyo Tower. We really didn’t know which way to go, so we followed the white and red tip of the tower as it poked up from beyond the skyscrapers. The first turn we made was on the Tokyo World Trade Center (or something with an extremely similar name). We thought nothing of it until we noticed signs that advertised the observation deck at the top of the 60+ story building (I think that’s how big it was...). The tickets were fairly cheap for a tourist attraction (600 yen) so we thought we’d make a pit stop and enjoy the view. 

The 360* panoramic deck had breathtaking views. We were both able to point out random places that we had only read about in history books. Rob pointed out Zojouji Temple as a spot he wanted to visit. I very much obliged as its impression from both the books I’ve read and the sky was magnificent. After pointing out some random spots we wanted to go to and spending time catching up, we headed to the temple. 

Tokyo Bay!

Tokyo Tower and Zojouji from the sky!

On top of the world!!

Zojouji is a stop that you absolutely must go to if you ever go to Tokyo. It’s central to the corporate business and government sector of Tokyo and stands at the very base of Tokyo Tower.Tokyo Tower looked impressive from the base, but there is hands down no comparison to the beauty of Zojouji to Tokyo Tower. The past trumped the present in the case of comparing the two. I was blown away by both the size of the temple and the details in the architecture its decorative accents. 

The inside of the Temple was just as beautiful as the outside. I didn’t want to be rude to the people who were actually there to pray, so I didn’t take any pictures, but the center focus was a giant Buddha. It was a little smoky from people burning incense, but it was still an experience nonetheless. I had been to one other Buddhist temple in Singapore, so the whole process was still a little new to me. 

Zojouji and Tokyo Tower

Old Rafters of a Side Entrance Gate

A side Temple in the Complex

Side Buildings in the Complex

The Main Temple

After sitting for a few minutes in silence and admiring the Buddha we decided to walk around the huge grounds. We found cute little stone dolls that we assumed to be children with yarn hats and offerings in front of them. We couldn’t really figure out what they represented, but there were TONS of them. Rows upon rows that spread the length of the entire temple grounds. 

Once we saw everything at the temple, we wanted to try Tokyo Tower. However, on the walk over we decided that since the basic ticket to the top of the tower was slightly more expensive than we had planned, we decided to save it for a day when Tokyo wasn’t cloudy. Our main goal being that we could see Mount Fuji at a later date. 

So then I suggested that we try the Imperial Palace. Walking without any sense of direction as to where the palace was became slightly tiring so we stopped to grab some lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The quick pit stop gave us a bit more energy, but we found that we were still both exhausted from jet lag as soon as we left the restaurant. 

As we continued walking, I noticed a small patch of hydrangeas on the side of the road. My dad’s mother, Nona, used to grow them so it brought back really great memories of her home when I was little. Needless to say, I felt nostalgic and homesick. 

<3 <3 <3

Wandering led us to what we thought were the Imperial Gardens, but they were just regular gardens. And by regular, I mean one of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever been in. Japanese maintenance standards have made a regular park into what Americans would consider a national landmark. There was a huge pond in the center of the park with a traditional Japanese tea house on a dock in the middle of it. We figured resting our legs would be good so we paid 500 yen and participated in our own little solo tea ceremony. The waitress handed us instructions and let us choose where we wanted to practice. 

Beautifully Sculpted Tree

Traditional Japanese Bridge

We decided to order the (absolutely non-traditional) cold tea because it was so hot outside and お菓子 (おかし/okashi: traditional Japanese sweets). Rob knew everything down to how you were supposed to position your feet when you sit in the traditional pose called Seiza. I pretended like I knew what I was doing, but I really had no idea. The instructions couldn’t even really help me, the ceremony is quite complicated. 

We forgot to take a picture before we ate the okashi.

Tea House

Stunning view from atop a hill in the park.

After we finished our tea we noticed a group of older Japanese women who had just got their tea and were drinking it in the most beautiful way I had ever seen. It was really cool to be able to see locals participating in such an iconic part of their history. 

As we got up to put our shoes on at the tea house exit, one of the older women came up to me and offered me some bandaids for my blisters that I had accumulated over the past two days. “They look like they are excruciating.” she said and was so surprised when I thanked her and agreed in Japanese. Rob patiently waited holding all of my stuff while I sat there and gingerly put on the new bandaids. 

We decided that we were through with trying to find the Imperial Palace and decided to try and find our friend Minako in Shinjuku instead. Some background on Minako, she came to Arizona with some other students from Tokyo International University in the spring and we all quickly became friends. Her mother is Chinese and her father is Japanese, so she is bilingual and extremely pretty. 

When we finally found her at Shinjuku station she suggested that we see a little bit of Shinjuku before we went to an Izakaya. Fun fact: Shinjuku is known for its weird nightlife. “Love” hotels, nightclubs, “fun” saunas, etc. We stopped at an arcade and took some purikura photos. For those that don’t know, purikura are the Japanese photobooths that blow peoples eyes up to giant size and make everyone look doll-like, pastel-y, and, overall, a little creepy. 

When we got to the izakaya we were ravenous. We ordered a round of extremely girly cocktails (Rob’s being the girliest: Lychee and with mandarin orange vodka). After stuffing our faces, we decided to head home. Poor Minako had class all day and then had to trek around with lame foreigners. (有り難うみなこ！＾＿＾）

Bar snacks: East meets West

Minako!

In Shinjuku

When I finally got home I could barely move, my feet were throbbing and my shoulders hurt from carrying my heavy bag around. I immediately passed out. Overall though, it was a day full of unplanned, yet exciting surprises. :)

I’m really working on trying to catch up to where I am today. I’m hoping that this will become a daily journal type of thing. I know my family at least is interested in my daily life here. 

Harajuku Lovers

Just like the Gwen Stefani song, when I went to Harajuku, that s**t was bananas.
(Cheesy, but let me feel clever for a second please)

After flying all day the day before, the 12+ hour sleep that I had after a full meal of Chirashi that my host mother prepared was the best sleep I feel like I have ever had. Before I get to everything that happened my first full day in Japan, I'll introduce my host family a bit.


I live with a family of four in a beautiful three-story building near Shinagawa. My host father works for a Japanese trading company and my host mother is a stay at home mom. Before they had a family, they lived in Taiwan for about eight years. My host father is fluent in Chinese, so it's been nice practicing both Japanese and Chinese with him. Nao is the oldest daughter. At thirteen, she can already speak, read and understand English very well (she's currently watching the Scarlet Pimpernel next to me for her advanced English class). She attends a private school here in Tokyo and is out the door at 6 am every morning and doesn't get in until 6:30~7 every night. Rio is the 赤ちゃん（akachan: baby) of the family. She is five years old and is learning how to read the first two Japanese alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana). She is extremely  元気 (genki: lively, energetic) and 可愛い(kawaii: cute). As a family, they have done everything to make me feel welcome and at home. They have made my transition to living in Japan so much easier.

Mr. Osako and Rio

Rio, Nao and Mrs. Osako

So, once I established my home base, I was able to go explore! Let me tell you, the pictures and everything the American media tells you about Harajuku does NOTHING to do it justice. It is AMAZING. Fashion everywhere, huge sky scrapers, kawaii trinkets. My head almost exploded from the craziness of it all. No matter what direction you looked you could see people that blew the top off of what you would expect stereotypical Harajuku fashion to be. The best way to explain the style would be if you picked out the most outrageous pieces in your closet and made an outfit out of them that actually worked. It was like runway mixed with ready-to-wear flawlessly.

I felt like such a stalker gawking at all of the people that I didn't want to be more rude and take their picture, but rest assured that I was able to get some good ones of the area as a whole! :)

I wanted to save the pop culture part of Harajuku for after I did the historical things. My first stop in Harajuku was Meiji Jingu. Meiji Jingu is a shrine that is dedicated to the late emperor Meiji and his consort. The forest that surrounds the shrine is composed of trees that were flown into Tokyo from over all of Japan and abroad to commemorate the emperor's achievements. The shrine itself is huge with many buildings. It feels like you're lost in a forest on a deserted planet when, in reality, you're in central Tokyo. 

I was fortunate to see a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony while I was at the Shrine. There was a long procession of the bride and groom's families all wearing traditional kimono. It was absolutely stunning. The one thing that I would recommend to people traveling to Japan would be to go to the shrine on a weekday. Not that it was particularly crowded on a Sunday afternoon, but if it was completely deserted I feel that I would have experienced what the atmosphere was meant to feel like when it was built.

Main Entrance. Right outside Harajuku Station

Lantern in the Forest

Sake Drums

Close-Up of Sake Drum

A random Tori-i on the path through the forest to the Shrine.

"Cleansing Station" People wash their hands and mouths here before entering the Shrine.

Shrine Rafters

Wedding Procession

Bride, Groom, and (I'm assuming) the Bride's Mother. (out of focus, I'm sorry my camera picked up the guy in the pink)

The main gates to the Shrine

Side Entrance

Loner and the Shrine... My dad says no one is really interested in seeing pictures without people they know in them. This one's for you, daddy! :)

A Shrine employee on one of the sides. I followed her to a deserted part of the Shrine.

Another picture for daddy. The Shrine entrance is in the background! :)

So after tending to some newly-formed blisters after walking through Meiji Jingu, I made the long trek from past to present (and by long I mean across the train tracks). 

The first thing that crossed my path happened to be storm troopers. Not traditionally Japanese, but if any place was to have random storm troopers gathering at a crosswalk, it would certainly be Japan.

Only in Japan....

I spent the next few hours getting lost in the web of streets that compose Harajuku. I decided that I wanted to be surprised by Takeshita Dori (more on that later) at the very end. I walked the main street  with all of the big stores (Zara, Michael Kors, Uniqlo, etc) and was unimpressed. The side streets are where the life of Harajuku is! 

I weaved my way through side streets and found both cute and outrageous boutiques. As I window shopped, I was able to practice my Japanese with some of the store clerks standing outside flagging people down. I was in heaven. Without getting too cheesy, I felt as though everything I've put myself through these past four years was for this moment. For the first time, I've felt like I was living out my dream. 

One of the intersections. Taken from the top of Tokyu Plaza Mall.

Harajuku Station!

While I was trying to lose my way through the alleys and shops, I was caught off guard by a guy with a camera speaking extremely broken English. He asked me if he could take a few pictures of me for his fashion blog. I applauded his effort but reassured him that he could speak to me in Japanese. We both felt a lot more comfortable in breaking the language barrier. He asked me various questions while he was shooting like why I was in Japan, where I learned Japanese, what my favorite place in Harajuku was etc. I laughed so hard when he first asked me to take pictures for his fashion blog because Rio helped me pick out my outfit that day. She has great taste, I suppose. :)

 If anyone in interested (and didn't see my Facebook post already), here is the link to his fashion blog (WARNING: it's entirely in Japanese):   Tatsuya Seki

After I made my through the side streets I decided to tackle Takeshita Dori. Takeshita Dori is famous in Japan for the weekend fashion. People wear the most outrageous things and walk up and down the street (more like an alleyway by American standards) of shops. Gwen Stefani has popularized this road in America through her Harajuku Lovers stuff, but like I mentioned before, that does nothing to do Takeshita Dori justice. It was crazy packed when I went. It was hard to even walk through the street. There were the craziest shops. When you first walked under the main gate of of the street there's an AKB48 shop (for an immensely popular girl group here in Japan consisted of 64 members), next to a lingerie shop, next to a heavy emo-goth shop with screamo metal music pumping from it. It was an overload of craziness that worked despite having nothing in common. I was excited. 

The entrance to Takeshita Dori.

After Harajuku, I had a few hours to kill before I headed home. I decided to try and find the ever-so-small Shibuya Crossing. If you haven't sensed my sarcasm by now, you never will. Shibuya Crossing is notorious for being the busiest intersection in the world. I think it has a total of 12 or so crosswalks. I couldn't count because there were so many people there that you couldn't even really see the road!

Shibuya Crossing Pre-Green Light and no, I am not that much taller than Japanese people, I held my camera over my head....

 Needless to say, trying to navigate through that was exhausting. By the time I finally found my way through the crowd I was starving and my blisters had started to get blisters.

I stopped at a popular udon noodle chain called Hanamaru and ordered seaweed noodles to end my first full day in Japan.

First Udon in Japan! 

Next up, Zojouji and Tokyo Tower (kind of)!! :)