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Days 7/8/9 - Out and About
Taking a break from biking to observe the view from this harbour.
Biking Around
Now that both Marlena and I have functional bikes (took a bit of back and forth with World Unite!) we decided to bike to a park that Marlena had found nearby, the "Tatsuminomori Ryokudo Park". It's a fairly large park with a long row of Sakura trees, and various other things within (including a community garden!). A nice spot of nature tucked away in the city.
They aren't blooming now, but these are a bunch of cherry tree blossoms. The path is a bit over half a kilometer long with these trees. Going underneath them, it is SO loud because of all the cicadas!
Near the park was a harbour with a train bridge going over it (see picture at the start of the post). All along the bridge, there were tons of these birds there. Not sure exactly what they are.
In the park there were statues for each of the Japanese Zodiac Animals (close to the Chinese ones). We were born in the year of the bull, so we took a picture next to that one!
Supper
For supper, we ditched the bikes and walked around the neighbourhood to find a restaurant. We eventually decided on a "Yakiniku" restaurant, where you order marinated meats and grill them. However, I only found that out when I went in, I was otherwise surprised by it.
Luckily they did have an English menu, but we didn't know how the process worked. Through some Google Translate and the bit of English that a server knew, we were able to get our orders in though! We went with the servers recommendation, so that made things easier.
The meats are "short rib, rib, pork, and heart". In the center of the meat dish is some Kimchi, Radish, and Cucumber stuffed with Kimchi. Not pictured is a plate of veggies to grill as well (Carrot, 2 types of Squash, Onion, Green pepper).
To drink, Marlena had some "Calpis Water" and I had "Umeshu on the Rocks".
Tokyo Skytree
On Saturday, I was up and ready to go before Marlena, so we went our separate ways. I knew the Tokyo Skytree wasn't too far, so I decided to bike there. It's a transmission tower similar to the CN Tower, but it is nearly 100m taller.
Skytree is visible in the distance from our Share House.
Definitely tall when you are right next to it!
I did a quick walkthrough and saw that they have a neat museum about the Skytree, and the engineering that went into it. I only did a quick skim though, because I want to go through it in detail when Marlena is around.
I also kept walking around, and it turns out that the SkyTree is in the same complex as a huge mall (Tokyo Solamachi)! I did a walkthrough of the mall and it is absolutely huge, which I didn't expect. Their website says there are over 300 stores, and it definitely felt larger than the Eaton center. Although it is difficult to tell the size, because inside it is very windy and maze-like, not the straight lines and corners that we see in malls in Canada.
Since it was a Saturday, the mall was extremely busy. Next time I go to tour around properly, most likely it'll be on a weekday after class. My guess is it'll take 3-4 hours to properly go through everything as well as go up the Skytree. So expect more pictures for that in the coming weeks!
There was a Cafe that looked to be themed around "My Neighbor Totoro", a classic Studio Ghibli film.
Adachi Fireworks Festival
This is a huge fireworks festival in Tokyo, with around 15000 fireworks to be set off. Marlena and I found out about it from someone else at the Share House, so we all decided to go check it out. The show starts at 7:20pm and is one hour long. Google Maps said it would take about an hour for us to get there (40 mins subway, 20 min walking)
The train station was pretty packed with people coming from both train line directions. And the streets were also packed1
We slowly made our way towards where the fireworks would be, and eventually found a good spot only a few minutes into the fireworks! I didn't record the whole thing, but got a few highlights.
I've also stiched the good parts into a video, if you prefer that!
Matcha Cafe
On Sunday, it was a calm day. The only thing we really did was head to a nearby cafe to try and get some homework done. That's where I did all the video compiling for the Fireworks Festival that you see above.
It was a nice small place called "Sette" that had room for maybe 15 people. We will definitely going back in the future!
Marlena got an apple juice and some Matcha ice cream (left).
I got a Mocha Latte and some Matcha ice cream (right).
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