Nov. 7 -- After so much traveling and sightseeing the day before, Andrew and I took the first half of the day to sleep in and relax a bit -- sometimes you just need a little breather break, no matter where in the world you are. After our rest, we rallied ourselves and headed down to Ueno Station in Toyko; the park by the station, Ueno Koen, had seemed like a fascinating place when we briefly passed through on the 2nd, and I wanted to explore it some more. Unfortunately, this time of year it gets dark early, so we didn't have much daylight left. We ended up taking advantage of the cheap entrance fee and late closing hours of Tokyo's National Museum of Nature and Science, where we visited exhibits on physics and space (go figure -- physics is way harder in Japanese!), animals of the planet, science and technology (which had A LOT of hands-on stuff -- AWESOME!!), and nature observation. Check out the stuff we saw!
This old train was part of the museum's outdoor collection:
Andrew and I compare hand temperature to see who's hotter (in Kelvins) in this hands-on exhibit. He won =)
The Japan Gallery ceiling, built in 1930:
The museum is known for this life-size statue of a blue whale! It's huge!!
This isn't technically part of the museum -- it's actually the Tokyo Culture Hall (home of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra), and it's also in Ueno Koen. In any case, the building all lit up was too pretty not to take a picture =)
Andrew and I compare hand temperature to see who's hotter (in Kelvins) in this hands-on exhibit. He won =)
The Japan Gallery ceiling, built in 1930:
The museum is known for this life-size statue of a blue whale! It's huge!!
This isn't technically part of the museum -- it's actually the Tokyo Culture Hall (home of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra), and it's also in Ueno Koen. In any case, the building all lit up was too pretty not to take a picture =)
After exploring the museum to our heart's content, we jetted off towards Akihabara, a *major* electronic shopping area in Japan where you can buy just about anything electronic. Our purpose for this visit was to get Andrew an electronic Japanese-English dictionary, which he lost on his way to Japan (on the plane, he thinks). We ended up walking around a bit (surprise!), check out what we saw =)
This was so funny to me -- a group of middle-aged Japanese men in suits, standing outside of an electronics store watching a video game.
This was so funny to me -- a group of middle-aged Japanese men in suits, standing outside of an electronics store watching a video game.
Nov. 8 -- Teni's last full day in Japan, a sad day indeed! Our evening commitment included teaching a dance class at Tokyo's swing venue, C-Jam Swing, so we spent the earlier part of the day packing bags and planning our lesson. We gave ourselves some time to explore our pre-dance destination, and set out. Our destination was a toss up between Ginza, the ritzy upscale shopping district of Tokyo, and Shibuya, a cool area with a very famous intersection (with gigantic screens on the buildings) and cute shops. In the end, we decided on Shibuya. We arrived at the station, found the exit, and...WOW!!
Shibuya crossing is said to have thousands cross...every time the pedestrian light turns green!
Of note, the famous statue of Hachiko, the dog who waited for his master's evening return at the station every day. When his master died, Hachiko continued to wait for his master at the station every evening until his own death, 10 years later. The statue was built as a tribute to the faithful dog, and it is now one of the most popular meeting places in Tokyo (sorry, not the best of pictures).
A wall of the Shibuya station -- I'm guessing this is also commemorative of Hachiko.
Our evening ended with a super-fun lesson and dance at C-Jam swing. The people were awesome, the dances were fun, and Andrew and I did a little dance and had a fun steal jam. Good times! Here's a picture of us with some C-Jammers =)
Shibuya crossing is said to have thousands cross...every time the pedestrian light turns green!
Of note, the famous statue of Hachiko, the dog who waited for his master's evening return at the station every day. When his master died, Hachiko continued to wait for his master at the station every evening until his own death, 10 years later. The statue was built as a tribute to the faithful dog, and it is now one of the most popular meeting places in Tokyo (sorry, not the best of pictures).
A wall of the Shibuya station -- I'm guessing this is also commemorative of Hachiko.
Our evening ended with a super-fun lesson and dance at C-Jam swing. The people were awesome, the dances were fun, and Andrew and I did a little dance and had a fun steal jam. Good times! Here's a picture of us with some C-Jammers =)
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