Ohayou Gozaimasu! (Good morning!)
Sam, Samantha, Tati, Shaeli and I are back in the states (Aug 9th). The Louie-Chen's stayed behind for a few more days...mainly to eat! Please continue to check the blog. I plan to post a few more from my computer at home. I can put captions and adjust the sizes of the photos better now. Thanks for following us on our journey! We sure had a blast.
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Thursday, we went on the famous Hato Bus Tour. Here's a brief description of our tour:
"Enjoy a spectacular 360-degree view encompassing the lively streets of
Tokyo and the beauty of Tokyo Bay, all from the Seaside Top, the
observatory 151 meters high atop the World Trade Center Building,
followed by a boat ride on the Sumida River, which flows north to south
in the heart of Tokyo, to Asakusa."
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View from above... |
We started our tour at the Tokyo World Trade Center Building. The view from the top was breathtaking and from there you can see how massive and densely populated Tokyo city is.
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| Tokyo Tower, looks like Eiffel Tower in Paris, only taller. |
Tokyo Tower is the second tallest structure in Tokyo. Built in 1958, the tower acts as a support structure for an antenna. Originally
intended for television broadcasting, radio antennas were installed in
1961, but the tower is now used to broadcast signals for Japanese media
outlets such as NHK, TBS and Fuji TV. Japan's planned digital television transition by July 2011 was problematic, however; Tokyo Tower's height (333 meters) was not high enough to adequately support complete terrestrial digital broadcasting to the area. A taller digital broadcasting tower, known as Tokyo Skytree, was completed on February 29, 2012.
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| There's a small chapel where a couple can get married like in the west. |
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| Ai was our awesome tour guide for the day. |
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| More stairs...going down to a mall type building with lots of restaurants. |
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| Child seat on the Hato Bus! Another cool invention! |
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| Asakusa Shrine and Shopping! This is a very popular tourist destination. This is the entrance/gateway (Kaminarimon) to a Buddhist temple (Sensoji Temple) in the back,. |
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| Rick crackers and red bean cakes are very popular in Japan. I see them everywhere. This particular shop has a machine right out front making these red bean pastries. It reminded me of a fortune cookie maker. After we passed by this shop, we ran into another shop that makes the same thing, but by hand. |
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| This guy is the real deal. He sits there all day and hand turns these little baking molds. It's probably over 100 degrees in that little room. I hope he gets paid the big bucks. |
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| Lots of rice cracker shops. |
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| Fresh mochi... I couldn't resist. I brought a green one to eat as I stroll along the market. I was followed by the lady from the shop. She tapped my shoulder and told me to come back. I had to stay in their booth to eat the mochi.. I guess it's their effort to keep the marketplace clean. |
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| Tati and the rickshaw drivers -- eeny, meeny, miny, and moe! Check out those tanned, toned legs. And those shoes....wow! If you're too tired to walk around this area, you can hire one of these guys to take you on a tour on his rickshaw for $80 for 30 minutes. |
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| Giant Rice Crackers...must be for the sumo wrestlers! Do you see the "no photo" graphic on the cookies. I got yelled at for taking photos. |
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| We saw many pretty ladies in beautiful kimonos. Some silk kimonos can cost up to $10,000. There were some sold in this market for about $25. Not very pretty or good quality. Sure was fun shopping here. |
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| Our tour ended with a river boat ride in the Sumida River. We didn't like this river boat tour. Scenery was nice and we passed under many bridges. That's about all. No tour guide, not well air conditioned, no nothing. Wouldn't want do it again. |
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