Japan 2009: Tokyo Day 2: Imperial Garden & Odaiba

Rainy Morning

It was raining this morning when we woke up, but we'd planned on spending the morning outdoors at the Imperial Garden, and meeting Ryan (yay)! We are hearty Seattleites (or ex-Seattleites!), so we held to our plan and emailed him to set up a meeting time and place before heading off to breakfast. It was a short ride to the Imperial grounds, and a very short walk to the meeting point - a bridge to the East Garden entrance (over the moat! I love moats). While we waited for Ryan for a few minutes, we watched what appeared to be some sort of amateur race for senior citizens. A long parade of elderly Japanese men and a few women trickled past the bridge, and I really enjoyed watching the differences in each person's style, speed, and composure. Some of those old guys were really moving! Ryan didn't show (curse his late night schedule) so we headed into the gardens and strolled around the grounds a bit. It was really pretty, especially the pond, and very relaxing too. It's amazing how quiet it was! No city noises.

The actual Imperial Palace is closed except for scheduled tours that I think are tough or expensive to get into, so we walked around the park grounds and enjoyed the views. The garden seemed mostly empty due to the rain, but that suited us well. The rain wasn't too heavy and we had umbrellas, so we stayed mostly dry. The garden smelled really fantastic in the rain, and the air was much clearer than the previous day. Without the sun beating down on us, we enjoyed the time outdoors! On the way back to the hotel to meet up with Ryan at the second rendezvous point, we stopped for bubble tea, which is pretty hard to find here. I had some super tasty Oolong bubble tea, and Mary and Steve had an amusing exchange with the shop clerk who seemed very concerned about her inability to make proper change for them - except she had! We're still a bit perplexed about the whole deal. Since it's generally discouraged to drink in public or bring beverages on the Tokyo subway, I smuggled my tea back to the hotel in my purse. Steve found it amusing that I was sipping tea through the straw sticking out of my purse like a snorkel out of water.

When we got back to the hotel, we found a Ryan waiting for us in the lobby! I popped up to the room to grab my emergency curry buns, and then we planned to split off for the afternoon. Steve and Mary headed off in search of a meaty meal of some sort, and while Ryan bemoaned his fate of being saddled with the vegetarian, we parted ways. After a bit of research we located the Shonen Jump store on Odaiba Island, so we headed out to track down the monorail. The monorail ride was really nice - we went past the Port of Tokyo, Tokyo Rainbow Bridge, and out into the harbor. 

Odaiba Island is a bit of an entertainment destination, like Coney Island or the New Jersey Boardwalk (only with fewer rides and more shopping...I only saw a Ferris Wheel). We grabbed some lunch at a Hawaiian burger place, and explored the mall a bit only to discover the Jump store is in fact only open during the summer (sorry Reid, no goodies!). I did find some capsule machines, and got a couple cute charms. We wandered around the deck a bit, enjoying the view and taking pictures with the fake Statue of Liberty, and exploring a bit. We decided to head back to the mainland to take in Shibuya Crossing on a Sunday afternoon, so we jumped back on the monorail to Shimbashi Station. We ran into a hitch at the station, however, when the fares weren't posted in English. Ryan had the brilliant idea of just getting a Suica card, so I haven't had to worry about buying a ticket each trip ever since!